Battlefield: The Battle of the Rhine 1hr 55mins

[Panzer_M]

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p ... AD4324F859

This episode of Battlefield chronicles the Western Allies advance from: Paris to the Rhine River region, to the end of the war. This episode covers the: Operation Market/Garden, the battle Hürtgen Forest, the "Battle of the Bulge" and the advance into Germany.

The Allies final broke-through the German lines, in Normandy, on July 27, 1944. Rather than retreat Hitler launched a counter-attack at Avranches/Mortain (Operation Lüttich). This counter-attack was compromised by the code breakers at Bletchley Park. The attack was halted and enveloped by the US 3rd Army (Patton) and the Canadian 1st Army (Crerar). The German 7th Army was encircled, and after a determined defense surrendered. Nearly 100,000 German troops escaped, in yet another Allied communication failure. However, 50,000 German troops surrendered and approximately 10,000 were killed. Upwards of 730 armored vehicles were lost.

After the battle of the "Falaise/Argentan pocket" the German Army retreated to the borders of German. Paris was captured with little resistance. The Allies advance was slowed by supply shortages. Montgomery's 21st Army Group was tasked in clearing out the Scheldt Estuary. The advance completely ground to halt on September 4, 1944.

Plans for a crossing the Ruhr River were immediately drawn up. Operation Market/Garden was planned to commence on September 17th, 1944. Everything that could go wrong with a plan happened. The main ground force attack was tasked to 30th British Corps (Horrocks). Thirty Corps was required to reach the 1st British Airborne Division at Arnhem in 48 hours. The US 101st (Taylor), 82nd (Gavin) and 1st British Airborne Division's (Urquart) landed near their assigned bridges on September 17, 1944. Many of the Allied objectives were taken. However, the 9th (Harzer) and 10th (Harmel) Waffen SS Divisions were refitting in the area. After serious delays in: building Bailey Bridges, German counter-attacks along 30 Corps advance and taking of the major brige at Nijmegen, 30 Corps reached the southern side of Arnhem Bridge. It was decided that the Germans had reforced this area so significantly that Arnhem could not be taken. Operation Market /Garden had failed. The British 1st Airborne Division was nearly completely destroyed.

Hürtgen Forest battles became a nightmare for American units fighting in this area. The heavy deep forrest covered well prepared German defenses. Allied air power became close to worthless under these conditions. The American 1st Army (Hodges) suffered between 25,000 to 32,000 casualties.

The Ardennes offensive was as great a shock to the Allies as Pearl Harbor. A clearly defeated Germany had launched a massive offensive out-of-the-blue. The German 5th (Manteuffel), 6th "SS" (Dietrich) and the 7th (Brandenberger) had smashed into the Ardennes area of Luxenbourg-Belgium-France area on December 16th, 1944. The US 106th (Jones) Division was cut to ribbons almost immediately. The US 101st and 82nd Airborne Divisions were hurriedly rushed to the area. The famous stand of the 101st Airborne, with tank support, at Bastogne slowed the German advance. The poor weather lifted on December 24, 1944 and the German offensive ground to a halt.

After the crossing of the Rhine river, great pressure was placed on Gen. Eisenhower to push on to Berlin. Eisenhower judged that: since the Allies already agreed for the Soviet Union to take Berlin, the casualty estimates of 100,000 killed, and the fact that Berlin would become a 4-nation occupied zone after Germany's surrender, there was little reason to push for Berlin. Also on Eisenhower's mind was intelligence that several Waffen SS Divisons were in the process of forming a "National Redoubt" in the southern area of Germany. This proved to be nothing but German propaganda.