VE Day: Crossing The Rhine (Part 2)

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21st Army Group will now cross the wine.

The enemy possibly thinks he is safe behind this great river obstacle.

We all agree that it is a great obstacle, but we will show the enemy that he is far from safe behind it.

This great Allied fighting machine, composed of integrated land and air forces, will deal with the problem in no uncertain manner.

And having crossed the wine, we will quack about it in the

keep going, keep going.

And having crossed the wine, we will quack about it in the plains in northern Germany, chasing the enemy from pillar to post.

The swifter and more energetic our action, the sooner the war will be over, and that is what we all desire.

Get to get on with the job and finish off the German war as soon as possible.

Over the wine, then.

Let us go.

And good hunting to you on the other side.

And that, of course,

was Field Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery.

Yes.

It's almost like he was in the room.

I tell you, the only person who's not wanting the war to be over is him, isn't it?

Well, I think I'm afraid you're right, you know.

He's frightfully boring afterwards.

Yes, he's sort of looking at a cliff edge.

It's an interesting battle.

Yeah, it's a most interesting battle.

He's looking at a cliff edge, isn't he, really?

And he's achieved everything he could possibly hope to in his career, I suppose,

apart from getting to go to Berlin.

But welcome to We have Ways of Wake You Talk with me, I'm Arri, James Holland, Second World War podcast.

And this is our Victory in Europe series where we're taking you to the end of the war, or trying to, at least.

Yes.

It's finally all about to be over.

In the last episode, we dealt with the Bridget Remergan.

Remigan, whatever we want to call it.

And the absolutely extraordinary story of the Americans getting over the River Rhine and then not really knowing what to do.

They're not really knowing what to do.

So I've been, you know, I've been thinking about that whole thing ever since, Jim.

80 years historiography, you leave that to simmer on the pot and it's all about, you know, it's cautious Montgomery and Flash, and, you know, Americans who can grab a moment and create a moment to grab one.

But here's an instance where they create a moment, decide, don't know about that.

I don't know if I will grab it because

it goes against our strategy.

It turns out it wasn't Monty all along.

Yeah, it wasn't Monty.

It was the Americans who were being cautious.

I mean, and ponderous and wanting to kind of all come up together and attack on a broad front.

And if you look at it, look back at it again, Monty's the one who was all going single for us, single for us, single for us, let's go for it.

All behind me, boys.

So it is really interesting and it is fascinating how much that myth has persisted and persisted again by, you know, patterns gloating, which we're going to get to in a minute, and post-war memoirs, which are very unreliable.

We know that Chet Hansen, you know, wrote two of Bradley's autobiographies and they were both kind of, you know, changed with the changing times.

Why bother change your story?

Well, because, because, because a myth has already started to emerge.

And it's all tying up with the generals at war post-war after Monty's memoirs,

you know, aggrandizing, you know, self-serving memoirs.

And it's also tied up with the fact that America has emerged as a kind of preeminent state,

preeminent nation, and Britain is much declined.

And, you know, this is, we've talked about declinism and where this all comes from.

And it's from them.

You know, it doesn't matter what Britain's like in the 1970s or in 1976 at its IMF moment.

Or it doesn't really matter what it's like right now.

It's what it was like in the 1940s.

And it was a different beast then.

You know, but Britain is diminished by six years of war, but it's still a major player.

And, you know, no one can take that away from it.

As we will discover, this episode is,

it may change.

But right now, we've called it Third Army and Operation Plunder.

But like all of this, everything's connected but not connected.

Because I think what's interesting is there is latitude leeway for people to jump across the Rhine if they get the chance but but but there are very good reasons as discussed yesterday not to do that

So third army is now enormous.

It's 320,000 strong from mid-March they forged their way across the Saarland of the Palatinate.

I was just going to say platinate is something you read about but maybe on a map you go it's somewhere around there.

I mean it's it's the West Rhineland.

Yes, this is old patchwork quilt Germany names of old bits of patchwork quilt Germany really isn't it?

They reached the Rhine by the 22nd of March, and they've taken 90,000 people into the bag, POWs, in the process.

And the Rhine, I mean, of all the times to get to the Rhine,

after one of the...

cold winters of the Second World War, I think it's fair to say.

Well, they were notoriously cold, also notoriously wet.

Yes.

Particularly the

wrong side.

Well, first of all, you have a huge amount of rain in the autumn.

Then you have a big dollop of snow and the snow melts.

And so the amount of rain, amount of water you know the water levels in the rhine are considerable and that obviously increases the flow of it um so 7.3 feet per second the thing is and this third army of course is patton this sounds like it sounds like they're being optimistic but patton has been planning this up to the eyeballs hasn't he

was planning to do it do it months earlier so have you been planning this since october and the and the thing to remember is you might know patton for a sort of tactical flare but you can only do that if you've got your operational art in order yeah and i and we've had a conversation about Pat and I think

from an operational level, I think that actually is his greatest strength.

Because

when you see him in Southern Tunisia, he's pretty raw for all his sort of, you know, chest thumping and kind of, you know, garrulousness and all the rest of it.

