VE Day: Operation VARSITY (Part 3)

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When we got to the Rhine, it was murder because Jerry knew we were coming.

Every farmhouse was occupied by Germans.

They put a lot of smoke down, so instead of coming down to 400 foot, which is the lowest height you can drop from, we had to go up to a thousand foot.

We were also travelling quite fast.

I was number 20, last man out, so you can imagine how far off target I were.

Miles out!

I and 10 others came down near a farmhouse which had an 88mm gun just outside it.

Just before my feet touched the ground, a bullet smashed through my left elbow so I lay on my stomach and pretended to be dead.

I saw nine of the others come down, some into trees.

The Germans shot them as they hung there.

It was a sickening sight.

I was in big trouble.

I'm left-handed and my left arm was useless, but when five Germans came towards me, I got hold of my sten gun in my right hand and as they get close, I fired.

and I reckon I killed them all.

Then I made for the farmhouse, hoping to get some help, but as I peered round a corner, I saw German rifles poking out of every window.

I tried to give myself some cover by throwing a smoke bomb, but just as I was making for the nearest ditch, a German SS officer came up and shot me in a bat from ten yards away with a Luger pistol.

Of course I spun round and fell down, and this officer grabbed my left arm and shoved it through the straps of my webbing.

Then he took off my water bottle, flung it in a ditch and looted whatever he could.

I was worried that he'd finished me off with my knife, but I had the presence of mind to lie on it, and when he'd gone, I got hold of it and threw it in the ditch.

And that was Sergeant Derek Gleister of the 7th Parachute Battalion, which of course is a Somerset Light Infantry.

Yeah, very, very strong, James.

And having a really, really shocking time at the start of Operation Varsity.

Yes, we'll get into Varsity in detail in this episode or to an extent because it is the lessons of Arnhem, after all, Varsity.

And I think we may touch on things.

We've talked about Market Garden a little bit on this podcast.

So we'll reflect on some of those aspects.

Yeah.

But welcome to We Have Ways of Making You Talk, Vic in Europe, episode three.

The Americans have got across the Rhine.

Plunder is nearly underway, is about to happen.

With it, the following morning, the accompanying airborne operation, Operation Varsity.

So there's all these moving parts, but this is the big set-piece Belt and Braces crossing of the Rhine by 21st Army Group, US 9th Army.

Yes.

We discussed the extreme preparations for it.

Yeah.

In the last episode, and we left it tantalizingly on a cliffhanger of would they be able to get across okay after all this preparation and the 250,000 tons of supplies and five and a half thousand artillery pieces and then it was our water pigeon operation widgin that was widgeon that was leading the way so well this is the 1600 troops of first commando brigade yeah and if you remember from the last episode we were saying that a direct assault on the town of viesel is seen as way too risky you know obviously where the settlements there's going to be stronger defenses so they attack a little way to the north and the idea is for them to then turn into the town and capture it following a subsequent raid by bombers to plaster the town so it's the 46 Royal Marine Commandos are the first off, and they head into Buffalo's at 9.59.

Not at 9.58 or 10 o'clock, but at 9.59 p.m.

And they're getting into the boats when, you know, a minute later, the immense barrage begins at 10 p.m.

That very much smells of a war diary going, we were in our boats by 10 o'clock by the time the barrage started.

Yeah, it really does.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's exactly what's happened.

And as we've discussed in the past, battalion war diaries aren't always

to be seen as 100%

spot on.

For the most part, they get across okay in their buffaloes, apart from a phosphorus grenade does go off in one of the buffaloes, which kills nine, but otherwise they get across fine.

I'm just imagine that.

Despite the strong current, and we were talking yesterday, it's going at seven feet, three inches a second.

They land on a muddy beach because Brigadier Mills Roberts guesses it won't be heavily defended.

And he's actually, it turns out he's completely right.

So they get across and they're kind of, you know, pushing in land.

Then the next up are the Sixth Army Commandos, not the Royal Marine Commandos, and they cross in stormboats, the dreaded stormboats with the 55 horsepower outboard.

Yeah, all that.

And one is so overlaid that it sinks almost immediately, but the others do manage to get across.

And then they're followed by the 45th Royal Marine Commandos.

Then eventually the barrage stops and 250 heavy bombers, Lancasters and Halifaxes and whatnot, come over and plaster Viesel.

And once they've passed, the commandos then circle around the sound of the town.

And the town is just.

It's been destroyed.

Yeah.

Oh my God.

Have you seen those aerial photographs of it?

Yeah, yeah, they're incredible.

Yeah.

I mean, it's just

a moon landscape of pot marks and the occasional bit of masonry still sort of standing, but otherwise gone.

So they're issued with lots of maps.

Of course, the maps don't work at all because there's no town left.

I mean, just absolutely hopeless.

Mills Roberts wrote, wrote, the streets were unrecognizable.

Many of the buildings were mounds of rubble.

Huge craters abounded, and into these flowed water mains and sewers, accompanied by escapes of flaming gas.

I mean, it conjures a picture of

total hell, doesn't it?

Yeah, it does.

And it also shows that if you can get the heavies to bomb the right place, they're incredibly effective, aren't they?

I mean, you can't do that.

By this stage of the war, yeah.

They can land it on the pickle barrel.

Yeah, exactly.

So, six commando go into the, I mean, this inferno.

German 180th Infantry Division are defending, and they do what they can, but it's not a lot.

Yeah, it's not a lot.

The commanders take control of the ruined vessel.

Yeah, well done.

Great rubber, everybody.

And they have 400 prisoners of war by dawn.

Sergeant Major Woodcock leads a charge onto a bunker that's the headquarters of 16th Flag Division.

And they find themselves actually being fired at by the commander, General Mayor Friedrich Deutsch.

He shot and killed.

I mean, it's absolutely amazing.

Yeah, and when they're going through afterwards, they're sort of ransacking the place.

They found a map of every single flag position, which is quite a useful bit of intel.

Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

What happens then is that with the airborne coming in, as we'll find, there's then a change in what the German guns are doing and also what British artillery is doing because you know that you can't fire your guns while gliders and stuff are coming in.

So there's a sort of pause, isn't there, in the fire orders.

And that's a bit sticky for the commandos.

Because after all, as we said in an earlier episode in the series, artillery is everything.

Once you get your guns across, once you get your guns online, from the Allied perspective, you're in charge of things.

Yes, completely.

Once the airdrops are out of the way, by 1:30, the artillery is back online and the commandos have got Wessel.

And basically, that's that

for that aspect of the crossing.

Yep.

So next up is the Highlanders.

That's 51st Highland Division, old friends of the show.

They go just to the north of the town of Rees.

Yeah.

So, yeah, I've been to that crossing point.

It is quite interesting.

Reese is just, yes, it's just sort of over there.

If you see what I mean, if you're looking across, it's just to the right on the kind of other side.

And there's this kind of big flat flood plain on the other side.

So there's the dikes.

Yes.

The flood dikes either side.

Yeah.

And then it's just completely flat either side of it.

So they are led by the first Gordons, who's commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Martin Lindsay.

