Marching Orders: The Untold Story of How the American Breaking of the Japanese Secret Codes Led to the Defeat of Nazi Germany and Japan

by Bruce Lee

Eisenhower says the next stage will be to have Devers move along the Vosges Mountains to the south, Bradley’s Twelfth Army will face the Siegfried Line in the center, and Montgomery’s Twenty-first Army Group, having secured Antwerp, will move its forward units along the Maas River. Says Eisenhower: “It was my one conviction, and it still is, that in order to concentrate north of the Ruhr all the forces needed for a successful invasion of Germany, we must have throughout the rest of the front a very firm defensive line which can be held by minimum forces” (Eisenhower’s emphasis). This line “is preferably the Rhine,” held “substantially throughout” so that we do not “have always to face up to the proposition that the enemy, protected by his very strong Siegfried fortifications, can concentrate swiftly for counterthrusts against our lines of communications.” The Rhine would give us the opportunity to threaten the enemy and force him to disperse defending forces, making a northward invasion of the Ruhr much easier.