A lot of which he's done for the press.

It's very much styled to the press for the press.

But he's gung-ho and

you know, wanting to get out of Hun and all that kind of stuff.

But actually, he's pretty raw.

And Alexander changes his orders to him six times to keep him on a pretty tight lead.

And he doesn't understand air power at all.

Not at all.

He has that huge spat with Mary Cunningham.

They kiss and make up.

But Pat and credit, where credit due, he learns those lessons really, really quickly and really proves what a strong operational commander he is in Sicily, where he has to do that big sweep to the west,

western half of the army.

He just does it so brilliantly.

Again, with the help of amazing people around him, it has to be said.

Yeah, it's got incredible staff.

But he's really good.

And ever since then, he's absolutely nailed it.

Yeah.

You know, the complete general is the general who gets the strategic overview, is tactically very strong, but has an incredibly strong operational grasp.

You know, and that's why there's sort of problems with Rommel, because Rommel learns as well.

None of these people stand still.

If they do, they fall by the wayside.

But Patton is a...

I think an exceptionally good commander by this stage.

Anyway,

they're getting ready to go.

His chief artillery officer is Colonel Edward T.

Marley Williams,

and he's created a third Army Troop Carrier Command, which is all the artillery spotters pulled together.

And the idea is they're going to ferry a battalion across the river in about 90 minutes.

And on the 21st of March, the idea is that that's what they're going to do

as a rehearsal.

And they've got Higgins boats.

I mean, I think it's interesting because I think well known that the Royal Navy are involved in the Rhine crossing.

But the fact that you actually have the U.S.

Navy and Coast Guard personnel with 24 Higgins boats here is fascinating.

Yeah, isn't it?

They're seeing it the same way, it's the same problem.

Well, it is because they've come over the previous autumn, the previous fall, and they've been transported by tank prime movers.

So, you know, they do have these huge, great low loaders on which they carry tanks around.

And they've just put the Higgins boats on those and carried them across country.

God, isn't that amazing?

Yes, it's absolutely amazing.

And on top of that, they've got a further 54 LCMs, which are landing craft mechanised, which are sort of, you know, these are the kind of newer, shinier versions of the higgins boats uh you know one of these units was used at remagen uh and it furried 2 200 troops in three hours i mean you know across the side of the rhine that that is pretty pretty good so on the 19th of march bradley says yeah okay great good go for it um third army patton george you know go for it same day third army captures 17 000 pows you know so that you know that that dwarfs the loss of the two regiments of the 106th division back in december do you remember when they were here and they were the 4-2-2nd and the 4-2-3rd infantry regiments of the 106th up on the, you know, in the wooded hill near Schoeneberg?

Yes, Kurt Vonnegut, Kurt Vonner, all of that.

So there is this real sense that

momentum is with them.

They've got all the gear.

They've now got all the ideas as well.

They're surging towards the Rhine.

And that's great.

But, you know, one of the things about Patton is he's always, always deeply competitive.

He's always got to be first.

You know, he's got to be the best, if not, you know, then America.

and this is a whole non-existent race for messina nonsense that happened in sicily and all the rest of it but you know if that's what ticks his boat and you know motivates him then you know yeah who cares well and is he then is he doing it so that it's his guys do it as well you know it's like

yeah he's he's he's he's sort of instilling instilling pride isn't he yes generates need to radiate confidence and all that and he's maybe he's he's turned his turned that on basically yeah i mean you get you you know for those um veterans that i've interviewed who did serve under patton a lot of them said yeah know, it's all well and good, but, you know, it was our blood he was doing this with.

Yes, it's our guts, our guts, his glory.

He's determined to get across the Rhine before Monty, which was still, you know, in terms of strategic priority, the main effort.

And Bradley, who is also kind of, you know, as we were discussing yesterday, slightly sort of emerged from his torpor as well.

He's also smarting from the bulge and the fact that he got isolated in Luxembourg City and lost First Army for a bit.

And, you know, he felt that Ike was sort of favoring Monty over him and all the rest of it.

And, you know, we know that Bradley is a, you know, can be camudgeny and also can be kind of waspish and you know, and a little bit kind of toys out of pramish.

I mean, I think also the factor is here: the end is coming, and people want their thumbprints all over the end.

Um, knowing very conscious that Ike is now Eisenhower, is is who is obviously the supreme ally commander, is running the show much more authoritatively from a kind of field command point of view rather than just an administrative point of view.

Deliberately gives Patton the go-ahead without telling Schaef.

It's ridiculous, isn't it?

Anyway, the US 5th Division is at the Rhine, but it is expecting to have a well-earned rest because that's the strategy that you pause, take a beat, wait for everyone to catch up and then go for it.

But instead, on the 22nd of March, planning conferences hold and Patton tells his commanders they're now going to get across the Rhine PDQ.

Shall I do this one?

Yeah, go on.

I want to hear.

I've offered my Monty.

I want to hear your Pat.

We've got to get to the bridgehead.

