Introduction
17 September 1944, Allied forces looking for a means to win the war by the end of the year, launched the biggest air and ground offensive in the history of warfare.1 Allied commanders had to find a way to break through the Siegfried Line. The Siegfried Line was the western defensive line into Germany extending north from the border of Switzerland to the Ruhr area of Germany. Instead of trying to break through the line, they decided to move north through Holland.
21st Army Group included 1st Allied Airborne Army and 2nd British Army. 1st Allied Airborne Army consisting of 82nd Airborne Division, 101st Airborne Division, British 1st Airborne Division, and 1st Polish Independent Parachute Brigade would be responsible for Operation Market. Operation Market would be the airborne mission tasked with capturing and securing bridges in several locations along the main road to Arnhem. 2nd British Army consisting of VIII, XII, and XXX Corps would be responsible for Operation Garden. Operation Garden would be the ground mission tasked with fighting north along the road to Arnhem, which would come to be known as Hell’s Highway. Combined these two operations were known as Operation Market Garden.
History
Following the success of the Allied campaign in France, the battered and disorganized German forces withdrew through Holland. Allied commanders were desperate to take advantage of this disorganization before the Germans could regroup. Operation Comet was the initial plan set to launch on 2 September 1944. It was intended to capture and secure several bridges along the River Rhine to aid the Allied advance into Germany. However, due to bad weather and increasing concern of German resistance the operation wa...
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...n that could have possibly changed the outcome of the operation. However, as it turned out, the Dutch resistance had in fact been infiltrated and it is believed that Operation Market Garden had been reveled to the Germans.
In the end, Montgomery claimed that Market Garden was "90% successful" and said:
It was a bad mistake on my part – I underestimated the difficulties of opening up the approaches to Antwerp ... I reckoned the Canadian Army could do it while we were going for the Ruhr. I was wrong ... In my — prejudiced — view, if the operation had been properly backed from its inception, and given the aircraft, ground forces, and administrative resources necessary for the job, it would have succeeded in spite of my mistakes, or the adverse weather, or the presence of the 2nd SS Panzer Corps in the Arnhem area. I remain Market Garden's unrepentant advocate.6
At daybreak, August 19th, 1942, the Allies began their raid on the French coastal city of Dieppe occupied by Germany. The raid has extreme Canadian significance, as it pertains to 5000 Canadians involved in the campaign, 3,350 of which became casualties and 916 died on the bloodstained beach at Dieppe. The Dieppe raid is widely considered a failure on every level and has left a dreadful mark in Canadian military history because of how poorly it panned out. Operation Jubilee remains one of the most hotly debated Allied aspects of the war. Tactically, it was a complete failure as little to no objectives were attained. This essay will explain that Dieppe failed because of the tactical errors on the part of the Allies, in conjunction with the fact the entire operation was very poorly planned out. It will do so by discussing 4 major points: poor allied planning, how Dieppe was a difficult place to attack, that the assault was launched for political rather than military reasons and finally, how it failed to upgrade morale.
Germany knew that an allied invasion of France was imminent. For months, allied spies and intelligence sought to leverage the knowledge gained through the invasion of Sicily and against weaknesses in the German defense of France. General Eisenhower knew that an attack on the coast would not be sufficient to invade because Germany had reserve troops and escape routes. The 101st Airborne division’s task was to seize four causeway exits because it was expected that VII Corps would have difficulty moving inland. The 101st and the 82nd were to jump in 5 hours before the landings on Omaha and Utah beach. The Pathfinders mission was crafted thr...
During the fall of 1944, the “Atlantic Wall” had diminished after the invasion of Normandy and the American and allied forces were making their way towards Germany. One of the offensives directed to counteract this; Adolf Hitler focused in on and was attacking the inadequately defended Ardennes front. Had this plan succeeded, through the capture of Antwerp, the Germans would have divided the American and British forces in the area, depriving the American Soldiers and allies of a seaport for resupply.
In the summer of 1944, General George S. Patton and his 3rd Army successfully broke through heavy German Forces resistance from the Normandy invasion. German forces were in total disarray by the end of August 1944. Patton pleaded with his boss, General Omar Bradley, that if 3rd U.S. Army could be allocated as little as 400,000 gallons of fuel, he could be inside Germany in two days. Time was crucial before the inevitable reaction by the Germans to shore up their defense, preventing Patton from advancing. General Bradley refused Patton's request for more fuel; Unfortunately, General Patton advanced to Germany. Morale ran high throughout Patton’s Army, and there was no sign of heavy resistance before the German border. Consequently, by early September, the 3rd U.S Army had ground to a virtual halt along the flooded Moselle River. In places, Patton's tanks and vehicles ran out of fuel on the battlefield and their swift momentum outran their supply lines (Fugate, 1999). Lack of logistics allowed the German forces to take advantage of Patton’s Army and initiate one of the largest tank battles of World War II, the Battle of Arracourt.
The Hammelburg Raid (also known as Task Force Baum) has been one of the most controversial operations of World War II, and it cast a shadow over General George S. Patton’s otherwise illustrious career. While in command of the 3rd Army, Gen. Patton ordered the controversial and secret operation. The operation took place on March 26-28, 1945 with the official purpose of taking a small task force 60 miles behind enemy lines to liberate the prisoner of war camp OFLAG XIII-B near Hammelburg, Germany. But unofficially, its purpose was to free Patton's son-in-law, Lieutenant Colonel John Waters, who was taken prisoner at Kasserine Pass, Tunisia, in 1943. Initially, the operation was successful. They reached the camp and released the prisoners, but they were ambushed on the way back and taken prisoner. It resulted in nine dead, 32 wounded, and 16 missing in action. I will be discussing some of the principles of Mission Command and their effects on the outcome of the Task Force Baum.
