Operation Plunder

Operation Plunder
Part of the Western Allied invasion of Germany of World War II
Men of the U.S. 89th Infantry Division cross the Rhine River in assault boats under German fire.
Date 24 March 1945 Location North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany Result Allied victory
Belligerents
United Kingdom  Canada  United States	Germany
Commanders and leaders
Bernard Montgomery	Johannes Blaskowitz
Operation Varsity was the airborne component of Plunder

Beginning on the night of 23 March 1945, Operation Plunder was the crossing of the River Rhine at Rees, Wesel, and south of the Lippe River by the British Second Army, under Lieutenant General Sir Miles C. Dempsey (Operations Turnscrew, Widgeon, and Torchlight), and the United States Ninth Army (Operation Flashpoint), under Lieutenant General William H. Simpson. The U.S. XVIII Airborne Corps, consisting of the British 6th and U.S. 17th Airborne Divisions, conducted Operation Varsity, airborne landings on the east bank in support of Operation Plunder. All of these formations were part of the 21st Army Group under Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery. This was part of a coordinated set of Rhine crossings.

Background

Preparations (accumulation of supplies, road construction and the transport of 36 Royal Navy landing craft) were hidden by a massive smoke screen from 16 March. The operation commenced on the night of 23 March 1945. It included the Varsity parachute and glider landings near Wesel, and Operation Archway, by the Special Air Service. The landing areas were flooded, deserted farmland rising to woodland.

Battle

British Commandos in the outskirts of Wesel.

Four thousand Allied guns fired for four hours during the opening bombardment. British bombers contributed with attacks on Wesel during the day and night of 23 March 1945.

On the night of 23 March, companies E and C of the 17th Armored Engineer Battalion, part of the U.S. 2nd Armored Division, constructed treadway rafts to prepare the crossing of the Rhine River about five kilometers south of Wesel. Bridge construction started at 9:45am and by 4:00pm the first truck crossed the floating Pontoon bridge. Over 1,152 feet (351 m) of M2 treadway and 93 pneumatic floats were used in just six hours and fifteen minute construction project, record setting for the size of the bridge. It took twenty-five 2-and-a-half ton GMC CCKW trucks to transport the bridge parts to the construction site, part of the Red Ball Express.^[1][2]

Three Allied formations made the initial assault: the British XXX and XII Corps and the U.S. XVI Corps. The British 79th Armoured Division—under Major General Percy Hobart—had been at the front of the Normandy landings and provided invaluable help in subsequent operations with specially adapted armored vehicles (known as Hobart's Funnies). One "funny" was the "Buffalo" operated by the 4th Royal Tank Regiment, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Alan Jolly, an armed and armoured amphibious tracked personnel or cargo transporter able to cross soft and flooded ground. These were the transports for the spearhead infantry.

3-inch mortar of the 8th Battalion, Royal Scots, part of the 15th (Scottish) Division, under enemy fire during the Rhine crossing, 24 March 1945.

The first part of Plunder was initiated by the 51st (Highland) Infantry Division, led by the 7th Battalion, Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment) of 154th Brigade at 21:00 on 23 March, near Rees, followed by the 7th Battalion, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders (also of 154th Brigade). At 02:00 on 24 March, the 15th (Scottish) Infantry Division landed between Wesel and Rees. At first, there was no opposition, but later they ran into determined resistance from machine-gun nests. On the same day the 51st Division's commander, Major General Tom Rennie, was killed by mortar fire. The British 1st Commando Brigade entered Wesel.

The U.S. 30th Infantry Division landed south of Wesel. The local resistance had been broken by artillery and air bombardment. Subsequently, the U.S. 79th Infantry Division also landed. American casualties were minimal. German resistance to the Scottish landings continued with some effect, and there were armored counter-attacks. Landings continued, however, including tanks and other heavy equipment. US forces had a bridge across by the evening of 24 March.

Operation Varsity started at 10:00 on 24 March, to disrupt enemy communications. Despite heavy resistance to the airdrops and afterward, the airborne troops made progress and repelled counterattacks. The hard lessons of Operation Market Garden were applied. In the afternoon, the 15th (Scottish) Division linked up with both airborne divisions.

Fierce German resistance continued around Bienen, north of Rees, where the entire 9th Canadian Infantry Brigade was needed to relieve the Black Watch. The bridgehead was firmly established, however, and Allied advantages in numbers and equipment were applied. By 27 March, the bridgehead was 35 miles (56 km) wide and 20 miles (32 km) deep.