Every day we save.

Doing that means saving hundreds of American lives.

The Germans are smashed and in chaos now on our front.

If we delay 72 hours from now, they will have reorganized.

We must not give them that chance.

And I don't give a goddamn what other plans there may be.

I don't propose to give the sons of a bitches a chance to recover from the killing we gave them in the Palatinate.

We're gonna make the crossing immediately.

I don't care where or how we get the necessary equipment, but get it, steal it, beg it, or make it.

We're gonna get it across the rhine and we're gonna do it today and of course this suggests that they've got to somehow kind of you know rustle around and and gather all the kits when he's saying i don't care where we where we get the kit from he's saying that to fifth division but he's got all the kit he's got all the kit yes go and get it from the depot chaps Go and get it from the depot.

That's what he means.

He doesn't mean I'm going to defy money and do my own thing.

He's already got all that stuff.

Yes.

I mean,

Patton, when when he's like this, is his own rhetorical creation, is the point.

It's a lot, so much of this is for public consumption.

I read a thing not that long ago about how a great deal of how American generals presented themselves in the 30s, before the war, is to do with American business culture.

Tycoon boss, who's leading the way

by personality and drive.

I'm going to whip this company into shape.

And that is very much the sort of

what Patton was drawing on or

keeping an eye on during the 30s.

and all of this.

Isn't that interesting?

Absolutely, make no mistake, anyone listening to this.

This is not a thrown-together operation, but very carefully planned.

So, let's let's just go back to that a little bit.

A little bit of recap for Third Army's preparation.

So, these are begun the previous October in 1944, and the key figure here is Brigadier General John F.

Conklin, who is the chief engineer of Third Army.

And in October 1944, he establishes a training school for all units who are going to be involved in the Rhine crossing.

So each engineer battalion and Third Army spends three days training with bridging equipment.

And then they do, they're also given one to ten thousand scale models of various crossing points.

And they also then further do training throughout that time after the training school.

An engineer depot is set up in Moselle.

So this is exactly where they're going to get all the bridge equipment.

So all the bridging equipment is built up and prepared.

And by March 1945, just remember that last quote from Patton.

I don't care where or how we get it, steal it, beg it or make it.

We're going to get across the Rhine and do it today.

What he has in the Third Army Arsenal.

This is ridiculous.

By the beginning of March, not by the 22nd of March, by the beginning of March, 1,500 assault boats, 300 storm boats, 15,000 paddles, 910 outboard motors, 11,000 feet of treadway, 7,000 feet of bailey bridging, British, by the way, just saying, 2,200 feet of pontoon bridging.

Routes have already been worked out and planned.

Why routes are important is because you need to work out what convoy of equipment is going to go where and when on what route it's going to do so you don't have a huge jam.

So you need multiple routes.

So, you know, if you were to put into into

your Google Maps, it might take you on one route, but but you have to ignore Google Maps because you need one route for one bit and another route for another bit and another route for another bit and they're not all going to be exactly the same.

And one might be, you know, you know, on Google Maps, you get three options and one takes one hour, 43 minutes, and the other one takes one hour, 47.

Well, it's kind of like that.

This has already been worked out beforehand.

Well, 7,000 feet of Bailey Bridges is hundreds and hundreds of trucks.

It isn't as though going across the River Rhine is manslaughter, it's premeditated murder.

Yes, exactly that.

And there are lots and lots of sappers to do this bridging work and to help clear roads and make sure it all goes fine.

So just in 12 Corps, the 1135th Engineer Combat Group totals 7,000 7,000 men.

Wow.

You know,

that is a full-strength brigade.

Yep.

That's extraordinary.

So then, back on the 10th of December 1944, so just before the Battle of the Bulge, Third Army and the US Navy staff have a joint conference at Third Army headquarters to discuss the Rhine crossings.

Aerial photos are studied, crossing points agreed, ferry, men, and bridging allocated.

Detailed analysis of the areas shows that the Nierstein-Oppenheim is the most favourable crossing stretch in the third army sector.

So it's all been worked out three months earlier.

So it's not a hastily jumped seater pants thing.

It's very, very carefully worked out because it has to be very, very carefully worked out because the Allies...

The Allies know that logistics is

how you win wars.

So just I've got a very, very brief red herring for you, rabbit hole for you.

Cool.

So one of the things that I've been thinking about a lot since we were doing the Battle of the Bulge is why is it that the Germans spend the whole time complaining about the safety of the roads and the Americans never do?

That's a very, very, very good question.

When the Americans have got considerably more mechanization than the Germans can even dream of.

The Americans are bringing metalled roadway with them and they can they can tread treadway.

Well they're bringing repairing kit with them.

So

when I was at Carlisle and I was at the Army Heritage and Education Center last week doing my research, I found a whole load of stuff about engineers and they were all talking about repairing roads.

They just repair them out as they go.

Graders and stuff.

Graders, bulldozers, sand, scalpings, it all comes to.

So that's all factored in.

Steamrollers.

Steamrollers are Olschmang.