And we all remember him because he was the guy who kind of supposedly spoke out about D-Day at a party, but didn't really, and was snitched by Terence Ottway.

Yes.

And Ottway then took over and commanded Nine Para for

attack on

but he was a much-loved commander, really, really competent.

And, you know, he doesn't lay, um, he doesn't sort of stick around kind of unused for long and ends up leading the first Gordons very successfully, too.

So I think it's rather nice that he's

leading the way on the charge over the River Rhine.

And they begin crossing at 11.15 p.m.

in Buffalo's, but with a follow-up in yet more of the dreaded storm boats.

Absolutely no one likes them.

Only a dozen of the 30 that were promised were serviceables.

So of course, that is kind of slightly incomprehensible after all this preparation.

It's one thing they can't get right.

And of course, this leads to delays because you can only take 10 people across at once and you've got these sappers in them.

Two sappers and eight men.

So if you've only got 12 instead of 30, that means that it takes way, way longer to get the men across, leading to delays of two hours.

And in the course of this operation, 50 sappers are killed.

God.

Getting them across.

I was shot or drowned or whatever.

But anyway, it's still a success.

Gordon and Sutherland Highlanders take 100 POWs.

With the fifth Black Watch, they take Reese.

A town also wrecked, just like Wasel, but is held by two battalions of Fauschemjäger.

I mean, when you say two battalions, that sort of suggests that you're getting on for 1800 troops or something.

You're not.

You know, it's a few hundred by this stage.

But also, when we say Fauschemjäger, we don't mean elite flinty parachutists of three years previously.

No, we certainly don't.

So this is where the Canadian Brigade also crosses, and they overrun a group of Volkssturm who have old 1913 rifles and who quickly Hender Hocker.

So a stretch of the shore is secured, but not the village of Spelldrop, which is just a little bit further inland.

And this is held held by men of the 8th Fauschenbieger Division.

Weren't they the lot at Lanzarup?

Yeah, I think so.

But you say that.

I mean, by name, they are.

You know,

their headquarters structure might be the same people.

These are badged divisions, aren't they?

Essentially.

Yeah, yeah.

People in Luffuffer uniforms, essentially.

And there's a big battle there between the Fauschenbieg and the First Black Watch of the Canadians.

And then tragedy strikes.

Yeah.

It's extraordinary, this.

Yeah.

Yeah, the Highlanders commanding officer, Major General Tom Rennie, goes ashore to have a look, check things out, and as he gets out of a jeep, a mortar round lands nearby and he's killed.

Yes, and the jeep driver's okay.

And he goes, are you all right, sir?

Because he's just sort of lying on the ground,

apparently completely uninjured.

Yeah.

And then he realises he's dead.

Blast.

Yes, that's awful.

So Major General Gordon Macmillan takes over.

And I think if anyone's going to, I mean, if anyone's going to replace anyone at the head of the Highlanders, you want someone called Gordon Macmillan.

Garden McMullen.

Yeah.

At Spelldrop, the fighting continues.

And the Fausci Mieger have been reinforced with 115 Panzer Grenadier Regiment.

And so so the Blackwatch Canadians are outnumbered, which I think is quite interesting.

When this operation is often described as this sort of massive, preponderant, overbalanced effort by the 21st Army Group, actually there are situations where this happens.

Yeah.

Well, it's the point of the triangle again.

It's the same old thing that we did when we were talking about Saw Beach and so on.

You know,

on paper, it looks massive organisation.

Yeah.

But the spearheads are often, you know, you're talking about hundreds of men and not tens of thousands.

Yeah, exactly.

And so the Highland Light Infantry is sent in to relieve them.

And artillery, again, the guns, allied artillery comes to the rescue.

Because spell drop is a challenge because it's flat.

So attacking it is difficult.

The terrain's flat.

It's 1200 yards inland for the banks of the river.

So there's no, it's basically no cover.

Yeah.

So that's the problem.

And there really isn't any cover there.

Yeah.

So what you get is six field regiments, two medium regiments, two heavy regiments, 7.2 inch batteries.

200 guns in all.

Creeping barrage, blam, blam, blam, blam, blam.

Each firing kind of, you know, 10, 15 rounds, you know, 10 rounds a minute soon adds up that's the end of spell drop yeah exactly um spell drops not much to look at these days it has to be said none of these places are are they they've all they you know they all got sort of rubbed out didn't they um and then um also the highland light infantry's anti-tank platoon come up um and they have a troop of wasp carriers which is the bren carrier flamethrower yeah i know can you believe it yeah

the footage of those is really actually terrifying yeah yeah completely because they're sort of racing forward about it if they're like driving into where the i mean it's like completely nuts.

Yeah.

And just imagine you're the 8th Fauschem Jäger regiment or whatever division.

Very, very understrength.

You've just been absolutely pummeled by round after round after round coming in and smashing obliterating the entire village.

And then flamethrowers come in.

Yeah.

I'd hand a hock.

But also driving one of those things, one bullet and you go up with the propellant.

I mean, they're not well-armoured.

anyway, carriers.

If you're driving around basically with an enormous tank of pressurized nap.

Yeah, they can make a few more crocodiles, but anyway, they can't.

Yeah, they they can't.

So this works, and the enemy defense is cracked.

And then we're back to 15th Scottish, aren't we, Jim?

They've crossed from two o'clock in the morning, and the Buffaloes are a better bet than the stormboats.

There are engine failures and men paddling, but if you're in a buffalo, you're doing better than the lads in the stormboats who are having engine failures and having to paddle with their rifle butts.

And on the far side, 6KOSB attack the village of Bischlich, which is defended by 1062 Grenadier Regiment.

And while this fight is going on, the sappers stick up pontoon bridges to get armour across.

And as soon as the first one's complete, 44th Royal Tank Regiment are across.

Speed of all this is remarkable, isn't it?

By dusk of the 24th of March, 15th Scottish 44th Brigade captured 1,000 POWs for less than 100 casualties.

And 2nd Brigade of the 227th, they face female snipers amongst the opposition, which I think is quite interesting.

He's got very much last roll of the dice Germany stuff.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And they eventually clear the village of Overkamp.

That's the British crossing effort as part of...

of the...

And then you got the Americans.

Yeah.

And that's the Rhoinberg area.

Yeah.

9th Army is Operation Flashpoint.

That's right.

I mean, the opening barrage is 2,070 guns, 40,000 gunners at work, directed at Valsam on the opposite bank.

I mean, you know, they fire 65,261 shells and a supported by 50.

Just, I mean, I'm laughing about it, but I mean, it's just, it's so, it's such a huge amount.

I mean,

why would you continue to fight against that?

I I mean, but there's no point, is it?

And 1500 bombers as well.

Icon Simpson watch this.

And three regiments of 30th Div get across, attacking Budrick and then Wallock.

The 117th Infantry attack Vollock and then 120th go to Rheinberg.

And basically, Lieutenant Whitney O'Reffin, who's a who's taking part in this, there's no real fight to it.

The artillery have done the job for us.

