Operation Plunder: The British and Canadian Operations Page 4

  When studying the operation in January 1945, Second British Army expected to face up to 58,000 German troops, with 16,000 infantry occupying defensive positions on the river line, within the assault area. It was assumed that while the Germans stood and fought west of the Rhine, that they would be bound to be preparing defences to protect the northern flank of the vital Ruhr, which Allied intelligence believed would in due course be occupied by enemy forces withdrawing east of the river. There are no firm numbers but following the German losses during VERITABLE, there can have been fewer than 7,000 infantry of a lower quality than expected dug in on the banks of the Rhine in the crossing area.

  Flak was the one weapon system that the Germans had positioned along the Rhine in relative abundance, as they were expecting an airborne operation in support of an assault crossing. Deployed in and around Second Army’s PLUNDER battle area were 114 heavy and 712 light anti-aircraft guns. As we will see, the abundance of flak and its effect on the battle is an indication of what could have happened on a much larger scale, if Hitler had not decided to fight west of the Rhine.

  The accompanying map shows that even after the operation few elements of the enemy ground defence had been accurately located. This was because intelligence was limited to air photography, electronic intelligence and artillery sound ranging and without an active SOE network or a resistance organisation to pass on ground information, units in buildings and woods were difficult to identify. In addition, the ad hoc nature of the German defence made it difficult for intelligence officers to construct a meaningful picture of the German Order of Battle. A Royal Engineer post action report on the tactical deployment of the enemy they encountered reads:

  Enemy ground defences in the area of the proposed crossing were not highly developed. In the main they were directed towards the protection of likely crossing points, larger villages and towns, and there was no continuous defensive line along the river. Defences mainly consisted of field positions defended buildings, all with little wire and few mines. However, where possible the Germans had flooded areas sufficiently well to make them obstacles to armour or at least very difficult going. There was little depth in the German defences.

  However, fearing the worst, the Allies were forced to prepare plans for a deliberate assault crossing of the Rhine based on the fact that troops during an amphibious operation would be extremely vulnerable and that on balance the situation would favour the German defenders. In addition, they fully appreciated the German ability to mount effective counter-attacks with ad hoc forces and understood that it was a dangerous part of the German operational art. As with the Normandy D Day, the Allies would need to apply superior numbers, an integrated fire plan from the ground and from the air, special equipment and well-prepared troops were needed to ensure that the enemy were overcome with certainty. However, the prize was great; a firm bridgehead would provide a springboard for 21st Army Group’s drive into the heart of Germany.

  On 21 March, the Germans suffered another blow, when the redoubtable General Schlemm’s headquarters of First Fallschirmjäger Armie was located by Allied intelligence. In the resulting air strike, Schlemm was badly wounded. The general called forward to take his place was General Walter Blumentritt who had been von Rundstedt’s chief of staff and following his erstwhile commander’s final dismissal, was now available for re-employment.

  General Walter Blumentritt.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Planning and Preparation

  ′... one more great campaign, aggressively conducted on a broad front, that will give the death blow to Hitler’s Germany’

  General Eisenhower

  THOUGH OFTEN DISMISSED by the likes of Patton, as ‘... more of a politician than a general’, Eisenhower maintained a focus on his aim; the elimination of the Ruhr as ‘the heart of continued German war fighting’. As originally intended, he planned that the main Anglo American effort was to be in the north under the command of the master of the deliberate attack; Montgomery. With what he was confident would be an assured crossing north of the Ruhr, Eisenhower justifiably believed that further south, the other US Armies would be able to ‘bounce the Rhine’. The Supreme Commander was in effect playing to the strengths and qualities of his Army Group and Army commanders and the soldiers under their command.

  With the Allies having reached the Rhine, there was to be no single thrust across the great river but a series of attempts to cross the Rhine, on a broad front, before launching the final offensive from the resulting bridgeheads into the heart of Germany.

  Planning for the crossing and final campaign began well before the New Year but during January and into February, the winter weather applied a significant brake on Allied preparation and the conduct of preliminary operations to clear the Germans west of the Rhine.

  In Operation PLUNDER, with the Ninth US Army still under command of Montgomery’s 21st Army Group, a force of British, American and Canadians would carry out a deliberate assault crossing of the Rhine north of the Ruhr. Completing the envelopment of the Ruhr from the south would be First US Army who had already captured the bridge at Remagen and established a bridgehead.

  While General Crerar’s First Canadian Army was fighting the Battle of the Rhineland, Montgomery tasked General Dempsey’s uncommitted Second Army HQ to prepare a deliberate crossing of the river with overwhelming numbers and overwhelming resources. By early February a planning study of the tasks involved in an assault crossing of the Rhine had been produced by the Army staff. This study was subdivided into the four major parts: ‘The assumptions on which the subsequent corps study was to be based on, intelligence, problems relating to the crossing, engineer tasks and maintenance (logistic) problems’. With this ground work established, the task of conducting a corps study and developing the assault method was allocated to XII Corps who had been relieved of operational tasks and moved to an approximately similar piece of terrain on the River Maas south of Maastricht.