And it's such a given that no one really mentions it.

Anyway, so 12 Corps, they don't use their guns as support.

They go for surprise, don't they?

Even though their guns are stocked, ready, they can go if they want.

12 Corps and the US Navy haven't worked together before, but 5th Division had done 22 crossings, river crossings since arriving in normandy so they they are familiar with they are familiar they know what they're about

so third army start crossing at 10 30 p.m on the night of the 22nd of march which just as everyone knows is 24 hours before the planned crossing of the rhine in 21st army sector so he's 24 hours ahead of monty and the first wave go across calm balmy bright spring evening the first wave go across and it's a thousand feet wide the river at this point and they're they're using assault boats ducks and some dd tanks dd shermans of the 748th tank battalion it's good good to see the funny still going.

Yeah, so they're using these storm boats, which have 10 men.

So they have eight infantrymen and two engineers.

And they've got a little, you know, 55 horsepower outboard on.

And they get across.

It's Lieutenant Irvin H.

Jacobs and Lieutenant John A.

Manau leading K Company, the 3rd Battalion of the 11th Infantry.

And they get across.

There are seven Germans who surrender immediately.

And then companies I and L follow, and there's barely a shot fired, which is interesting, this, isn't it?

So you don't need your big artillery barrage.

And if there's at least barely anyone there upstream 700 yards it's more difficult for a and b company the first battalion of the 11th um they run into actual resistance pans faust machine guns as they beach they lose some of their officers so it gets a bit sticky and then a staff staff sergeant foster ferguson rallies the the the men they break through there's great great quote here from private edgar n valderama of c company by the time my boat reached farside our first sergeant a young hillbilly from tennessee was standing on the levee with a little notebook in one hand and a flashlight in the other taking roll call.

I could see trace of bullets flying over his head and shoulders.

The heavy artillery fire made me nervous enough to jump ship a few yards before we reached shore.

I didn't want to be branded a coward, so instead of dashing for cover, I heroically yanked the boat the last few feet ashore and then dashed for cover.

Very good.

I mean, it's all there, isn't it?

But maybe

he sounded like the hillbilly from Tennessee rather than

not wanting people to think any less of you.

So you.

Yes.

Isn't that interesting?

Right there, right there in that account.

Key thing here is they get their artillery, forward observers quickly.

It is artillery, which is, you know,

that is the biggest fist that the Americans, the Allies can deliver onto the enemy at any one time.

You know, your infantry are there to actually physically take the ground, but the enablers are the artillery.

It's firepower, firepower, firepower, every stretch of the way.

The moment you get your artillery forward observers observers there, whether you be at the Lausdal crossroads in the Battle of the Bulge, whether you be crossing the River Rhine, life gets easier for the doughboys up at the front.

That is the truth of it.

The Americans have perfected combined arms by this point.

Yes, they have.

Exactly.

So, what we're talking about here is we've got forward observers, we've got engineers, we've got infantry going across in their stormboats very quickly, followed by the 737th Tank Battalion, the 403rd Tank Destroyer Battalion, and that changes everything.

So, by 5 a.m.

on the 23rd of March, the following morning, two regiments are across.

So, that's three battalions of infantry times two.

So, that's six battalions.

The first ferry's working, and Higgins boats are scuttling back and forth with ever-heavy equipment, you know, anti-tank guns and all the rest of it, and bazookas and so on.

Then, the German artillery starts becoming more accurate, and the infantry then discovered an intact German bunker with 70 men directing the artillery.

So, they're, you know, that makes life a little bit easier.

By late morning, fifth Div have they've got a bridgehead seven miles wide, six miles deep.

I mean,

that's a big bridgehead.

It's pretty good.

It's pretty good, isn't it?

You compare that to efforts on D-Day, for instance.

Although, you know, that means

you've secured the far bank and you haven't got to even worry about it anymore.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And yes, because you can bring guns over that can fire at range without.

Yeah, and your engineers can make those bridges.

He gets artillery in.

Eddie gets artillery into the bridgehead ready for a counter-attack, but by midnight of the 23rd, he has 17 artillery.

17 artillery battalions.

You cannot tell me that hasn't been worked out beforehand because, of course, it has, because otherwise the artillery wouldn't be in position to be ferried over quickly.

You know, it is not an easy job moving on 105.

It's certainly not easy moving anything larger.

Well, that means it's ammunition, of course.

They're ammunition as well.

There's no point moving them over.

And there's an officer candidate school nearby at Wiesbaden, but they do the right thing and surrender swiftly.

So that's that.

And within 20 hours, there's a bridge capable of taking tanks across the Rhine.

The

Luftwaffe will try attacking on the 24th.

But they're all a a bit crap by this point.

They don't know how to fly anything.

They'll get shot down.

The Americans are now officially across the Rhine ahead of schedule, but according to plan is what it comes down to, doesn't it, really?

Yeah, exactly.

Between the 24th and the 31st of March, 60,000 vehicles get across.

I'm wondering whether we could get George Patton to do something about Hammersmith Bridge.