Basically, the gunnery has been so successful in basically suppressing the Germans.

Suppressing.

Is this the kind of apogee of the steel-not-flesh policy, do you think?

I think it probably is.

Because there's minimum casualties, isn't it?

Yeah, although, as we'll see,

the airborne component, which comes from that idea that you can shortcut battle somehow using technology, there's a great deal of flesh expended in that effort.

German POWs, they repeatedly tell their captors they'd never experienced anything like that artillery barrage in their lives.

And 79th Division followed the 30th over, and 79th going at three o'clock in the morning, by dawn, both divisions divisions had suffered only 31 casualties getting over the Rhine together between them.

Crossing the mighty River Rhine.

I mean, from my point of view, that doesn't say all that preparation was necessary.

That says preparation job done.

Yeah.

Worked perfectly.

I mean, it's like your example of Tuka's battle in Tunisia, isn't it?

Yeah.

Operation Strike.

Yeah, we planned it all immaculately and it comes off perfectly.

So everyone's either forgotten about it or goes, well, whatever.

And by nightfall, they have a bridgehead that's three miles wide, three miles deep.

That's pretty good.

That's decent.

Yeah.

Plunder is going well.

But the airborne component is varsity.

So we started with Sergeant Derek Gleister, Parachute Talion.

Derek Gleister.

His exploits.

And obviously, what we have here is 6th Airborne Division and 17th U.S.

Airborne Division.

The first thing to remember is that this is lessons of Arnhem.

And if there are two lessons of Arnhem, they are, everyone says this immediately after Arnhem, you can only use one lift.

If you divide your effort, you're wasting your time and your people.

So

there is only one lift, right?

But it's still 16,000 men, isn't there?

I know.

There's a third division penciled for this and they're sacked off.

So it's British 6th, US 17th.

And the other great lesson of honour, as we all know, is don't land too far from your objectives.

So basically, your glider landing in particular, it has to be, do two things.

It has to be a mass landing so you can land in companies as a brigade.

But it also needs to be tactical landings to take bridges and key points.

And it's really in the glider landings where the where the rub comes.

And I think, interestingly, they're kind of back to what they were doing on D-Day, which is the idea that you assist the river crossing or the shore landing, you know, by taking things ahead of the river crossing.

You know, it's airborne re-rolling over and over again is the story since D-Day.

And they're now under Major General, six airborne are now under the command of Major General Eric Bowles.

Yes.

Is he good?

Well, he's not an airborne man, so it's the same principle as Burkhart.

He's not an airborne man.

He's been brought in by Monty, but he's very much under Windy Gale's eye.

Gale has made sure that six airborne bumped upstairs.

Yes, exactly.

And in the meantime, six airborne are sent into the bulge battle, you know, fed in, and there's some very stiff fighting around Bure in particular.

But he's been rehearsing.

The thing he's been making sure they rehearse is close air support.

Yes.

Because there's your other lesson of Arnhem, as people will tell you.

There's no close air support.

And obviously there are complications as to why there isn't any.

But this is different because they're not 90 miles from the airfields.

No, they're hopping and skip away, aren't they?

Exactly.

And they've run a big exercise in, I think in Marlow or somewhere like that, where they do a river crossing exercise to practice the close air support aspect and the radio aspect in December.

So they're rehearsing for this.

And it means they're plugged into the close air support and 21st Army Group's guns.

And we've talked to you about how effective the gunnery is.

The critical thing for sixth airborne is there aren't any glider pilots.

They're all in the basically...

They've all been

put in a bag.

The vast majority of the glider pilot regiment is in the bag.

And so George Chatterton, who's the commander-in-chief of the glider pilot regiment, he goes to the RAF and he's an ex-fighter pilot.

He was a a fighter pilot in the 1930s and has that thing where he has an accident in the late 30s and loses his nerve, can't fly.

And then he joins the guards and he fights at Dunkirk and in the BEF.

So he's this peculiar REF guardsman hybrid.

So he goes to the RAF and says, I need 1,500 pilots and I need them now.

And the REF give him...

all these trained pilots because the war's ending and he gets this huge slab of people who are then repurposed as glider pilots.

You can't imagine them pleased about that.

No.

Yeah.

I met one at the museum in Gloucester ages ago.

Was he pissed off?

Yeah.

Didn't know it was in his glider, wasn't interested.

Couldn't have cared less.

So the tasks are 18th U.S.

Airborne, so Airborne Corps, which comprises six airborne and 17th airborne divisions, they're to seize the Diesfotterwald, which is the wooded region which overlooks the crossing diesel.

Dies Fortevald.

The Diesfotterwald.

So they're seizing high ground.

The idea is to grab the artillery and overpower the artillery.

And observers, presumably.

Observers and all that, right?

And also bridges and exits.

Yep.

So 6th Airborne comprises the three brigades and their tasks are, and I'll just rattle through this.

3rd Parachute Brigade, which is 8th Night, the 1st Canadian, they're to land first on DZA by the village of Bergen on the northwest edge of the Diesfottewalt, which is two miles from everyone else.

The rest of the division, cut the roads, secure the news.

That feels manageable, doesn't it?

It does.

Especially as the landings are already, the river crossings are already underway.

22nd Independent Company, they have to mark the dzs yep though eight power actually have their own pathfinder element who drop from sort of 300 feet it's completely ridiculous fifth parachute brigade which is 7 12 and 13 they're next on dzb northwest of the main divisional position they've got seize road junctions standby for counter-attacks and seventh parachute battalion are landing as going straight into be the brigade reserve and they've got anti-tank troops and a field ambulance coming and then third and this is to be honest it's the glider component that's the most interesting in all this.

6th Air Landing Brigade, which is 2nd Ox of Bucks, which is

also known in all the accounts as the 52nd Regiment afoot.

You know, they're known in army history as the people who deliver the coup de grace of Waterloo.

So everyone calls them the 52nd.

12th Devons, 1st Royal Arlster Regiment.

And they're going to land in a market garden style.

So a great big mass glider landing so that you've got everyone there and all their kit.

And they're going to do coup de man on the individual targets is the idea.

Chatterton has come up with this sort of twin-headed approach.

And this is a good idea, do you think?

Well, we're going to find out, Jim.

Because after all, one of the reasons you choose the drop zones at Arnhem that you do, or the landing zones at Arnhem that you do, is so your gliders can land safely, not near Flak, and everyone can form up in good style and move off in good order, right?

What we're not doing, we're landing on the guns here.

Six airborne are landing on the guns.

So the Oxenbucks have got to seize the bridges at Hammond Keln, which is a village just over the river.

RUR are landing to the south for more bridges, and then the Devons are landing last to seal the exits.

And they've got anti-tank troops, Sappers, Field Ambulance.

The sixth airborne Recce Squadron that has locust tanks and heavy waters.

They've got big waters.

Anyway, divisional troops, they're in the tail.

They can't be lifted in.

So they're all wearing their red berries inside out on the other side of the river until the planes fly over, at which point they're ordered to turn their berries back round to red berries.

And the critical thing is these landings are happening after the.