To understand the Lorraine Campaign of 1944, one must look back a few months to June 1944. Here on June 6, 1944 the western Allies conducted the opposed landings of Operation Overlord in Normandy. From that time till late July, the Allies were unable...
The prelude to the Battle of the Bulge began on a winter day in mid-December of 1944. Three powerful German divisions, were the last German offensives in the west at that time during World War II. They began after the Normandy invasion in June 1944. Allied had forces swept rapidly through France but became stalled along the German border earlier that year in September. On December 16, 1944 taking advantage of the weather, which kept the Allied aircraft on the ground, the Germans launched a counteroffensive through the semi-mountainous and heavily-forested Ardennes region in Germany, and advanced 31 miles into Belgium and northern Luxembourg near the Meuse River. Their goal was to trap four allied armies, divide the Americans and the British to force negotiated peace along the western front, and retake the vital seaport of Antwerp in Belgium. Thinking the Ardennes was the least likely spot for a German offensive, American staff commander chose to keep the thin line, so that manpower might concentrate on offensives north and south of the Ardennes known as the "bulge" in the Allied lines. These American lines were thinly held by three divisions in the Allied Army and part of a forth division, while fifth division was making a local attack and the sixth division was in reserve. Division sectors were more than double the width of normal defensive fronts, therefore there were more men scattered along a larger area. The German advance was halted near the Meuse River in late December. Even though the German Offensive achieved total surprise, nowhere did the American troops give ground without a fight. Within three days, the determined American stand and the arrival of powerful reinforcements insured that the ambitious German goal was far beyond reach. In snow and sub-freezing temperatures the Germans fell short of their interim objective- to reach the rambling Meuse River on the edge of the Ardennes. But they managed to avoid being cut off by an Allied Pincer movement.
In the late May in 1918, the German forces put together four divisions and launched the Aisne offensive. The bombardment began at one in the morning on May 27th. The British and French front lines were torn apart by the current waves of German infantry and artillery. Both armies began to disintegrate before the might of the Germans, and were unable to halt the advancement of their awesome force. The Germans didn’t press further after the Marnes River, giving the French time to call in reinforcements and American assistance. When the American forces arrived, a French office asked Marine Colonel Wendell C. Neville if a tactical retreat would be in order, he replied with th...
The Germans power struck fear into the Allied countries, which drove Allied leaders to initiate the D-day invasion. Hitler was aware of the Invasion of Normandy, but he wasn’t sure when it was going to take place. Since he was confident in his military power and the Allied forces had dissipated across the Mediterranean, he disregarded the threat. But in November of 1943, Hitler could no longer ignore the invasion. He started taking defensive maneuvers by reinforcing the French beaches, placing mines, and barricading any entrance into France to protect his French territory. The German troops were also at an advantage because, “It [, Omaha,] was defended by the best German troops in the area, tough combat veterans who had recently been sent to Normandy for more training” (Bigelow et al. 267). This scared the Allied leaders because their troops were dropping like flies. During this time, the Russians h...
WWII Battle of the Bulge On December 16, 1944 in Germany the Nazi’s mounted a surprise attack against the Allies. It was the last offensive of the Nazi’s. Who was involved in the Battle of the Bulge? The war was Allied against the Axis powers.
The German attack began this attack on the Ardennes Forest by parachuting troops behind the American lines with intentio...
The largest airborne operation ever organized, Market-Garden cost the Allies between 15,130 and 17,200 killed, wounded, and captured. The bulk of these occurred in the British 1st Airborne Division which began the battle with 10,600 men and saw 1,485 killed and 6,414 captured. German losses numbered between 7,500 and 10,000. Having failed to capture the bridge over the Lower Rhine at Arnhem, the operation was deemed a failure as the subsequent offensive into Germany could not proceed. The failure of Market-Garden has been attributed to a multitude of factors ranging from intelligence failures, overly optimistic planning, poor weather, and the lack of tactical initiative on the part of commanders. Despite its failure, Montgomery remained an advocate of the plan calling it "90% successful."
From here the allies head for Italy but first, Sicily must be captured. The Allies execute Operation Mincemeat. This operation consisted of planting “top secret” documents of the allied war plans for Italy attached to a corpse left too wash up on a beach in Punta Umbria, Spain. The Germans fell for this and Sicily is easily taken with the help of Montgomery and General Patton. From here, the allies attack from Salerno and slowly but steadily conquer each line of defense until the Gustav Line is reached. From here, the allies try to travel through Anzio and into Cassino to break the Gustav Line. It ...
The 1944 Allied landing at Normandy met a strong, networked German defense that initially disrupted the timing of the invasion, slowed down the Allied advance, and inflicted extensive casualties. The German shore defenses were a result of extensive preparations that began when the German High Command appointed Field Marshal Rommel to defend the western European coast. Rommel believed the best strategy against an Allied inv...
The Schlieffen plan failed for many reasons. The trip though Belgium did not go as the Germans wanted. They got slowed down because the Belgian army put up a fight. This meant that the German troops were 10 days late.