Because it's been closed for five years now.

Six years.

It's absolutely crazy, isn't it?

It's described as improvised, but it ain't.

I think we've made that pretty clear.

Then Middleton's 8th Corps on the night of the 24-3th get across, 12 miles up from Koblenz.

Golden Acorns, the 87th, get across.

I mean, this is Ike's plan, isn't it?

That you have crossings going on all over.

You have them all at once, and then you don't...

Germans don't know which way to turn.

Exactly.

Exactly, which is why you don't want isolated crossings.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm sorry with Ike on this.

By the 2nd of April, 87th and 89th Divisions have cleared the area between Koblenz and and viesbaden just a 50 mile front taking 30 000 pws and then patton's third corps 20 corps they cross at one o'clock on the 28th at castell and cost heim um but you know that's a success too and they have a little bit of luck yeah patton crosses at neerstein on the 27th of march and because he's a really grown-up person patton famous for his um being a great big grown-up he has a he has a short halt time for a short halt has a slash into the river a slash i've been looking forward to this for a long time.

And it's photographed.

And it's photographed.

Yes, because none of this is happening by accident.

You know, he's got his, yes, you don't, if you're Pat and you don't take a pee in the river and no one photographs it.

Where's the fun in that?

Work it out.

Work out who he is and how he operates, everybody.

Anyway, the Americans across the river, not just spontaneously as at Rehmagen, but officially

with Third Army.

And now, in the next part, which we will take a very short break for, we come back with Monty's plan.

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Welcome back to Way of Ways I Make Your Talk.

It's the victory in Europe is approaching, ladies and gentlemen, but you've got to get across the Rhine.

And as we've seen...

We're finally coming to the main event, which is really exciting.

Yes, the Americans are across the Rhine successfully and entirely in premeditated form.

But now we come to Phil Marshall Month.

Who's all we're waiting for?

Yeah, I know.

Let's be honest now.

Go on, let's face it.

So in early March, Monty writes to his son David, who's looked after, no, he's been a terrible dad during the war.

I'm busy getting ready for the next battle.

The wine is some wither, but we shall get over it.

Yours, Phil Marshall Montgomery.

I don't think there's any lots of love.

it's basically um i will get over the rhine and you will get over the way i've i've brought you up i think is the implication

um

but i mean so the main effort synchronized effort is going to be the north because it's an ideal place for it well it's close to berlin and you know close to the north well and vasel and vasel is also one of the mooted sites for market garden when they're looking for vasels to cross the river to cross the rhine it is and it's and it's written off as too difficult so inevitably this being monty there are a couple of iterations of this plan.

And the original plan calls upon only the British Second Army to cross and in three places.

So first of all, at Rees,

which is the northernmost part, which is 25 miles upstream from Arnhem, then at Zanton, which is seven miles further upstream and really close to Wessel.

And then at Rheinberg, which is a further 60 miles on.

So in the original plan, there's absolutely no place for the Canadians or Simpson's 9th Army, who, as you remember, was trying to get across at Erdogan prematurely, and which which is still attached to the 21st Army Group.

And both Harry Creerar, who's the Canadian Army commander, and Bill Simpson are really put out about this.

They want to be in on the action

and want to be across.

I'm sure their men don't feel quite the same way.

I'm quite happy to say this one out, don't worry.

And I suppose it is something coming from Simpson because Simpson's been such a brilliant

diplomat.

He's gone very well with Monty.

I think they do actually get on.

I don't think this is something that's been particularly forced by Simpson.

I think he just finds Monty less annoying than the others, but he does feel that his Ninth Army should be a part of this, not least because they've been kind of chomping the bit to get across for a couple of weeks now.

So there's a bit of back and forth, and then Monty agrees to include the Ninth Army in the initial assault, and also to add the Canadian Ninth Brigade, which is also going to be followed up by, I think, the Third Brigade, if I remember rightly.

And the Ninth Brigade, of course, are Normandy veterans.

So Second Army is stuck with the is sticks with the crossings at Ries and near Wessel, while the 9th Army takes over the Rheinberg area crossing.

Second Army with the Canadians attached is going to be called Operation Plunder.

And well, the whole operation is going to be called Operation Plunder with little sub-operation names in between it.

And it's going to involve 1.2 million men compared to the 320,000 in Third Army.

And it's going to be the largest, that is the largest number of men under British commander and the largest river assault ever made at that point.

Yeah.

In the planning.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it, and it, and it's a, you know, Monty Style.

So it's, it's, it's a great big set piece.

Um, uh, uh, why risk it?

Belt and braces.

Why risk it?

Why, why, why risk it?

Yeah.

It is after all the great.

You don't know.

You don't know it's going to be.

No.

And it's the great German front.

It's the great German frontier.

Historically, it always has been.

You know, this is a psychological barrier that you're crossing far more than the Siegfried line, the West, or the, or the, you know, the West Wall, isn't it?

In Germany, no two ways about it.

So.

Yeah, and it's 400 yards wide at this point.