  General Harry Crerar talking to officers of the Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada.

  When XII Corps started work ‘no decision had then been taken as to whether the assault should be on a one or two corps front, but it was appreciated that if a second corps was required for the assault it could draw on XII Corps’ experiences and so formulate its plans more quickly’.

  Ground

  An essential prerequisite of any military planning process is to look at the topography. Considerable data was made available from a wide variety of sources, regarding the Rhine’s flood plain, the flood dykes, the approaches to the river banks, the average water level and sundry other detail necessary to prepare a plan. A short summary of this information is taken from the Second Army post operational report.

  The Emmerich-Wesel area lies east of the Rhine Plain, which is a five to ten miles wide, flat and rather featureless area. Water meadows extend on both sides of the river and the land closely resembles the Dutch Polder areas. To prevent flooding, there are two types of dykes:

  1. Summer dykes, which are low dykes constructed close to the river banks to retain any normal rise in water level.

  2. Winter dykes, which are considerably larger and built at a greater distance from the river bank. Their purpose is to retain the abnormal flooding which sometimes occurs in the Lower Rhine plains during the winter and early spring.

  During the winter 1944 – 1945 the water level of the river rose to abnormal heights. All the low-lying polders within the area enclosed by the winter dykes were flooded. In addition, large areas of low-lying ground outside the winter dykes were waterlogged owing to the exceptionally heavy rainfall.

  There are numerous branches of the Alter Rhine [old courses of the river] in the area and there is a double water obstacle between Emmerich and Rees. The one commanding feature in the area lies to the north west of Wesel and is on the west side of the Emmerich – Wesel railway. Here the ground rises to a height of about 150 ft, is rather heavily wooded, and the area is known as the Diersfordterwald.

  The ri
ver in this sector was on average 200 yards wide, with certain sectors being up to 300 yards. The current flowed at an average speed of three knots opposite Wesel. At its narrowest this stretch of the Rhine was twice the width of the point where Patton had successfully sneaked across on the night of 22/23 March 1945 and an altogether more challenging obstacle. While British and American engineers were able to examine the home bank and select entry points into the river, there was a degree of uncertainty about the state of the bank on the far side and its suitability for amphibious armour.

  The Germans’ view across the Rhine in the area of Rees. Their view was obscured by a dyke on the opposite bank, preventing them observing activity.

  An air reconnaissance photograph of the Rhine west of Rees, where one of the RE ferry sites was to be established once the infantry had secured the bridgehead.

  Resources

  As 21st Army Group was Eisenhower’s main effort, allocation of logistic resources, in contrast to the MARKET GARDEN campaign, was generous enough not only to be able to get across a heavily defended strategic barrier of the Rhine but to take the battle into the heart of Germany. Eisenhower, during the planning phase, envisaged that 21st Army Group would strike east ‘from the Lower Rhine north of the Ruhr and into the North German Plain’ because this route offered the most suitable terrain for mobile operations ... [and] ... the quickest means of denying the Germans the vital Ruhr industries’.

  Material and stores of all natures flowed into the newly opened Number 10 Army Road Head, which was sited in the wrecked country of the former Operation VERITABLE battle area. Second Army’s report explained:

  From the administrative point of view, the build up of the colossal tonnages of ammunition and engineer stores presented an even greater difficulty. The only access to the area between the rivers [Maas and Rhine] lay through First Canadian Army area and over the extremely poor road system about the Reichswald Forest. This system was already cracking under the strain of the constant stream of fighting and administrative units passing over it as First Canadian Army extended its operations south east.

  In addition, Goch was a road centre vital to Second Army. Around it a large part of the administrative layout revolved, it was about this very point that the Germans had decided to hold.

  A plan had been made to govern the priority of road development up to and forward of the R Maas ... based on the construction of [five] bridges from north to south as the Canadian advance progressed. This bridging task was given to Second Army.

  The reality of living in the battle-wrecked country was explained by Brigadier Essame: ‘at the end of the second week of March the weather suddenly changed to spring.’

  Leaving the 3rd and 52nd Lowland Divisions to hold the line of the Rhine the rest of the assault troops of 21st Army Group pulled back to the ground over which they fought in the mud and sleet of winter. There were mines and wire everywhere ... Not a single house had escaped utter ruin... dirty straw, broken ammunition boxes, empty tins, the garbage of two armies fouled the ground.

  Into this area troops poured, not only to establish the logistic infrastructure but for training as well. Massive traffic circuits and dumps were laid out. The scale of the preparations is hard to grasp; 30,000 tons of engineer material was piled for miles along the road north from Goch, with an additional tonnage pre-loaded on 940 vehicles. 60,000 tons of ammunition, were stacked along ten miles of the north south road just east of the Maas and 28,000 tons of combat supplies were dumped around the ruined town of Kevlaer, its rubble being used to create areas of hard standing. All of this work required huge manpower resources. All available Pioneer Corps companies were involved in establishing the supply dumps, while twelve battalions of US Engineers were loaned to 21st Army Group to build bridges and maintain the crumbling country roads, whose builders had not intended them for sustained heavy military traffic. Including those training for the assault crossing, there were about 60,000 engineers involved in PLUNDER in a wide variety of capacities. To these should be added Dutch and Belgian civilians working to repair the infrastructure in their own countries.