Aftermath

Impact on German forces and command

The city of Wesel lies in ruins after Allied bombardment. March 1945

The Allied operation was opposed by the German 1st Parachute Army, commanded by General Alfred Schlemm, a part of Army Group H. Although this formation was considered to be the most effective German force in the area, it was severely depleted from its previous action in the Reichswald (Battle of the Reichswald). Unable to withstand Allied pressure, the 1st Parachute Army withdrew northeast toward Hamburg and Bremen, leaving a gap between it and the German 15th Army in the Ruhr.

Joseph Goebbels was well aware of Plunder′s potential impact from the beginning. On 24 March, he began his diary entry with, "The situation in the West has entered an extraordinarily critical, ostensibly almost deadly, phase." He went on to note the crossing of the Rhine on a broad front, and foresaw Allied attempts to encircle the Ruhr industrial heartland.

On 27 March, command of the 1st Parachute Army was passed to General Günther Blumentritt, because Schlemm had been wounded. Blumentritt and his superior, Generaloberst ("Colonel General") Johannes Blaskowitz, both recognised that the situation was lost. The army′s front was incomplete, there were no reserves, weak artillery, no air support and few tanks. Communications were weak, indeed, one corps was never contacted. The reinforcements were so poor that the generals decided against using them, to avoid needless casualties.

Although Blumentritt had strict orders from Supreme Command to hold and fight, from 1 April, he managed a withdrawal with minimal casualties, eventually withdrawing beyond the Dortmund-Ems Canal to the Teutoburg Forest. Within a week of the start of Plunder, the Allies had taken 30,000 prisoners of war north of the Ruhr.

Churchill, Brooke and Montgomery on the German-held east bank of the Rhine. 25 March 1945

Winston Churchill

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was present at Field Marshal Montgomery′s headquarters near Venlo on the eve of Plunder (23 March). Subsequently, Churchill and Montgomery watched the Varsity air landings on 24 March.

The next day, 25 March, Churchill and Montgomery visited General Dwight D. Eisenhower′s headquarters. After lunch and a briefing, the party went to a sandbagged house overlooking the Rhine and a quiet, undefended stretch of the German-held riverbank. After Eisenhower′s departure, Churchill, Montgomery, and a party of U.S. commanders and armed guards commandeered a river launch and landed for 30 minutes in enemy territory, without challenge. They next visited the destroyed railway bridge at Wesel, departing when German artillery appeared to target them.

Military rivalries

The Plunder crossings in the third week of March were planned as the primary assault across the Rhine, but at the Malta Conference in early February 1945, it was decided to add another crossing to the south of the Ruhr. The additional crossing was intended to draw off any concentration of forces in opposition to Plunder.

On 7 March, US troops unexpectedly captured the Ludendorff Bridge across the Rhine during the Battle of Remagen. Within the next 10 days six divisions and 25,000 troops established a bridgehead on the eastern side of the Rhine.

On 22 March, General George S. Patton sent his Third Army across the Rhine, at Nierstein, to form another bridgehead. His superior, General Bradley, released news of this crossing to the press "at a time calculated to take some of the luster from the news of Montgomery′s crossing."^[3] Bradley later remembered that Patton had strongly urged the announcement saying "I want the world to know that Third Army made it before Monty starts across".^[4]

Film

• Crossing the Rhine, Episode 8 of The Lost Evidence, The History Channel, UK, 2004
• Heinz Bosch, Wilhelm Haas: Der Krieg am Niederrhein, Kreis Kleve, 1976 (German)

Notes

1. They Remember War
2. 2nd Armored WW2 facesbeyondthegraves.com
3. MacDonald, Charles B (1973), "Chapter XIII The Rhine Crossings in the South", The Last offensive, United States Army in World War II European Theater of Operations, Office of the Chief of Military History, Department of the Army, p. 273, retrieved 9 February 2011
4. Saunders, Tim (2006). Operation Plunder. Battleground Europe. Barnsley, UK: Pen & Sword. p. 15. ISBN 1-84415-221-9.

Bibliography

• Saunders, Tim (2006). Operation Plunder. Battleground Europe. Barnsley, UK: Pen & Sword. ISBN 1-84415-221-9.
• Shulman, Milton (1995). Defeat in the West. Chailey, UK: Masquerade. pp. 310–311. ISBN 1-872947-03-4.
• Churchill, Winston (1960). The Second World War. London: Cassell. pp. 301–305.
• Moore, William (1986). Decisive Battles. England: Windward. pp. 118–124. ISBN 0-7112-0453-5.
• Delaforce, Patrick (2015). Onslaught on Hitler’s Rhine: Operations Plunder and Varsity, March 1945. England: Fonthill Media Ltd. p. 240. ISBN 1781554412.