Yes, they're 10 o'clock the following day, aren't they?

27th of March.

So you're already, they're already, you know, the commandos are already ashore.

15th Scottish are already afforded.

This is the point.

3rd Parachute Brigade, they land.

But what's interesting is the Germans, as we heard in an earlier episode, had expected an airlanding, an airborne landing before the Rhine, before a Rhine crossing, not after it.

So once the actual crossing commences, the men who've been waiting on the DZs are moved to the river.

They're kind of off their alert.

Yeah, well, they moved up to the river to try and counter the landings.

Okay, so that does work.

So that works.

So three para brigade lander, they do all right.

They arrive nine minutes early, which also means the German flat gunners are still reeling from the 21st Army Artillery bombardment.

Well, I don't blame them for that.

So, how does it all go then?

Well, they do all right.

But what it comes down to, eight para, then they land at 9.51.

It's not too much resistance to start with.

They dig in, then their battalion gliders arrive at 11am and one of them crashes into the battalion positions.

Lieutenant Colonel Hewartson emerges from the wreckage with the pilot stared at his intelligence officer two sergeants kills shouting, how now you whoring bastard shite

because he's not happy at the glider landing on his headquarters.

The resistance stiffens during the day, but they repulse it.

Now, the Canadians, they land on gun positions and their lieutenant colonel nicolin is lands in a tree and is above a machine gun position is is killed there and then all of c company's officers disappear during the day the so the sergeants have to take over they take their objectives to hang on similar story with a company yep there's corporal topham who and everyone witnesses this in the canadian battalion everyone knows about this he sees two medical orderlies killed so he goes out to help a wounded man he's shot through the face the bullet pings off his cheek and comes out through his nose he's blood pouring from his face continues to help the wounded man carries this into safety, gets patched up.

On his way back to his unit, he finds a burning carrier, rescues the men from the carrier, and as he walks away, the carrier explodes.

And so he...

Holy hell.

Yeah, he's awarded a VC.

And this is a guy who should be shot through the face.

Yeah, he can't be.

You can't argue that, can you?

No, no, no.

Then 9 para, they land at 10.03.

And they are.

He's always still in charge of them at this point.

No, I don't think he is.

I think it's someone else.

Anyway, they sit tight.

Then the brigade sits tight.

15th Scotch come to relieve them at the end of the day.

5th Para Brigade, they jump.

And the bombardment and the smokescreen pumped over the Rhine means that they can't work out where they are jumping from.

And in that account, in Derek Glace's account.

Even though they're in the middle of the day.

Yeah, yeah.

So the big idea is you land by daylight to make it all easier.

But actually, if there's a great...

Because you can't say Deadly Squad if it's covered in smoke.

Exactly.

So 13 Para, they're shelled on arrival.

Their DZ's open ground, so there's no cover.

But they push on.

They take their road junction to Hamelkeln.

They dig in.

They deal with counter-attacks.

12 para land in the wrong place.

And so the 2IC leads them back across the drop zone to where they ought to be.

No cover, shelling casualties.

And then again, 7 power experienced something similar.

But it's the gliders that I think is the...

Right.

Second Oxenbucks take 400 casualties coming into land.

Wow, that's a lot.

And you see, and because of the smoke, you can't do the tactical landings, the coup demand landings that they're trying to execute.

That's a lot, isn't it?

Christy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

There's a 591 Parasquadron RE who are, they're a sapper element, but they have guys in gliders going with the ox and bucks, going with the 50 seconds, they call it.

And, you know, they're dispersed amongst gliders.

Yep.

And the diary is, I know we sort of dissed the diaries earlier, but this diary is like a bald resume of how dangerous glider landing is at this point.

So it's parties of five spread across the gliders, identical composition.

So it's droops, trailers, mine clearance doors, sapper, blah, blah, including paint and brushes, right?

Glider one, which is Captain Harbourd and Lance Sergeant Adams and two sappers.

It's believed this glider landed safely at the point shown in the overlay, but then was shot up by an 88 at 100 yards range.

Lance Sergeant Adams, the only survivor, and he's evacuated on D plus one because he's got a battle shock.

Glider two, this glider lands at the spot shown on the overlay.

Everything's recovered intact, no casualties.

Glider three, the wreckage of this glider was found at the spot.

No survivors.

Believe the glider was hit in the air.

Glider four, no trace has yet been found of this glider, the occupants.

Glider five, land at the correct spot, details to follow.

Glider six, crashed down at the spot shown on all escaped uninjured from glider, but several shells landed close by.

God, it's a luck of a devil, isn't it?

Yeah, so it's two out of six of these gliders do okay.

Of the 440 gliders allocated, right, 402 reach the landing zones, which is a loss rate that's regarded of 8%, which is regarded as acceptable.

But only 88 gliders land without damage.

This is a bad and bloody business, right?

Yes, isn't it?

It's the end of, it's going to have to be the end of glider-borne ops.

this yes the lesson of arnum is you land on your targets but this is the risk first airborne we're trying to avoid in September.

This kind of disaster for the air landing crews.

So is your take that Vasti is necessary?

Well, I think it probably is, but this is what it costs.

How do the 17th Airborne get on?

Well, they don't have anything like the trouble, but they have scattered drops.

And in fact, some of 17th Airborne end up fighting alongside six airborne because they're all in the wrong place and helping out.

But the crossing they're supporting has gone better.

So they don't have anything like this kind of...

So they're behind Dan at Rheinberg.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

They're quite separate from this.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Although, as I say, you know, there's a...

In the confusion.

The other big problem is that they're using the Skytrain, the next plane along from the Dakota, which doesn't have sea-level fuel tanks.

So when they're hit by a flak, those planes go down in flames.

So that's the problem 17th Airborne are having to deal with.

But basically, you can't land glider on troops in broad daylight where there's flak.

Because they are literally gliding in, which by its very nature suggests they're not coming in particularly fast.

Yeah.

And, you know, they're quite a big thing and they're absolutely easy as pine shoot down.

Exactly.

And once they've landed, they're easy to shoot up.

And so in a strange way, the parachute landings where the blokes might be scattered and then gather up and all that, that's safer for the lads than it is for all arriving in a great big juicy glider that an 88 can destroy.

And between the two airborne divisions, it's 2,700 casualties.

The sort of problem here is that the idea of a glider is you land a bunch of men all together in one place and kit and they lose up.

They lose half their jeeps.

And the big idea of the horser glider is you can bring in jeeps and anti-tank guns.

But if you lose

half of of them are lost.

It's sort of pointless, isn't it?

It's pointless.

And obviously, no one's invented the helicopter yet.

No.

Quite, which is what's going to replace all this.

I think it, whatever the advantages of the gliders are, they're basically completely ruled out by trying to land in daylight on flat targets.

And in a way, it completely justifies the worries that drive the decision-making around Market Garden.

Yeah.

You know, it's a bad, bloody business.

Anyway, you don't want to be in a glider.

No, I don't.

I mean, you look, you know, you read enough of it.

But the whole idea of it just, you know, crash landing in the first place isn't exactly appealing, is it?

No, no.

You have enough accounts where people say every time I got in one, I thought I was going to die.

Yeah.

Well, one would.

One would.

Anyway, join us after the break where we try and cheer you up with 7th Army crossing the Rhine.

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Welcome back to We Have Ways and Make You Talk.

So that's plunder and varsity.

Now, Jim.

Phew, I mean, that just felt like a big hurdle to get over, but we've done it.

Like the Rhine itself.

400 yards.

Right, so 7th Army, Jim.

Yes.

So 7th Army's crossings are led by 15 Corps, which is under Major General Wade H.

Hayslip, who's a former classmate and pal of Eisenhower.

And actually, it's Hayslip who has introduced his wife, Mamie.

Yeah, back in 1915.

A little dash of romance there, you know.

A little bit, a little bit, a little bit.

But 15 Corps launches its crossing across over the Rhine on Palm Sunday, which is the 25th of March.

Crosses with the 45th Thunderbirds and the 3rd Rock of Man Division.

So these are the two that have been, you know, they've been landed in North Africa in November 1942.

Sicily, Italy, Anzio, you know, they've been there, done it.

Operation Dragoon on the 15th of August in southern France, all the way up, and then into the southern Reich.

Anyway, there's estimated to be remnants of 22 German divisions on the other side, although what that actually means is not quite clear.

It certainly doesn't mean 22 divisions of 1940 standard.

It means the headquarters of 22 German divisions, essentially, doesn't it?

In fact, the main defenses really are Hitler Youth and New Volksdurm units, which is the and Volksdurm, as we were saying the other day.

These are the home guards where, you know, these are people of 16 to 60, and they usually are 16 and 60 rather than much in between.

And they're and crude mug bunkers there, sort of made out of slave, you know, made by slave labor and defended by Inverted Commas fortress battalions created by Gudera in the previous autumn, you know, all along the western borders.

But these are, you know, all this sort of talk of festuns and fortresses and, you know, all the rest of it.

They're good sounding words, but the reality is coming a long way short, is the truth of it.

And, you know, these are these are defenders who are equipped with almost no heavy weapons at all.

So it is machine guns, it's rifles, it's Panzerfaus, it's people on bicycles, if any transport at all, but otherwise on foot.

It's all a bit hopeless.

You know, ragtaggle uniforms.

Yeah.

You know, and that's about it.

So to deal with this ragtag bunch of wafes and strays, 3rd Division do a 38-minute barrage of more than 10,000 shells.

I mean,

yeah.

So they get across without any problem whatsoever.

Have a bit of a fight to secure their bridgehead, but not much.

45th of the Thunderbirds actually make a silent crossing without a barrage for once.

You know, they start in their plywood stormboats.

Yep, at 2.30am on the 25th of March.

I wish this is sort of of slightly odd because, you know, if you're doing it in a stormbone, you're doing a silent attack.

The Germans are...

Vasistat.

You know,

it's a very big mosquito.

I mean, you know, it's, it's...

I'm not sure that I'd want to do a silent attack.

No.

You know, I'd just want to smother them with artillery, stun the bastards into submission, and then get across would be my approach.

But anyway, be that as it may.

But the first wave gets across okay.

But the sound of engines inevitably cuts through the night.

And the second wave comes in under fire and they lose half their craft.

Whoa.

Well, yeah.

Both the divisions are allotted 14 DD Shermans.

You know, these are the duplex drive ones, like swimming tanks with the canvas around first used on D-Day.

Bridging is in place by the second day, 26th of March, which allows half-tracks with 50-caliber quads.

And these just absolutely create havoc.

I mean,

if you're going to attack under-trained, terrified 16-year-olds and 50-somethings, badly equipped, going across the 50 caliber quads is exactly what you want.

So these are half tracks with four.50 caliber mounted in fours on the back of this half-track.

And they are just absolutely horrific to be on the receiving end of.

They're utter beasts.

Yeah.

And by the end of the day, end of the day on 26th of March, so it's the second day, so it's launched on the evening of

the 25th.

Eight battalions of artillery, two anti-tank battalions, and two tank-destroyer battalions across.

So again, a substantial amount of firepower.

and in the center near worms um the 1 000 foot alexander patch bridge which is a heavy pontoon bridge has been built successfully incredible so within five days so by the 30th of march hayslip's entire 15th corps of six entire divisions is across and on the way to the river main which is sort of the next stretch beyond incredible yeah it really is i mean you know this is one that is just textbook and i suppose you know the other the earlier crossings have already kind of sort of paved the way which means that the fence on the eastern side of the rhine is already starting to crumble you know yeah the entire length of it this just justifies ike's strategy right is you cross in lots of different places kind of simultaneously yes which is why ninth army shouldn't have gone to erdigan

you know just to stress the point what tends to happen in the telling of the rhine's crossings is there's lots and lots about pattern there's lots and lots about remaggen yeah and and there's a fair amount about plunder and usually it's about how the americans gloated for getting there first.

So what?

Well done.

It's not a race.

Might be to Patton but it's not to anybody else.

But the 7th Army and French Army, First Army crossings just get completely ignored, as does Sixth Army group generally.

It's not part of the narrative, is it?

No, it's not.

No.

So we're going to be different.

I mean, you're absolutely right.

This doesn't feature at all.

You know, the sort of extent...

Yes, it's Raymog and Patton, oh, boring old Monty is basically the story of the Rhine crossing, isn't it?

Whereas in fact, you have General Joseph de

Monaire.

Yeah, he's one of the legends from, you know, casino operations and Battle for Rome and all the rest of it.

So they don't have any of their own combat bridging, but General Robert Dromar, who is General Jean de Latre de Tassigny's chief engineer, and de Lattre is

the commander of the French First Army.

Drombard is the chief engineer.

He's been picking up older pontoon bridges hidden during the occupation.

French have both way.

And also salvaging US and even German spans, which have either been abandoned or damaged on their way.

Because, you know, the Germans still have to bridge stuff, you know.

Yeah.

Because the Allies are going and blowing stuff up.

So they're having to bridge it.

So in all, they've got enough for a one 1,000-foot bridge suitable for infantry and trucks, but not armor.

But they're actually something not to be kept out of this.

And it's quite interesting because by this stage, the Allies are not terribly interested in the French pushing too far.

No.

You know, we've got this.

Yeah.

And one of the reasons reasons is because they don't want the French getting in the way post-war.

Yes, well, they're worried about France being politically in on the victory, aren't they?

They don't want that to happen.

They don't want that.

And, you know, Roosevelt's always been very, very down on the French.

Remember, very down on de Gaulle.

He's given way.

De Gaulle has become the kind of accepted leader of the French until true and fair elections can be can be held.

You know, and Roosevelt has only agreed to this with great reluctance the previous summer of 1944.

So the Americans generally are quite down on the French, even though they're equipping them.

Well, and France has been liberated.

So that's the end of, you know, you don't need any.

You need any help.

Thanks very much.

But, you know, they're all in together.

So in Sixth Army Group, Major General Edward H.

Brooks, who commands 6th Corps of the 7th Army, offers to lend the French some more of his bridging at two sites, at Speyer and Gemersheim.

So they've got their 1,000-foot single pontoon bridge.

you know, capable for trucks and infantry.

They've got these two other sites at Speyer and Gemersheim.

And that means that

the French can start getting a bit more across.

So two corps, which is de Montserbert.

He is due to cross on the 31st of March with regiments from two divisions.

And it is at this point that General de Gaulle, the leader of the French, who is the accepted leader, it has to be said.

Yeah, yeah.

Albeit with that reluctance from Reidvelt, insists that Delacha hurry up and prevent the Americans from taking the cities of Karlsruhe and Stuttgart, which, of course, you know, Karlsruhe is sort of very much in the sort of Alsace-Lorraine kind of neck of the woods.

You know, they kind of see that in their sphere of influence.

And De Gaulle has actually got bigger ideas.

So he wants him to get a move on.

So he writes to De Latra and says, as Moncher General, General.

No, it would be Generale, wouldn't it?

Generale.

You must cross the Rhine, even if the Americans are not agreeable.

And even if you have to cross it in boats, it is a matter of the greatest national interest.

Karlsruhe and Stuttgart await you, even if they do not want you.

Yes.

I mean, it does cause quite a bit of controversy in in the days that follow.

Yes, it says good old de Gaulle putting his oar in again.

Anyway, in the meantime, the French II Corps under De Montsaubert do cross a day early on the evening of the 30th of March and with the infantry crossing at rubber dinghies.

And some of these men, amazingly, are veterans of the defense of Sedan back in 1914.

They're absolutely determined to get across.

And they do.

And the 10-ton, 1,000-foot spam bridge does get across by 10 p.m.

And the Algerian division make it over.

Amazing.

Amazing.

Much further south, then, at Gemersheim, where Brooks has generously handed over some bridging.

The crossing assault is led by Colonel Gandoe of the 11th version.

Remember him?

Yes, yes, absolutely.

So he's the chap who leads the assault on Monte Abate near Casino.

And, you know, he and only a few of his guys from the 9th Infantry.

Extraordinary fellow, he gets back.

Yeah, the 9th Brigade, doesn't he?

No, it's the 9th Infantry of the 9th Brigade.

Anyway, whatever it is.

I can't remember now.

But anyway, it's that previous January.

And do you remember he gets back, doesn't he?

And only a few people, and he gets wounded in the wrist, and literally everyone's dead by the time he gets.

It's an extraordinary story.

But yes,

they hang on, don't they?

But anyway, his attack goes badly.

Assault craft are late arriving, and so they start in daylight early on the 31st of March.

By which point the Germans are alert.

And only three of the ten accursed stormboats get across.

And although one company does eventually make it over, they're hammered by German counter-attacks.

But they do hold onto the bridgehead.

Gandaway does seem to kind of attract really brutal counter-attacks and last stands and this kind of thing.

But also has the ability to withstand them.

So, I mean, he's...

Well, this is it.

You know, big determination.

So one of his battalions suffers 85 killed in action and 51 wounded out of 500.

I mean, these are quite big losses.

You know, it's a quarter of your troops.

But they gradually build up strength, expand the bridgehead as more US stormboats arrive.

Everyone's absolutely delighted to see them.

And Brooks also lends some more bridging to allow armor and vehicles to get across.

So they then do burst out of the narrow bridgehead on Easter Day, which is the first of April.

So it's kind of a bit harsh, I think, that the French are kind of always left out of the narrative of this because they actually do pretty well with substantially less equipment and artillery support than anyone else.

If anyone is improvising getting across the Rhine, bouncing the Rhine, if anyone is doing it,

the people only actually who beg, borrow and steal stuff the way that Patton says.

Patton absolutely doesn't.

Yeah, but says he will.

That's tells his men to.

That's such a good thing.

The people actually scraping a crossing and pulling out the bag are the French.

And they get to Karlsruhe.

Delator then storms Karlsruhe on the 4th of April while the 9th Colonial and 2nd Moroccan dives.

Oh, that's the other thing that's interesting about this, isn't it?

Is this French army is an imperial French army?

It's a colonial army.

It's made up of troops from the Army of Africa.

So basically, the French army is divided into three.

There's the colonial army, there's the French Army of Africa, and then there is the Metropolitan Army, which is the home army.

The Metropolitan Army is the one that's gone.

Yes.

French First Army is drawn from troops from the Colonial Army and the French Army of Africa.

Yeah.

So 2nd Moroccan Division pushes south to Strasbourg.

I mean, I think it's really interesting, this, isn't it?

If you're German, you're now getting your beaten by blokes from North Africa.

Having...

tried to fight a race war.

That must be pretty unpalatable.

Yes, yes.

You know, by the 15th of April, the whole of French First First Army's across after five and a half years since the Saar campaign of October 1940.

What an operation of infamy that was.

Yeah, I mean, they took their time, but they're back.

France is back, baby.

The back door was open in the autumn of 1939, but they didn't take it, but they are now.

And I think it's fair to say they are transformed by that, by this point.

It's not even the French army from 1940, it's a different army.

They're transformed.

They're equipped by the Americans for the most part.

American uniforms, American tanks, American hardware, all the rest of it.

They're also supported by 12 squadrons, French squadrons in the RAF.

So the RAF has become a truly polyglot air force of Belgians and Dutch and Norwegians and Canadians and goodness knows what.

That's a very good point, actually, Jim, because whenever people talk about the Battle of Britain, people go, yeah, but don't forget the Polish and the Czech pilots who flew for, you know,

why do we always forget them?

Well, at the end of the war, it's that, but even more so.

It's not just the Battle of Britain.

It's that's how the RAF rolls out for the rest of the war, right?

Yeah.

It's not just in that singular moment.

It's the way the thing operates.

Because after all, you need people who could fly.

It doesn't matter where they're from.

It's a technical arm, isn't it?

Yep.

More than anything else.

As April begins, the Germans have 67 divisions in the West and 163 divisions in the East, but you can call them divisions if you want.

These are the headquarters of 67 divisions in the West and 163 in the East.

Dubious strength.

And there's 150,000 troops still tied up in the Channel Port Festings.

How many people are in Norway?

It's a couple hundred thousand, isn't isn't it?

300,000.

God.

And when it comes to it, it's the remnants of 1st Airborne Division who are sent to sort of put all those people in the bag, which is incredible.

Absolutely unbelievable.

23 divisions in Italy.

Yeah, who are about to cop it the full weight of Mark Clark's two Allied armies in the north.

And then there's 12 divisions of the Balkans of the Eastern Mediterranean for no good reason.

I mean, what are they doing there?

What are they doing there?

Yeah.

It's very weird.

And in contrast, Eisenhower's got 91 full strength divisions, including 25 armoured divisions, plus absolutely phenomenal air power as well which despite me 260s and erados kind of screaming around the place are absolutely ruling the roost me 163s dissolving their pilots even as they're horror yes the hydrochloric acid or whatever they've got

no

hydrogen peroxide isn't it that's right which if you have a single drop of it left in the tank when you land you'll blow up

that's right yeah and if it comes into contact with organic matter it will blow up it's it's actually a powered glider it's a powered glider.