I've been to the crossing points of Rhys and and Vesa, and I can tell you, it looks freaking enormous when you're looking at it.

It certainly does, doesn't it?

Yeah.

It really, really does.

You see how big it is at the Vaal,

where the 504th go across.

At Nijmegen.

It's bigger than that.

It's flat either side.

There's these sort of dikes each side.

Rees is sort of just to the south, to the right-hand side of the main crossing points.

You don't want to go straight into, obviously, into a village, or a town.

You want to go where there's sort of, you know, clear space.

But, you know, the Germans do have quite a considerable amount of fortifications along there they've got bunkers and concrete and you know minefields and all the rest of it you know and on paper there's you know and you're defending the third reich you know you're you're now really defending the third reich so there's every suggestion that that

caution is a better pass of valor and and you know you you it's better it's better to overestimate your enemy's strength and then be presently surprised and underestimate it and then be caught on the hot well and also you're coming to the end of the war and you must know that your men are thinking i don't want to die at this phase now right and you've got all this ordinance you've got all this equipment for everyone you use yeah yeah i mean that no one wants to die at any point obviously but there is this thing isn't there as it's coming towards the end um where you're thinking well you know so so of course you load of course you load the dice of course of course you i mean what i don't understand why anyone could possibly be critical of this um so the enormous stockpiles of ammo uh and they've been preparing for this even as they're clearing out um uh the the yeah that sort of hinterland of the i suppose that is still the platinum, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah.

60,000 tons of ammunition, 30,000 tons of bridging equipment and other sappering stuff, 28,000 tons of extra daily supplies.

So 9th Army has got 138,000 tons stockpiled as well.

There's 37,000 British sappers, Royal Engineers.

I mean, blind me.

22,000 American plus, and then there's 5,500 artillery pieces.

It's got to be too big to fail, which after all is the attitude on D-Day, isn't it?

As well.

And the other thing is the weather is only going to get better.

So if you delay a little, if you're doing it like, you know,

all these things are in your favor for taking your time and getting it right.

If you're off balance, you're vulnerable to a thing like the bulge happening is what they must be thinking as well.

There's new troops too, because that's the other thing.

You've got a load of new people

coming through because

infantry casualties in particular have been so high.

Monty's also operating on this principle of not asking too much people for fear of damaging their morale, which is his command style.

Which is ditto a good thing.

So there's a 66-mile-long smoke screen along the west side of the river to hide the reparations.

You know, I mean, some might say that's over the top, but I just say that's sensible.

Sounds pretty reasonable to me.

Do you want to read Major John Graham?

Yes, absolutely.

Commander in the second Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders.

He might well be in the Argyle and Southern Highlanders, but it absolutely talked like this.

Our men were not sufficiently well trained at this stage of the campaign to be able to exploit against a professional soldier soldier in a hasty impromptu crossing.

We couldn't overcome the shortage of leaders.

By that time of the war, the experienced corporals and sergeants had disappeared.

It still seems absurd that I was 21 and a major.

I think it would have been a pretty unwise commander who launched them into battle without the most thorough preparations.

And this is this is the point.

This is really the point.

But when Monty takes command of 8th Army, this is the thing he says to himself, I can't ask things of 8th Army that I know it, that I'm not confident it can pull off.

The key difference, though, is his method and his staff and his staff's method and the army method.

That's all been shaken down, hasn't it?

They know what they're doing operationally now.

It's the fact that

the guys who've got to cross the start line, you need to take care of them as well.

And

they're not who you had six months ago.

Exactly.

So the plan is to send two British divisions, the 51st Highland and 15th Scottish.

And you may remember that the 15th Scottish were the ones who launched the attack in British 8 Corps to start Epsom, Operation Epsom on the 26th of Monday, the 26th of June, 1944 in North America.

Normal.

Going through the first cornfield.

All of that.

And they're going to cross at Rees and Wiesel, and they're going to be reinforced by the Canadian 9th Brigade.

So Operation Turnscrew is going to be the crossing at Rees and Operation Torchlight at Zanton near Wiesel.

So the plan was for Turnscrew.

Reese, to go in first at 9pm on the 23rd of March with Major General Tom Rennie's Highlanders and the Canadian 9th Brigade.

And then as soon as their success was over, they would be reinforced by the 43rd Wessex,

also including 8th Armoured Independent Brigade or Independent Armoured Brigade.

And then the 3rd Division and the Guards Armoured Division are there to do the exploitation afterwards.

Yeah.

And it was after that you had the Sherwood Rangers going, don't knock your paint.

That's right.

Yeah.

Then an hour later,

an hour later, after turn screw, Operation Widgeon.

What is a Widgeon?

Is that like a...

It's like a little duck it's like oh right so it's sort of aquatic pigeon operation widgeton will be what is launched that's the first

duck yeah but if it's a widgeon it's like a i'm trying to say it's a kind of swimming a water-based pigeon water-based pigeon a widgeon anyway it doesn't look like a pigeon

well it's it's been been in the water a long time um first commando

game bird so that's commando so that's first commando brigade um and they do a silent crossing so another surprise crossing there has been a massive air raid though so it's not like...

