21st Army Group - Rhineland Campaign

Rhineland Campaign

Allied forces closed up to the Rhine by March 1945. Twenty-First Army Group at this time comprised the British Second Army under General Miles C Dempsey, the First Canadian Army under General Harry Crerar and the US Ninth Army, under General William Simpson.

The First Canadian Army had executed Operation Veritable in difficult conditions from Nijmegen eastwards through the Reichswald Forest then southwards. This was to have been the northern part of a pincer movement with the US Ninth Army moving northwards towards Düsseldorf and Krefeld (Operation Grenade), to clear the west bank of the Rhine north of Cologne. However the Americans were delayed by two weeks when the Germans destroyed the Roer dams and flooded the American route of advance. As a result the Canadians engaged and mauled the German reserves intended to defend the Cologne Plain.

In Operation Plunder, starting on 13 March 1945, the British 2nd Army and the US 9th Army crossed the Rhine at various places north of the Ruhr and German resistance in the west quickly crumbled. The First Canadian Army wheeled left and liberated northern Holland, the British 2nd Army occupied much of north-west Germany and liberated Denmark and the US 9th Army formed the northern arm of the envelopment of German forces in the Ruhr Pocket and on 4 April reverted to Bradley's 12th Army Group.