Yes, it's not a jet.

It's an airman.

It's a lot it's got, isn't it?

Seven minutes of power.

It's so mad.

100% Nazi death trap.

That's the...

Yeah.

Exactly.

So we've got to mention the werewolves, although I'm sort of reluctant to, really, but we've got to.

So all this sort of werewolf stuff,

it is all part of the kind of...

Nazi insanity at the end of the war, where they have lost, they've lost so badly.

It's just, you know, the only other example really is Japan, where

you're in so much trouble, but you're still fighting.

You're still sort of deluded enough to keep going on.

And I think the kind of the frustration of kind of writing about this stuff is just, it's insane, the madness of it.

Well, there's any point in fighting anymore.

Well, I think it's really interesting because what we've got here is, you know, they set up Radio Verwolf.

And the Goebbels propaganda here is this, it's the same old, same old shtick.

It's the shtick they've been doing the last, you know, churning out the last 15, 20 years.

We must become the flames to lick and burn our enemies.

We must becomes a dynamite to blow up our foes.

We must becomes a toxin to poisons invaders.

We must become the knives to cut them up.

We must continue the fight until the last fallen soldiers have been driven from the Reich and the last attacker has been buried in a mass grave in Germany.

Yada, yada, yada.

I mean, it's just claptrap, isn't it?

Get over it.

You're lost.

I mean, it's very strange.

Because they, I mean, in a way, what it sort of says, that rhetoric, they have no other way of expressing themselves, the Nazis.

Oh, it's just

the rhetorical corner they've painted themselves into.

And rather than go, you know what, we lost, they have to, it keeps churning this

fair cut, we've bit off more than we could chew.

In a way, Hitler, Hitler's saying in his last Will of the Testament, you know, maybe the Germans aren't the master race after all.

I set them a test and they have failed it, which is what he says at the end of the war, isn't it?

Yeah.

Change has just put in the notes on the side.

Obajisa has just said, reminds me of the Japanese orders at Iwo Jima.

Well, yes.

I mean, it's just, it's so mad.

You know, there's...

there's, yeah.

I mean, I can't think of any other, you know, in all previous wars, you know, you, you fight until you're not going to win.

Yes.

Of course.

I mean, obviously there's plenty of examples through history of people sort of, you know, fighting to last man and all the rest of it.

But the general kind of pattern is that, you know, when you're not going to win and you've run out of cash, you throw in the towel, you know, compared with, you know, CF 1918.

Too many people are getting killed.

I mean, you know,

but it's, but it's also, I mean, it's how they express express themselves in terms of fighting.

So it's, it's just the same old yada yada.

And of course, they can't do it.

So, um, well, well, you know, the werewolf idea is nonsense because literally everyone they've got has already been handed a panzerfaust or a rifle.

So, where are they going to get these people for these werewolf units?

I mean, the truth is, the idea behind it is that the stragglers that have left me behind, you are behind the lines, you haven't been put in the bag.

It's all a bit like the Russian partisans,

and we'll galvanise them into an organization.

The big difference is that the Soviet Union is vast and there isn't much infrastructure and there's plenty of, you know, there's immense forests in which you can hide.

Well, there are lots of forests in Germany too, but it's not quite the same.

You know, it's a much more sort of dense, smaller area.

And the truth is there aren't that many people straggling behind, you know, and prisoners who haven't been rounded up.

But also the situation is completely different.

Germany has no friends at this point and the country's in the grip of defeat, whereas the Red Army had friends, room for maneuver, opportunity, and all the rest of it.

Be that as it may, I mean, however desperate it is, the world of units that kind of formed the previous October, they're more of a kind of a concept on paper than reality, is the truth of it.

And the task is given to Oben Gruppenführer Hans Adolf Prutzmann, who is

a previous Einsatzgruppen commander from the Eastern Front and is a deeply unpleasant person, but has studied Soviet partisan techniques and believes that he can apply this to, you know, something in the West, which he can't.

Training camps are ostensibly set up, but again nothing nothing really happens putsman's doctrine is your opponent then be obliged to deprive his frontline troops which must instead be employed for security of his reair areas he will lose vital material and cannot employ it against our soldiers everything that handicaps the opposition helps our troops

whatever there's only one way you can help your troops and that's throwing the towel mate yeah you know that that is the truth of it yes throw your rifle bolts in the river get on with it yeah but the allies are are sort of they're a bit spooked by it they're a bit spooked but Yeah.

And also, it offers Ike, you know, an absolutely fantastic reason to not go to Berlin.

Beyond admitting it.

Do you think he ever believes the Alpine redoubt?

So the Alpine Redoubt, for those who don't know, this is his idea there's going to be a kind of final last land in the mountains.

It's going to be very, very difficult because they're going to be in the mountains and they've been stockpiling for years.

And, you know, it'll be like besieging a sort of mountain fortress.

And, you know, everyone's conscious of what happened in Italy and all the rest of it.

But clearly, it's all balls.

I think it's balls.

And I think, I don't think Ike believes it, but

ike needs reasons to not go to berlin and expend another hundred thousand people you know the casualties the casualty protection projections are bad yeah so this is his this is his political out basically yeah it's japan everyone's thinking about the war in the east to come to the point where they're not mentioning it i think it's the interesting thing they all just know it they don't need to talk about it which is why they're focusing on the thing right in front of them i mean then the allies basically swoop into germany don't they big time monty orders dempsey and simpson to drive onto the elbert which is just 50 miles from berlin canadians are across also.

They are ordered to swing round.

We'll talk a little bit about them in the next episode as well.

Finish the job in Holland.

Yep.

Plan is 9th Army will drive around the northern Ruhr, connect with 1st Army, and the Ruhr is entirely encircled.

First Army are like really, really motoring.

Yep.

Hodges has got his mojo back.

Yeah, exactly.

Third Army are speeding eastwards.

Patton's having one of his fantastic breakouts where he's making many, many miles when there's no one in front of him.

Yep.

Frankfurt's captured on the 29th of March.

Yeah, I mean, mean, he's doing, he's doing it, it's amazing, really.

But, but, I mean, this is all, and the, you know, this is all legacy of the battle to bulge.

There is no one to stop any of this because it's been squandered.

There is then the controversy between Monty, 21st Army Group, and Ike.

Monty wants to go to Berlin.

Ike's not interested, as we've discussed.

Let the Red Army do it.

Monty gets upset about this and he writes to Churchill and he says that basically

because Monty's hammering Churchill, Churchill's also, you know, a bit disappointed, feels very sort of disconnected from the Americans now.

Yeah, and they do feel writing directly to Eisenhower.

And Eisenhower writes back.

Well, but they feel, don't they, that if Britain, this is Britain's last chance to be politically in on the...

on the end of the war.

That we're out in the middle of the morning.