No, well, the air raid is that night.

Well,

there will have been a massive air raid.

There will be, yeah.

So they get across north of Wassel

and they're going out of their crossing.

And then they're primed to take out Vasel.

Then there will be the huge, there'll be the huge bombardment and air raid with bombers coming over and flattening Wasel.

And then once it's been flattened, then they go in and take it.

Yeah, yeah.

But that's all on that first night.

That's what's happening.

Yeah.

And the whole thing's in phases and staggered.

So then at 2 o'clock on the 24th, 2 in the morning, 15th Scottish will cross the Rhine at Santon, midway between the two towns of Acel-Dries.

This is Torchlight, Operation Torchlight.

And 15th Scottish are commanded by Major General Tiny Barber, who I'm happy to tell listeners is 6'6 tall because it's the British Army.

So they call him Tiny.

They're going to stick up a Bailey Bridge as well across the river, which is amazing.

Yes.

And then 11th Army.

Yeah, and then

Overgo 11th Armoured to exploit.

Then the following morning, two airborne divisions, 6th and 17th US Airborne Division, 6th British Airborne Division, 17th U.S.

Airborne Division, will land to

stifle the German guns is the idea.

And that's going to come in at sort of 10 a.m.

on the 24th.

That we're going to keep our powder dry for that one because that is the treat for episode 3.

Yes.

And then finally, Simpson's men cross an 11-mile sector south of ASOL called Flashpoint on the early hours of the 24th of March.

Lots of phases, loads going on.

With careful planning.

Tons of careful planning because, you know, it's a war.

I mean, oh, my God.

Honestly, it riles me so much that he gets criticism for being careful in his planning.

What state are the Germans in the other side of this river, though?

Pretty bad.

Yeah.

So there's the 1st Fauschenjäger Army under General Alfred Schlem.

Schlem had a Fauschenjäger Corps in Italy.

So it was his corps that was responsible for the Marzabotto massacre, for example.

The whole thing was authorised and organised by

1st Vauschmerger Corps under Schlem.

Anyway,

he's not in Italy anymore.

He's now over here.

Schlem's Fauschmieger army is directly opposite where the planned crossings are.

And

despite deception measures, Schlem correctly predicts the crossing points at Ries and is not far out of V Saliva.

So obviously he can reinforce those bits, which he does.

He also predicts an airborne assault, which is not really surprising because he's an airborne Fauschenbjäger officer.

And also, it's all pretty

leads itself to it, doesn't it?

So what Schlem does is he increases the flak defenses, the anti-aircraft defenses near Wesel, has 814 heavy and light flak guns and also mobile anti-airborne units covering all the likely drop zones.

And he also orders his gunners to sleep fully cloven to be ready at all times.

So he's expecting it, basically.

At Wesel is

General Mayor Erik Strauber's 86 Corps.

Two Fauschemjäger Corps, which amounts to somewhere between 10 and 12,000 men.

When you consider that a full-strength division is supposed to be, you know, 15,000, 17,000 men in two entire corps, which is multiple divisions, they've only got no more than 12,000 men.

You can see how depleted they are.

This is how it's.

So Schlemm has also got some armor to call on.

He's got the 47th Panzer Corps.

Remember them from Bulge and Bastogne and all that?

Still under General Leuten and Freiherr Heinrich von Lutwitz.

And with the 116th Panzer Division from Normandy and from the Bulge and all the rest of it, and 15th Panzer Grenadier Division, who were also in Italy and Sicily and before they got moved over to the battle of the bulger and the bastone battle but the thing is that sounds like um a lot a lot but it ain't no how many tanks they got between them it's 35 isn't it it's not great is it um anyway that there's a volksturm division in reserve as well and a new werwolf you know so so the volkssturm are the new you know these are the new home guard

you know 16 to 60 um and mostly 16 or 60 and so they're they're then they're not much cop under trained under equipped all the the rest of it.

But overall, you know, despite the bunkers, despite the kind of the cores and all the rest of it, and army groups and armies and all the rest of it, this is pretty weak.

The defense is under strength.

Allied air forces are making their lives an absolute misery.

They completely dominate the skies.

The morale is dreadful.

There's no real carrot on offer.

So instead, they mainly use a stick.

Threat of the Russians coming and terrorizing them all.

And of course, the threat of the death penalty, which grows, and we'll deal with this a little bit more in a further episode.

But on February the 12th Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel who's chief of staff of the Oberkommando de Wehrmat which is the German general staff issues an order warning any officer who aids a subordinate to leaves the combat zone unlawfully by carelessly issuing him a pass or other leave papers citing a simulated reason is to be considered a saboteur and will suffer death don't go and see your Leitnerant about your ingrained toenail he's not going to let you yeah and actually Blaskovitz made it even more clear he he also sent out a note saying basically anyone will be shut or hanged.

I mean, the British and the Americans are still building up supplies.

There's a quarter of a million tons of supplies.

