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Operation Plunder | |||||||
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Part of the Western Allied invasion of Germany in the Western Front of the European theatre of World War II | |||||||
![]() U.S. 89th Division crossing the Rhine under fire | |||||||
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| 16,000 captured[3] |
Operation Plunder was a military operation to cross the Rhine on the night of 23 March 1945, launched by the 21st Army Group under Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery. The crossing of the river was at Rees, Wesel, and south of the river Lippe by the British Second Army under Lieutenant General Miles Dempsey, and the United States Ninth Army under Lieutenant General William H. Simpson.
The Battle of the Rhine was crucial for the advancement of the Allied advance into Germany, and was planned by Montgomery as a three-army assault, including an airborne assault, a five-thousand-gun artillery barrage, and Anglo-American bombers. Thousands of tons of supplies were brought forward including huge amounts of bridging equipment.[4]
The First Allied Airborne Army conducted Operation Varsity on the east bank of the Rhine in support of Operation Plunder, consisting of U.S. XVIII Airborne Corps, the British 6th, and the U.S. 17th Airborne Divisions.
Operation Grenade in February by Simpson's Ninth Army and Crerar's Canadians was also expected to prepare the ground.[5]
Preparations such as accumulation of supplies, road construction, and the transport of 36 Royal Navy landing craft, were hidden by a massive smoke screen from 16 March. The operation commenced on the night of 23 March 1945. It included the Varsity parachute and glider landings near Wesel, and Operation Archway, by the Special Air Service.
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