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Osprey Campaign #178
The Rhine Crossings 1945
'The last great heave of war,' according to Churchill, took place with the crossing of the Rhine in 1945. No invading army had crossed this great river since Napoleon's in 1805, and the task fell to Field Marshal Montgomery's 21st Army Group. Opposing them were the forces of a failing fascist regime, including battalions of old men and boys, strengthened by several formations of crack troops, including paratroopers and Panzer Grenadiers.
This book details the devastating Anglo-American assault from Arnhem during World War II (1939-1945), starting with the battle of Arnhem, and leading on to the successful crossing of the Rhine and eventual breakout, and continuing with the advance across northern Germany. Including comprehensive details on all aspects of the operation, including the amphibious assault, airborne landings, special forces' attack and armored land battle, this book charts the history of the last great set-piece battle of the war, second in magnitude only to the Normandy invasion, that ultimately brought the defeat of Hitler's Nazi regime one step closer.
This book details the devastating Anglo-American assault from Arnhem during World War II (1939-1945), starting with the battle of Arnhem, and leading on to the successful crossing of the Rhine and eventual breakout, and continuing with the advance across northern Germany. Including comprehensive details on all aspects of the operation, including the amphibious assault, airborne landings, special forces' attack and armored land battle, this book charts the history of the last great set-piece battle of the war, second in magnitude only to the Normandy invasion, that ultimately brought the defeat of Hitler's Nazi regime one step closer.
96 pages, Paperback
First published February 8, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 19, 2025
Osprey as it should be. The common amount of post-Normandy ETO filler (going back to the Bulge, the Hürtgen or even Arnhem) is conspicuously reduced to the February 1945 operations against the Siegfried Line. Following amongst others the 15th Scottish Division, the RM 46 commando at Wesel & the 17th US Airborne by buffalo & glider, this booklet not only structures out the crossings on the map, but gives a little action flavour without inserting a single citation.
October 29, 2012
The World War II Allied push across Europe had carried them from France, into Western Germany and up to the Rhine River by the early spring of 1945. The psychological and military "defensive moat" (p. 7) of the Rhine was all that was stopping them from crashing deep into Germany to speed up the end of the war. The planning to cross the river pointed out the strengths and the strains of the Allied coalition. Under the brilliant leadership of Supreme Commander General Dwight Eisenhower, a successful "broad front" policy was followed whereby American, British, French and Canadian army units would attack the Germans along a North-South front ranging from the North Sea to Switzerland.
By March, 1945, all German army assets had been forced east, across the Rhine after blowing the river's bridges. On the other side of the river, they awaited Eisenhower's armies, ranging from British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery's Twenty-First Army Group in the North, with American General Omar Bradley's US Twelfth Army Group below its southern boundary, and farther south, American General Jacob Dever's US Sixth Army Group. The operations of the British Twenty-First Army Group, consisting of a combined strength of Canadian, British and American Armies is the subject of this book.
The book describes the differences in military strategy planning between the British and the Americans. Montgomery proposed a sensible, defendable plan for the cross-Rhine invasion of Germany through the use of maximum force along a narrow front. Using all of the powerful Allied forces to cross at one point of the river would be irresistable, but would also put all of the Armies, including the more numerous Americans, under a British Field Marshal. Eisenhower wasn't about to relegate his American units with their hard-fought reputations to playing a subsidiary role in Germany's defeat.
Eisenhower's value as a military strategist was matched by his ability to maintain professional relations among demands posed by the conflicting interests of the allies. He acknowledged the value of Montgomery's northern plan by designating it as the main effort for crossing the Rhine. "Operation Plunder" would be a huge invasion on a scale matching the land and air resources employed in the Normandy Invasion of the previous June. The 21st Army Group's Canadian First Army, British Second Army and, on loan from Eisenhower, American Ninth Army would act in coordination with heavy artillery support and allied bombing, supplemented by a significant airborne landing (Operation Varsity, employing British and American airborne divisions), against a point at the German town of Wesel on the river's East bank. U.S. Navy LCVP landing craft supplemented by LVT amphibious tracked vehicles would transport the bulk of the forces across the river on March 24th. Actual H-Hour, marking the first assault forces on the German side were scheduled for 2200 hours, March 23rd.
In the meantime, American armies reaching southward would be free to exploit tactical situations that may occur in order to get across the river at other points. One of these crossings actually happened prior to "Plunder" on March seventh, when the U.S. III Corps captured the Rhine bridge at Remagen intact, and American forces were able to establish a bridgehead on the German side of the river. The Remagen bridgehead was an exploitation of a lucky situation, but the Americans would also be trying to force the issue of crossing the river by keeping engineer units equipped with bridging materials available for immediate deployment. In the first instance of this tactic, units of the 5th Division of the U.S. Third Army forced a crossing across the river south of Mainz at 2200 hours on March 22nd, at the same hour that British Commando units were engaging German units across the river in Wesel. General George Patton, commander of the U.S. Third Army, could enjoy announcing his triumphal Rhine crossing before Monty's cross-river invasion got up a full head of steam.
"The Rhine Crossings 1945" is an excellent source for the timelines and unit dispositions involved in "Operation Plunder." In true Osprey Publishing fashion, Ken Ford authoritatively, accurately packs the book with a maximum amount of information inside a compact space. The original illustrations by artist Howard Gerrard are excellent, while the ample supply of maps keeps the reader oriented to the unfolding action. Lots of well-chosen photos are also used. One of the most instructive of the gravity of this battle is the picture on page eleven of allied leaders assembled to watch the airborne flights from a vantage point across the river from Wesel, in which Prime Minister Winston Churchill joined Field Marshal Montgomery and other Canadian and British high military brass. Eisenhower also joined these dignitaries at this point but was not there when the group photo was taken.