30 Corps alone has 8,000 sappers, 22,000 tons of bridging, 25,000 wooden pontoons, 2,000 assault boats, 650 stormboats, 120 river tugs, 80 miles of balloon cable.

Wartime efficiency.

This is one of those occasions when people say, oh, you know, wartime efficiency.

No, this is about waste.

This is about redundancy.

This is about

having the wriggle room to.

It's the Rhind, people.

And it's the Third Reich.

yeah exactly exactly and they're using buffaloes which is the amphibious version of the lvt the the landing vehicle yeah tracked yeah amtracks as they're also called yeah which is a good amphibious tractors yes sort of wedge-shaped or prism shaped well they sort of look a little bit like a first world war tank don't they us 9th army they're expecting to chuck up a 1150 foot treadway in just nine hours so samuel alexander flatt of royal canadian engineers say the usual hollywood words such as colossal stupendous, and unbelievable would have been of little use in describing the situation as seen here.

Nothing had been left to chance and a timetable had been worked out that reminded us of the detailed planning for the D-Day assault.

And there's no shortage of air support either.

That's the other thing.

I mean, because

we've been working in two dimensions here.

And now, here's the third dimension.

Tactical and strategic air resources.

So the RAF and the USAF start basically strangling the Ruhr

in February.

They're blowing up bridges on the main routes leading to the area.

617, and we talked about this this the other day about precision bombing as well as the sort of area bombing.

They attacked the Biederfeldt railway vaduck with a Grand Slam bomb.

It's the earthquake bomb, 22,000-pound bomb.

They're isolating like they did in Normandy.

And on the 22nd of March, Schlem's headquarters is raided.

So he's badly wounded, forced out of the battle.

And he's replaced by General Gunther Blumentritt, who we've come across before.

Each one of these things, if you factor it,

you can feel the inevitability of the end of the war if you're looking at it from this point of view, really, can't you?

Just the sheer overwhelming power of it.

And this isn't a phase of the war.

I mean, this is a phase of the war where the British are regarded as kind of as a junior partner now, but there's nothing junior about this, is there?

At all.

No, none at all.

So there's last-minute training.

5th Black Watch do an exercise in Buffalo's.

They get lost in the fog, which actually...

It's pretty

realistic given the enormous smoke screen across the Rhine.

44th Royal Tank Regiment, they're given DD Shermans, but they haven't used them.

So they then have to go under 10 days of intense training.

And

Brigadier Derek Mills Roberts is worried about the stormboats.

Do you think so, Eustace?

Oh, yeah, he's in command of the Commando Brigade.

Yeah, so he takes Dempsey for a riding one and it breaks down and the Army Commander ends up up adrift.

I mean, it's very interesting, all this just testing stuff.

Security storms.

Well, these stormboats are new, and the problem with stormboats is

they don't have a high side.

They're designed for 10 men, but they're 10 men who are incredibly laden.

So by the time everyone gets into them,

people are going at the front to start off with.

And if you don't load up properly, the front just disappears in the water, the whole thing sinks.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, so they require quite careful loading.

And then they've got this little 55 horsepower outboard on.

You know, I mean, it's just, yeah, exactly.

And you can see how they all go wrong because, you know, the engines get swamped with water.

And, you know, it's just

well well what they really need to do is go okay we're only going to have six men in but then that would just completely wreck the entire plan and absolutely every single one of those commandos is carrying four more grenades than he's been told to and two more and and and another extra clips of bren magazine two more clips of bren uh ammo and and a pickaxe you know this is the this is the fact the facts and the sensible ones aren't are are not carrying their their packs when they get into the boat yeah they're carrying them they're not on their shoulders and and there's the there's a case where one goes in and they get sunk and they just get drowned.

They're carrying 60 pounds on their back.

So security is very tight.

9th Army remove their shoulder patches and unit IDs on vehicles are painted over.

You also have the airborne land tail, the people who can't arrive, they've turned their berets inside out.

So

they're all in disguise.

So they aren't giving away their maroon berets.

Although, as we've pointed out, the Germans have already figured out it's coming.

By the 22nd of March, the Germans have 3,411 artillery pieces on standby.

That's in contrast to how many at Alamein Gym?

874.

And the Americans have 2,070 guns ready to go.

So they've been between them, they've got 5,500.

Yeah.

The code words launch

enormous number of tubes.

I mean, even before even before the start of Diadem, you know, the battle for Rome, where they've got two entire armies side by side, you've only got 1,600 guns.

And the code words for launching the battle are two if by sea two number two if by sea and we will be coming back in our next episode issuing those code words and the crossing will commence

the crossing will commence and we'll start with operation widget the aquatic pigeon of uh

so if you want to know what happens to the

how how plunder um is enacted and what happens with operation varsity the airborne airborne drop be sure to tune in to episode three.

Tune in to episode three.

Thanks very much for listening, everyone.

Episodes three and four are available for members early if you're a member of the R officer class.

We will return in our next episode with the Immortal Words to, if by sea.

See you then.

Bye-bye.

Cheerio.