And we've been since 1939, after all.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But anyway, Eisenhower replies to Churchill and says, as soon as the U.S., 9th and 1st Armies join hands and the enemy encircled in rural areas incapable of further offensive action, I propose driving eastwards to join hands with the Russians or to attain the general line of the Elber.

This will be my main thrust, and until it is quite clear that concentration of all our effort on it alone will not be necessary, I am prepared to direct all my forecasts to ensuring its success.

It lies in Bradley's zone.

Full stop.

In other words, get your nose out of my business.

Yeah.

Well, there is absolutely no question that the high watermark of the coalition, which I think you can argue is sort of D-Day and the next two months up to the beginning of August, it is definitely in balance now.

Yeah, that's over.

This is an American show.

They've come out on top as top dog and they're not really interested in bleating by the British anymore.

Yeah, yeah.

And Ike goes as far as to tell Stalin that that's what he's going to do, and that the Soviets can have Berlin without referring to anybody.

Just gets on with it.

Yeah, and everyone's really upset about that.

Well, because they've got to live in Europe afterwards.

Yeah, exactly.

And Churchill says the Soviet Union has become a mortal danger to the free world.

I deem it highly important that we shake hands with the russians as far east as possible from the british point of view and indeed the french point of view get those commies out of here and get them as far back as far east as you possibly can get them from the american point of view we've still got japan yeah and we're going to have to do the lion's share of that and yeah we're not interested we don't really care if eastern europe ends up in a communist state yeah yeah we agreed back in december 1941 that we'd beat the nazis first yeah we did whatever and yeah didn't involve taking berlin necessarily yeah and And also,

I mean, the American military tradition, isn't it,

is in theory to destroy the enemy where you find him,

not get hung up about places and political symbols.

You destroy the enemy's military capability, make him sue for peace.

And that's the civil war speaking through history 80 years later.

Also, Okinawa is kicking off at this point.

So, I mean, you know, this 1st of April.

Which is the same day.

So the landings in Okinawa, which ends up being literally the bloodiest battle of the whole of the Second World War, launched on the 1st of April, which is the same day the 1st and 9th Armies link up at Lipstadt, which means that the entire Ruhr area is surrounded.

So, this is a huge great encirclement.

Absolutely reminiscent of the German encirclements of the Russians back in 1941.

But anyway, it's a huge gap now in Kesselring's tottering line, because you'll remember that Kesselring takes over from Rundstedt as OB West, which is the higher command in the West.

Rundstedt is not suing for constructive dismissal at this point, though, is he?

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

no no but the whole of myrdle's army group b is swallowed up into the ruhr pocket hitler then does his nero order this is the scorched earth policy to destroy everything but actually albert speer who's his chief architect says you know please don't do that to myrdle and myrdle doesn't yes well speer's eyeing the exit isn't he basically he's eyeing the thing but also you know he's also thinking what's going to happen post-war but he's also

You know, to be fair, there's not much left in the Ruhr anyway.

Yeah.

Brutally honest.

That is actually a very good point.

You know, what is there to destroy?

Yeah.

The Allies are giving it a good go.

And of course, the problem

in the Ruhr pocket is

they're being bombed.

Comms are breaking down.

The shortages, ammo running out.

You know, it's absolutely hopeless.

And eventually, Myrtle doesn't have any choice but to surrender his entire 325,000 troops, including 30 generals, all are put in the bag.

But the one person, one officer who's not in that is Myrtle, who goes off into the woods, fully dressed in his absolute field marshals kit with his bat and then shoots himself in the head and um and he's he's worried about being captured by the russians yeah that is what that's about and all his papers are in uh are at freiburg and they're very very extensive murdel's papers they're fascinating including you know diary of his wife and all sorts of stuff accounts of well we talked about this the other day didn't paper but the account of his death there's an eyewitness account of his suicide fascinating stuff yes i mean he'd have gone to the gallows wouldn't he so yeah yeah he's he's his grandson still is is doing something good i I can't remember what.

All right, that's cool.

And the French First Army, they're on the southern flank of 7th Army's, right?

De Lappre has been under huge pressure from de Gaulle, of course, to take

the Catholic part of Southwest Germany because de Gaulle's across the fact that the Allies are planning to carve Germany up into sectors.

He knows that the plans from Yalta.

So he wants France to get its hands on Stuttgart and Schwarzwald.

Yes.

But in the meantime, Divas doesn't know.

It's not being the Black Forest, of course, which is where Freiburg is, which is where I was.

But yeah, where you were looking at Myrdle's paper.

Exactly that.

Divas doesn't know about this and has no plans for the French to do any of this.

I mean, it's interesting, isn't it?

That the French are improvising and the Americans aren't.

And he's told by Schaefer to...

Yeah, I mean, it's really, really interesting.

Divas is told to keep the French movements across the Rhine to a minimum.

He's only, you know, they're only allowed to go 40 miles.

But De Latre has nine divisions across the Rhine.

And they go for the Schwarzfold.

They push the Danube and they get to Ulm and they get into Austria, which I think is, which is quite something, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, they do.

And at the same time, Delatre orders his 2nd Corps to drive 50 miles northeast and take Stuttgart.

De Montserbert, you remember him?

Yeah, yeah.

And this is going to create de Gaulle's occupation zone.

It's the big idea.

Yeah, and they do and they get there.

So by the 21st of April, the 1st Armoured Division is crossing the Danube and De Montserbert's II Corps is entering Stuttgart.

So they absolutely crush a Wehrmacht 64 Corps in the process.

But in doing so, they quite badly cut across into 7th Army's area.

So the French have taken Stuttgart a day earlier than the US 100th Division, which is just sort of fast on its heels.

So it's kind of Messina in reverse or whatever.

Divas has,

you know, Jacob Divas, who is the commander of the 6th Army Group, he has intended that the US 7th Army use Stuttgart as a logistical base for patches drive far deeper into Germany.

And so orders the French to get out, but Delatre just goes, no.

So there's a big exchange between De Latre and Divas, and there's also a big exchange between De Latre and De Gaulle and Divas and Eisenhower and the Chiefs of Staff.

And eventually it's settled by Divas being, I think, frankly, the bigger man.

So he agrees that the city should serve as a base for all of six army groups, but could remain occupied by the French.

So, you know, from de Gaulle's point of view, De Gaulle gets what he wants.

And interestingly, when I was sort of, you know, walking from my feng shui hotel to the archives I was going through a whole series of residential apartment blocks which had been the old French barracks

occupation days

and now it's got a sort of slightly hippie vibe to the whole thing.

I mean this is interesting because this component never really gets thrown about does it in the in the mix.

No.

Allies at war.

Well, well look at this.

This is the French doing whatever they damn well choose.

The Americans in the end having to accommodate it.

This isn't the same old Bonte Patton who's best nonsense, is it?

It's a whole other picture book of

and the frankly brilliant improvisation by the French, who are materially much,

very much the kind of...

Junior partner.

A junior partner, yeah, exactly.

Anyway, in the next episode,

we're going to be looking at the ongoing Allied drive into Germany and also the grim discoveries of German concentrates.

Camps.

Yes.

And of course, the horrors that those reveal.

Thanks everyone for listening.

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