Historians will argue about the success of this invasion forever, probably. Patton, and other American officers, saw all of the "Plunder" careful planning and delay as unnecessary in a war in which the Germans had been weakened enough to be exploited by other types of crossing attempts, as Patton's units demonstrated. There was also the issue of the high number of casualties of the U.S. XVIII Airborne Corps, the IX Troop Carrier Command and the Air Force in "Varsity". Ken Ford acknowledges the validity of that final point. He reminds, however, that this operation had been planned when the Rhine was considered to be a stronger barrier than it turned out to be, before Hitler sapped the German army's strength uselessly, west of the river, in the Rhineland Campaign. "Plunder" set the allied forces loose across northern Germany, and directly led to the capture of the valuable Ruhr manufacturing region.
By March, 1945, all German army assets had been forced east, across the Rhine after blowing the river's bridges. On the other side of the river, they awaited Eisenhower's armies, ranging from British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery's Twenty-First Army Group in the North, with American General Omar Bradley's US Twelfth Army Group below its southern boundary, and farther south, American General Jacob Dever's US Sixth Army Group. The operations of the British Twenty-First Army Group, consisting of a combined strength of Canadian, British and American Armies is the subject of this book.
The book describes the differences in military strategy planning between the British and the Americans. Montgomery proposed a sensible, defendable plan for the cross-Rhine invasion of Germany through the use of maximum force along a narrow front. Using all of the powerful Allied forces to cross at one point of the river would be irresistable, but would also put all of the Armies, including the more numerous Americans, under a British Field Marshal. Eisenhower wasn't about to relegate his American units with their hard-fought reputations to playing a subsidiary role in Germany's defeat.
Eisenhower's value as a military strategist was matched by his ability to maintain professional relations among demands posed by the conflicting interests of the allies. He acknowledged the value of Montgomery's northern plan by designating it as the main effort for crossing the Rhine. "Operation Plunder" would be a huge invasion on a scale matching the land and air resources employed in the Normandy Invasion of the previous June. The 21st Army Group's Canadian First Army, British Second Army and, on loan from Eisenhower, American Ninth Army would act in coordination with heavy artillery support and allied bombing, supplemented by a significant airborne landing (Operation Varsity, employing British and American airborne divisions), against a point at the German town of Wesel on the river's East bank. U.S. Navy LCVP landing craft supplemented by LVT amphibious tracked vehicles would transport the bulk of the forces across the river on March 24th. Actual H-Hour, marking the first assault forces on the German side were scheduled for 2200 hours, March 23rd.
In the meantime, American armies reaching southward would be free to exploit tactical situations that may occur in order to get across the river at other points. One of these crossings actually happened prior to "Plunder" on March seventh, when the U.S. III Corps captured the Rhine bridge at Remagen intact, and American forces were able to establish a bridgehead on the German side of the river. The Remagen bridgehead was an exploitation of a lucky situation, but the Americans would also be trying to force the issue of crossing the river by keeping engineer units equipped with bridging materials available for immediate deployment. In the first instance of this tactic, units of the 5th Division of the U.S. Third Army forced a crossing across the river south of Mainz at 2200 hours on March 22nd, at the same hour that British Commando units were engaging German units across the river in Wesel. General George Patton, commander of the U.S. Third Army, could enjoy announcing his triumphal Rhine crossing before Monty's cross-river invasion got up a full head of steam.
"The Rhine Crossings 1945" is an excellent source for the timelines and unit dispositions involved in "Operation Plunder." In true Osprey Publishing fashion, Ken Ford authoritatively, accurately packs the book with a maximum amount of information inside a compact space. The original illustrations by artist Howard Gerrard are excellent, while the ample supply of maps keeps the reader oriented to the unfolding action. Lots of well-chosen photos are also used. One of the most instructive of the gravity of this battle is the picture on page eleven of allied leaders assembled to watch the airborne flights from a vantage point across the river from Wesel, in which Prime Minister Winston Churchill joined Field Marshal Montgomery and other Canadian and British high military brass. Eisenhower also joined these dignitaries at this point but was not there when the group photo was taken.
Historians will argue about the success of this invasion forever, probably. Patton, and other American officers, saw all of the "Plunder" careful planning and delay as unnecessary in a war in which the Germans had been weakened enough to be exploited by other types of crossing attempts, as Patton's units demonstrated. There was also the issue of the high number of casualties of the U.S. XVIII Airborne Corps, the IX Troop Carrier Command and the Air Force in "Varsity". Ken Ford acknowledges the validity of that final point. He reminds, however, that this operation had been planned when the Rhine was considered to be a stronger barrier than it turned out to be, before Hitler sapped the German army's strength uselessly, west of the river, in the Rhineland Campaign. "Plunder" set the allied forces loose across northern Germany, and directly led to the capture of the valuable Ruhr manufacturing region.
June 9, 2024
First published in 2006, 'The Rhine Crossings 1945' is number 178 in the 'Campaign' series of military history titles from publishers Osprey. The book gives a detailed summary of the military operation to cross the Rhine into Germany in March 1945, along with details of the main military commanders involved in the operation from Great Britain, USA and Germany. Whilst there are some nicely reproduced period photos, I found the illustrations more informative, including basic maps and artistic panoramic views of the battlefields.
February 15, 2016
This book is actually a pretty decent read, but for a story of just the partial crossing of the Rhine (the northern Anglo/American crossings in WWII) by forces with a 10-1 numerical advantage, I was hoping for a bit more of what happened AFTER the crossings. There's some interesting tid-bits, but I actually thought Osprey's Remagen did a better job putting things into context.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews