"Now we will have roughly one-sixth of that number. Its new location was in the towns of Iserlohn and Soest, as the previous occupants (The Canadian Brigade) had moved to southern GermanyBy 1973, 1 (BR) Corps consisted of: 1st Division (Verden)7th Armoured Brigade (Soltau)11th Infantry Brigade (Minden)2nd Division (Lbbecke)4th Guards Infantry Brigade (Mnster)12th Mechanised Brigade (Osnabrck)4th Division (Herford)6th Armoured Brigade (Krbecke)20th Armoured Brigade (Detmold). These commands consisted of units of all three services and were commanded by one or 2-star rank flag officers. Both formations had areas of responsibility located around the German section of the River Rhine. On 12 April, additional 9th Army elements attained the Elbe and by the next day were on the opposite bank hopefully awaiting permission to drive on to Berlin. Its been seven years since Waltersons first acquired the Forces of Valor brand from its former owner, Unimax. Thus all three armies of the 12th U.S. Army Group were in a fairly even northsouth line, enabling them to advance abreast of each other to the Elbe. [44], The Elbe River was the official eastward objective, but many American commanders still eyed Berlin. The hoard included vast quantities of German paper currency, stacks of priceless paintings, piles of looted gold and silver jewelry and household objects, and an estimated $250,000,000 worth of gold bars and coins of various nations. 71st Movement Control Squadron, Royal Corps of Transport, 602nd Transport Unit, Royal Corps of Transport, Antwerp, Belgium. The British Army of the Rhine (BAOR) was formed at the conclusion of World War II from various units of the British 21st Army Group. In the. Order 1977, SI 1977 No. [3], From 1922 the BAOR was organised into two brigades:[1], The second British Army of the Rhine was formed on 25 August 1945 from the British Liberation Army. No breakdown of these figures between the various battlefronts was provided. 21 Postal and Courier Squadron, Royal Engineers. 1st Armoured Division was the corps' Northern forward deployed division. At Nierstein assault troops did not meet any resistance. The 30th was to cross between Wesel and Rheinberg while the 79th assaulted south of Rheinberg. Eisenhower thus turned his attention to other objectives, most notably a rapid meet-up with the Soviets to cut the German Army in two and prevent any possibility of a unified defense. [33], Montgomery responded to these concerns by making a few small adjustments to the plan. 4th Armoured Division was the corps' Southern forward deployed division. Both were originally occupation forces in Germany, one after the First World War, and the other after the Second World War. 11th Signal Regiment Royal Corps of Signals. After driving east nearly 100 miles (160km), this corps was to meet elements of the 1st Army near Paderborn, completing the encirclement of the Ruhr. British Army of the Rhine (Hansard, 19 July 1982) . After overcoming stiff initial resistance, XV Corps also advanced beyond the Rhine, opposed primarily by small German strongpoints sited in roadside villages. In the British Army, divisions and brigades are referred to as "formations." Both formations had areas of responsibility located around the German section of the River Rhine. 43rd District Workshop, Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers. [36], Adding to the Germans' woes, the 6th Army Group made an assault across the Rhine on 26 March. The Armistice that went into effect on 11 November . However, the same flat east bank meant that the bridgehead would have to be rapidly and powerfully reinforced and expanded beyond the river since there was no high ground for a bridgehead defense. The British military presence in Berlin comprised 3,100 men in three infantry battalions, an independent armoured squadron, and a number of support units. Entering in the night, the commandos secured the city late on the morning of 24 March, although scattered resistance continued until dawn on the 25th. 21st Army Group was then instead ordered to move northeast toward Bremen and Hamburg. Although he declined to increase the size of the American crossing force beyond two divisions, he agreed to keep it under the 9th Army rather than Second Army control. [28], On 22 March, with a bright moon lighting the late-night sky, elements of U.S. XII Corps' 5th Infantry Division began the 3rd Army's Rhine crossing. By 13 April, the 9th Army had cleared the northern part of the pocket, while elements of the XVIII Airborne Corps' 8th Infantry Division reached the southern bank of the Ruhr, splitting the southern section of the pocket in two. The 9th Army's commander, Lieutenant General William Hood Simpson and the Second Army's Lieutenant-General Dempsey took exception to this approach. Meanwhile, Operation Widgeon began 2 miles (3.2km) north of Wesel as the 2nd Army's 1st Commando Brigade slipped across the river and waited within 1 mile (1.6km) of the city while it was demolished by one thousand tons of bombs delivered by RAF Bomber Command. The largest difference was in the period from 1-10.4.1945, for which the Heeresarzt recorded 63,386 killed and wounded in the East (12,510 killed, 50,876 wounded) vs. only 431 in the West (100 killed, 331 wounded), an East vs. West ratio of about 147:1 in killed and wounded. After the end of the Second World War the British Army was drastically reduced in manpower to such an extent that the former British Rhine Army consisted of only two British divisions, the 7th Armoured Division and the 2nd Infantry Division. Additional losses in the Rhineland further weakened the German Army, leaving shattered remnants of units to defend the east bank of the Rhine. 221st (BAOR) EOD Company, Royal Army Ordnance Corps, Communications Zone Ordnance Depot, Antwerp, Belgium, Forward Stores Depot, Royal Army Ordnance Corps, Dulmen. 14th Independent Topographic Squadron, Royal Engineers. Then, on the move to West Germany would join the 1st Artillery Brigade. [2] The Cologne Post was a newspaper published for members of the BAOR during this period. 39th District Workshop Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers. The first British Army of the Rhine (BAOR) was created in March 1919 to control troops in the British occupation zone along the Rhine. British Army of the Rhine (1st British Army) Berlin Field Force Royal Hussars (1 Sqn, the remainder at the Land Warfare Centre) 1st Battalion, Grenadier Guards . [37], Beginning the next day, 26 March, the armored divisions of all three corps turned these initial gains into a complete breakout, shattering all opposition and roaming at will throughout the enemy's rear areas. [22], In addition, there was the matter of the Ruhr. The Allied invasion of Germany east of the Rhine started with the Western Allies crossing the river on 22 March 1945 before fanning out and overrunning all of western Germany from the Baltic in the north to the Alpine passes in the south, where they linked up with troops of the U.S. Fifth Army in Italy. A British infantryman removes a Nazi flag from a building after crossing into Germany following the river crossing on March 23, 1945 Operation Plunder followed the Allies' victory in the Battle. Hong Kong Provost Company & Hong Kong Dog Company, HQ 48th Gurkha Infantry Brigade & 246 Gurkha Signal Squadron, This page was last edited on 12 February 2023, at 22:39. However, Patton also realized that the Germans were aware of this difficulty and would expect his attack north of Mainz. The French retired in good order. The British Army of the Rhine (BAOR) was the United Kingdom's main contribution to NATO. During Operation Lumberjack, Operation Plunder and Operation Undertone, German casualties during FebruaryMarch 1945 are estimated at 400,000 men, including 280,000 men captured as prisoners of war.[18]. Recce Intelligence Centre (Laarbruch), Intelligence Corps, I (BR) Corps HQ Defence Company, Royal Pioneer Corps, Bielefeld, 6th Air Defence Regiment, Royal Horse Artillery (originally slated to form in 19903 with new HVM system), 43 Plant Squadron, Royal Engineers, Osnabrck, 65 Corps Support Squadron, Royal Engineers, Hameln, (20x M2 Amphibious Rigs). Garrisons which closed at this time included Soest (home of the 6th Armoured Brigade),[10] Soltau (home of the 7th Armoured Brigade)[11] and Minden (home of the 11th Armoured Brigade). British Air Forces of Occupation, Royal Air Force (c/o British Army On Rhine 1) ***** ***** No. Original British Expeditionary Force 1st Division 2nd Division 