BL-24 - Flipbook - Page 132
A TIME TO REMEMBER
German positions.
Just after midnight, assault troops
pushed their boats into the river.
Searchlights pierced the smoke to
mark the way, as men of the 15th
(Scottish) Division and the 51st
(Highland) Division began their
crossings near Rees and Xanten.
German shells sploshed into the water;
machine-gun 昀椀re rattled across the
surface. Many boats were hit and men
lost, but they pressed on. By dawn,
bridgeheads had been secured, and
engineers began building pontoon
bridges under 昀椀re to get vehicles and
logistic stocks across.
At 昀椀rst light on 24th March, thousands
of paratroopers from the British 6th
Airborne Division and the US 17th
Airborne Division dropped behind
German lines, 16,000 men descending
from the sky in a hail of 昀氀ak and tracer
昀椀re. They landed scattered and under
heavy attack but quickly regrouped,
capturing vital roads and bridges to
stop German counterattacking towards
the river.
By 26th March, the bridgehead was
more than ten miles deep. Resistance
crumbled as Montgomery’s men
surged forward, pushing eastwards
into the German heartland alongside
US forces who had crossed the Rhine
further south.
For the soldiers, the Rhine crossings
brought a strange mix of elation and
weariness. Some had faced defeat at
Dunkirk in 1940, then fought against
Rommel in the western desert. Many
had fought their way from Normandy,
through Belgium and Holland, and
now stood on the brink of victory.
Within weeks, their advance would
sweep through northern Germany,
liberating cities like Bremen and
Hamburg, and unearthing the full
extent of Nazi evil at Bergen-Belsen.
The crossing of the Rhine had opened
the path to the 昀椀nal elimination of
Hitler’s Reich.
Watching the offensive from a forward
vantage point at Rheinberg, Churchill
commented to Eisenhower, “My dear
General, the German is whipped.
We have got him. He is all through.”
Montgomery’s Operation Plunder was
a symbolic triumph.
For the men who fought it, and for
the families waiting at home, it was
more than that. It was the moment
when those who had confronted and
survived the horri昀椀c challenges of
WW2 at last had the end in sight.
Fierce 昀椀ghting ensued on the eastern
bank. German paratroopers, young,
determined, and still disciplined,
defended every village and wood-line.
In ruined towns British troops fought
street by street, clearing cellars and
shattered buildings, the defenders
refusing to yield until they were
overwhelmed.
Allied 昀椀repower was devastating.
Fighter-bombers screamed overhead,
hunting down German vehicles.
Artillery pounded every strongpoint.
Within 24 hours the crossings were
secure, and British armour was
massing on German soil for the 昀椀rst
time.
Montgomery’s meticulous planning,
often criticised for its caution earlier
in the war, had paid off. Casualties
were far lighter than expected. The
operation was a textbook example of
Allied coordination between land and
air forces, something that had proved
elusive earlier in the war.
British prime minister Winston Churchill (l) talks to Field Marshal Bernard Law
Montgomery (r) and Field Marshall Sir Alan Brooke (m) in March 1945, shortly
before the end of the war, during an improvised picnic on the shores of the Rhine in the
Netherlands.
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