  The build up and preparation presented very real problems of camouflage and concealment that were considered by HQ Second Army to be ‘somewhat similar to those met in the UK before Operation Neptune’, except that German patrols were crossing the river looking for evidence of the dumping of bridging stores and other preparations on the home bank. Second Army reported that ‘The planners accepted that it was impossible to conceal from the enemy the fact that 21st Army Group intended to assault the Rhine north of the Ruhr, but great care was taken to ensure that the date and place of assault were not prejudiced’. This statement is at odds with the efforts made by the logistic planners and Royal Engineers’ camouflage companies to disguise the growing stacks of stores. Typically, they would be piled in linear dumps along roadsides not only for easy access but also so that to a recce aircraft, they would resemble hedgerows. Similarly dumps would be established in and around villages where they could be camouflaged as buildings. The historian of 94th Field Regiment RA recorded how ‘recce parties went forward individually towards the banks of the river to select their gun positions without attracting attention’ and how when they finally occupied these gun positions on 22 March:

  Most strict orders had been issued that the guns, tractors, ammunition and everything must be completely invisible when daylight came, and daylight did reveal a masterpiece of camouflage.

  Pioneers laying a log road in one of the forests that was to hide the thousands of men and vehicles that were to take part in Operation PLUNDER.

  LVT crews ‘camming-up’ in a wood prior to PLUNDER.

  This view was confirmed by an RAF recce sortie that was launched on D-1 to check for evidence that would lead German aircraft and photo interpreters to identify the location of the coming assault.

  21st Army Group Plan

  For Operation PLUNDER, 21st Army Group comprised three armies; Ninth US Army, Second British Army and First Canadian Army. The assaults by Second and Ninth Armies would be launched simultaneously.

  The task of Ninth United States Army was, to mount an assault crossing of the Rhine in the area of Rheinberg and to secure a bridgehead from the junction of the Ruhr and Rhine rivers to Bottrop and Dorsten. Thereafter, General Simpson was to be prepared to advance to a general line inclusive of Hamm and Munster. Ninth US Army’s tasks also included the protection of the right flank of Second British Army and the vital bridging sites at Wesel.

  Second British Army was to assault the Rhine in the area of Xanten and Rees and to establish a bridgehead between Rees and Wesel and subsequently advance on a three corps front north east towards the town of Rheine.

  Initially the task of First Canadian Army was to assist in broadening the frontage of Second Army’s assault by carrying out feint attacks along the Rhine on their left flank, while holding securely the line of the rivers Rhine and Maas from Emmerich westwards to the sea. The Canadians were, however, represented in the assault phase by 9th Canadian Infantry Brigade. Made up of Canadian highland battalions, such as the Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry Highlanders were attached to 51st Highland Division, as its fourth brigade. Later First Canadian Army was to be prepared to advance into eastern Holland and to protect the left flank of Second Army. The story of the Ninth US Army and 17th US Airborne Division is contained in the Battleground title US Rhine Crossing by Andrew Rawson.

  The Army Commander’s pennant from General Crerar’s Jeep.

  Air Operations

  With some difficulty the bomber barons were prevailed upon to coordinate their activities with those of the Army. The air forces would have rather continued to concentrate on the ‘Thunderclap Plan’, which was designed to deliver a sudden and catastrophic blow by bombing Berlin, Dresden, Chemnitz and Leipzig, with a view to bringing about Germany’s surrender. The support needed by the ground forces required the bomber commanders to carry out a comprehensive programme of interdiction sorties in
support of PLUNDER; the ‘Ruhr Plan’. Ninth Tactical Air Force planned to isolate the area north of the Ruhr and prevent the movement of German reserves to the battlefield. As the three railway lines in the area had already been heavily bombed, it would, therefore, concentrate on sixteen significant bridges giving access to the battle area. However, as a part of their attempt to bomb Germany into submission, the air forces tripled the tonnage of bombs the Armies requested, with the result that the final advance across northern Germany was often slowed by the results of earlier bomber sorties.

  Second British Army’s Plan

  After much study the plan that was eventually arrived at, called for an assault on a frontage of two corps (XII and XXX Corps), with a planned D Day being the night of 23 / 24 March 1945. In outline, the plan made by General Dempsey, commander Second Army, was to assault with two corps:

  RIGHT XII Corps, LEFT XXX Corps, each with one division up. VIII Corps was to hold securely the West bank of the R RHINE during the concentration period until the assault corps were ready to assume control of divisions holding the river line immediately before the assault.

  XVIII US Airborne Corps was to be dropped east of the R RHINE after the river assaults had taken place. The principles for its employment were that it should drop within range of artillery sited on the West bank of the R RHINE and that the link up with the ground forces should take place on D Day.