3rd Division 4th Division 5th Division 6th Division Divisions formed in late 1914 and 1915 7th Division 8th Division 27th Division 28th Division 29th Division 1st and 2nd Dismounted Divisions Guards Division The Divisions of Lord Kitchener's "New Armies" (technically Regular Army) 4th (NATO) Postal & Courier Regiment, Royal Engineers, Berlin Postal and Courier Troop, Royal Engineers. Involved in battle of El Alamein and the invasion of Sicily. From 1952 the commander-in-chief of the BAOR was also the commander of NATO's Northern Army Group (NORTHAG) in the event of a general war with the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies. A captain of the 506th wrote, "At one point the men were so weary that [on] the order to rest . During 1988 the disposition of brigades in Northern Ireland changed: On 1 July 1988 3rd Infantry Brigade reformed at Armagh and became responsible for the UK-Ireland border zone from Armagh to South Londonderry. The importance of quickly obtaining a deep bridgehead was increased by the fact that the first access to a decent road network was over 6 miles (9.7km) inland at the town of Gro-Gerau. The failure of this offensive exhausted Germany's strategic reserve, leaving it ill-prepared to resist the final Allied campaigns in Europe. british army of the rhine order of battle. In preparation for the Allied invasion of Germany east of the Rhine, a series of offensive operations were designed to seize and capture its east and west banks: Operation Veritable and Operation Grenade in February 1945, and Operation Lumberjack and Operation Undertone in March 1945; these are considered separate from the main invasion operation. Despite scattered resistance from a few isolated units, the war in Europe was over. Although the Ruhr area still contained a significant number of Axis troops and enough industry to retain its importance as a major objective, Allied intelligence reported that much of the region's armament industry was moving southeast, deeper into Germany. A German holdout force of 70,000 in the Harz Mountains40mi (64km) north of Erfurtwas neutralized in this way, as were the towns of Erfurt, Jena, and Leipzig. [46], Every unit along the ElbeMulde line was anxious to be the first to meet the Red Army. Contribute to chinapedia/wikipedia.en development by creating an account on GitHub. In that time, the Company has released a number of well-received projects that cut across the diecast spectrum, from big and beefy 1:32 scale tanks to pose-able 1:72 scale WWII-era fighters. [7] In 1967, the force was reduced in strength to 53,000 soldiers, compared with 80,000 ten years earlier. However, as the 3rd Army began pulling up to the Mulde on 13 April, the XII CorpsPatton's southernmost forcecontinued moving southeast alongside the 6th U.S. Army Group to clear southern Germany and move into Austria. Simpson subsequently turned his troops' attention to mopping up pockets of local resistance. 1956 Saw more major changes to the BAOR. [34], Plunder began on the evening of 23 March with the assault elements of the British 2nd Army massed against three main crossing sites: Rees in the north, Xanten in the center, and Wesel in the south. There are: VG Division the newly introduced Volks (People's) Grenadier Divisions. [16][notes 1][17] Combined with the capture of Berchtesgaden, any hope of Nazi leadership continuing to wage war from a so-called "national redoubt" or escape through the Alps was crushed, shortly followed by unconditional German surrender on 8 May 1945. Rdiger Overmans, Soldaten hinter Stacheldraht. [35], To the south, the discovery of a defensive gap in front of the 30th Infantry Division fostered the hope that a full-scale breakout would be possible on 25 March. With Montgomery allowing use of the Wesel bridges to the 9th Army for only five out of every 24 hours, and with the road network north of the Lippe under 2nd Army control, General Simpson was unable to commit or maneuver sufficient forces to make a rapid flanking drive. The Army must remain adaptable and evolve as a fighting force. By attaching mechanized infantry units to armored divisions, they created a hybrid of strength and mobility that served them well in the pursuit of warfare through Germany. The Rhineland Campaign, 1945 The Hard Winter On New Year's Day 1945, eight German divisions attacked south out of the Saar attempting to trap Eisenhower's thinned-out flank in Alsace. One of the British divisions arrived from Italy after the start of the campaign. 3rd Armoured Division was to the rear of the two forward deployed division as reserve. However, Hobbs had not fully taken into account the nearly nonexistent road network in front of the XVI Corps bridgehead. The following is a hierarchical outline for the structure of the British Army in 1989. By the end of April, the Third Reich was in tatters. Trackpad Publishing, 2022. [30], Two more 3rd Army crossingsboth by VIII Corpsquickly followed. The speed of change is moving at a remarkable rate and it will only get faster and more complex. [34], After an hour of extremely intense artillery preparation, which Eisenhower himself viewed from the front, the 30th Infantry Division began its assault. To accomplish this, he had to move quickly. 52nd Field Squadron (Construction), 22nd Engineer Regiment, Royal Engineers, 516th Specialist Team (Bulk Petrol), Royal Engineers, RAF Gtersloh, 1st Postal & Courier Regiment, Royal Engineers, Hannover (in support of 1 (BR) Corps), 11th Postal & Courier Squadron, Royal Engineers, Verden (in support of 1st (BR) Armoured Division), 13th Postal & Courier Squadron, Royal Engineers, Soest (in support of 3rd (BR) Armoured Division), 14th Postal & Courier Squadron, Royal Engineers, Herford (in support of 4th (BR) Armoured Division), 3rd Postal & Courier Depot, Royal Engineers, Dsseldorf (in support of Communication Zone [CommZ]). British Order of Battle Mid 1980 In 1980 the British Army was still organised in the Task Force system. "The ETO", a term generally only used to refer to American forces in the Western European Theater, fielded 42,000 pieces of artillery; American forces comprised approximately 2/3 of all Allied forces during the campaign. I am interested in general European theatre, which will cover the Europe itself, Mediterranean and Middle East. [57], The crossing of the Rhine, the encirclement and reduction of the Ruhr, and the sweep to the ElbeMulde line and the Alps all established the final campaign on the Western Front as a showcase for Western Allied superiority over the Germans in maneuver warfare. Captain Murray S. Pulver, commander of Company B, 120th Infantry Regiment, was in his usual placethe thick of the fighting. Following the reduction of the Ruhr, the 15th Army was to take over occupation duties in the region as the 9th,[39] 1st and 3rd Armies pushed farther into Germany. Once the bridgehead was secured the British 6th Airborne Division would be transferred to Second Army control, while the U.S. 17th Airborne Division would revert to 9th Army control. By the end of 28 March, Hodges' 1st Army had crossed the Lahn, having driven at least 50mi (80km) beyond the original line of departure, capturing thousands of German soldiers in the process. 1st Artillery Brigade (Hildesheim)HQ/Signals Battery (Hildesheim)2 x Heavy Field Artillery Regiments (Hildesheim)2 x Missile Artillery Regiments (Hildesheim)7th Air Defence Brigade (Dortmund)11th Engineer Brigade (Hameln)With September in 1976 came the creation of the Artillery Division. Patton knew that the most obvious place to jump the river was at Mainz or just downstream, north of the city. During the three days leading up to Montgomery's attack, targets in front of the 21st Army Group zone and in the Ruhr area to the southeast were pummeled by about 11,000 sorties, effectively sealing off the Ruhr while easing the burden on Montgomery's assault forces. On the 30th and 31st, the 2nd Armored made an uninterrupted 40mi (64km) drive east to Beckum, cutting two of the Ruhr's three remaining rail lines and severing the autobahn to Berlin. At nine o'clock in the evening on Sunday, September 17, 1944, Harzer received the order to defeat all the British on the north side of the Lower Rhine with his division. Battle Royal. To the south, Patton's 3rd Army was to drive east to Chemnitz, about 40mi (64km) southeast of Leipzig, but well short of the Elbe, and then turn southeast into Austria. Does anyone have an order of Battle for RAF in 1949? The ensuing airdrops, which began on 29 April,[52] marked the beginning of what was to become a colossal effort to put war-torn Europe back together again.[53]. The same court sits in both areas and in the following tables the overall figures shown include Berlin trials. [27], These were exactly the orders Patton had hoped for; he felt that if a sufficiently strong force could be thrown across the river and significant gains made, then Eisenhower might transfer responsibility for the main drive through Germany from Montgomery's 21st Army Group to Bradley's 12th. Thousands of prisoners were being taken every day; from 16 to 18 April, when all opposition ended and the remnants of German Army Group B formally surrendered, German troops had been surrendering in droves throughout the region. CBF Cyprus was a rotational post between the Army and RAF, at two-star level; CBF Belize was an Army brigadier; CBF Falklands was a rotational post between all three services at two-star level; and CBF Hong Kong was an Army major general. 154th Forward Ammo Depot, Royal Army Ordnance Corps. [45], Meanwhile, on the 12th U.S. Army Group's southern flank, the 3rd Army had advanced apace, moving 30mi (48km) eastward to take Erfurt and Weimar, and then, by 12 April, another 30mi (48km) through the old 1806 Jena Napoleonic battlefield area. It included the four military members of the Army Board, including the Chief of the General Staff, General Sir John Chapple in 1989, the Second Permanent Under Secretary, and the Assistant Chief of the General Staff, a major general. With the 79th Infantry Division meeting fierce resistance to the south, Simpson's only recourse was to commit some of his forces waiting on the west bank of the Rhine. Ziethen's corps arrived late at Waterloo and linked up with Wellington's flank. On 4 April, the day it shifted to Bradley's control, the 9th Army began its attack south toward the Ruhr River. [46], As was the case throughout the campaign, the German ability to fight was sporadic and unpredictable during the drive to the ElbeMulde line. Once this was accomplished the remaining German forces could be defeated in detail. [42], The final tally of prisoners taken in the Ruhr reached 325,000, far beyond anything the Americans had anticipated. They frequently remarked on its accuracy and the swiftness of its target acquisitionand especially the prodigious amount of artillery ammunition expended. Another seven American divisions arrived during February,[19] along with the British 5th Infantry Division and I Canadian Corps, both of which had arrived from the fighting on the Italian front. BAOR was armed with tactical nuclear weapons and supported by Royal Air Force Germany. Seventh and Third Armies) into southeastern Germany and Austria. Greenhill Books. 4th Petrol Depot, Royal Army Ordnance Corps. 20th March 2015. The Allied front along the Rhine stretched 450 miles (720km) from the river's mouth at the North Sea in the Netherlands to the Swiss border in the south. by | Jun 30, 2022 | robert a altman cause of death | what vpn does rush limbaugh endorse | Jun 30, 2022 | robert a altman cause of death | what vpn does rush limbaugh endorse 11th Ordnance (EOD) Battalion, Royal Army Ordnance Corps, 160th Provost Company, Royal Military Police, Aldershot, 240th Provost (Training) Company, Royal Military Police, Aldershot. While Montgomery was carefully and cautiously planning for the main thrust in the north, complete with massive artillery preparation and an airborne assault, American forces in the south were displaying the kind of basic aggressiveness that Eisenhower wanted to see. HQ British Forces Brunei & Brunei Signal Troop, Detachment 24 Postal and Courier Squadron, Royal Engineers, 9th Signal Regiment (Radio), Royal Signals, at, 259 (West) Signal Squadron (responsible for communications in the west of the island). At the northern crossing site, elements of British XXX Corps began the assault (Operation Turnscrew) about 21:00, attempting to distract the Germans from the main crossings at Xanten in the center and Rheinberg to the south. With his escape route to the south severed by the 12th Army Group's eastward drive and Berlin surrounded by the Soviets, Hitler committed suicide on 30 April, leaving to his successor, Grand Admiral Karl Dnitz, the task of capitulation.