These dresses, in order to be cleaned and washed, are cast into flames. Field-Marshal Bernard Montgomery's 21st Army Group was supplied with the task of advancing into Germany in the Niederrhein (Lower-Rhine) area, which eventually resulted in both the operations 'Veritable' and . Some areas were stoutly defended while in others the enemy surrendered after little more than token resistance. Following this primary assault, which XII Corps would undertake, VIII Corps would execute supporting crossings at Boppard and St. Goar, 2530 miles (4048km) northwest of Mainz. Its been seven years since Waltersons first acquired the Forces of Valor brand from its former owner, Unimax. British Army of the Rhine There have been two formations named British Army of the Rhine ( BAOR ). Page last modified: The organisations within the British Army are divided into three types: Combat units:These units spearhead the Armys military capability. [41], By 1 April, when the trap closed around the Germans in the Ruhr, their fate was sealed. [44], The 4 April pause in the 3rd Army advance allowed the other armies under Bradley's command to reach the Leine River, about 50mi (80km) east of Paderborn. 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. To the south, elements of the VI Corps met unexpectedly fierce resistance at Heilbronn, 40mi (64km) into the German rear. Sub-units are generally about 100 personnel strong. According to rumor, Hitler's most fanatically loyal troops were preparing to make a lengthy, last-ditch stand in the natural fortresses formed by the rugged alpine mountains of southern Germany and western Austria. Field-Marshal Montgomei*y's British 2nd Army has becorfie the phantom force of the Western Front. I am interested in general European theatre, which will cover the Europe itself, Mediterranean and Middle East. In case of a war the Corps first line of defense would have been a screening force of 1st The Queen's Dragoon Guards, 16th/5th Queen's Royal Lancers and 664 Squadron AAC, which would have become an ad-hoc brigade formation under command of BAOR's Brigadier Royal Armoured Corps. 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. HQ Western District & 241 (West) Signal Squadron, Royal Signals. As of 1 April 1989, the following amounts of troops were deployed around the world: 71,000 in Great Britain, 56,000 (of which the Berlin brigade makes up 3,000), 10,200 in Northern Ireland (including 3,200 on roulement), 5,000 in Hong Kong, 4,000 in the Lines of Communications counties (Netherlandsand Belgium), 3,200 in Cyprus (including 850 on Welcome to BAOR Locations. "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. [48], Advancing along this new axis the Seventh Army's left rapidly overran Bamberg, over 100mi (160km) east of the Rhine, on its way to Nuremberg, about 30mi (48km) to the south. In the British Army division-level formations are administrative or deployable formations. The . Captain Murray S. Pulver, commander of Company B, 120th Infantry Regiment, was in his usual placethe thick of the fighting. Alfred Price. The speed of change is moving at a remarkable rate and it will only get faster and more complex. By the end of April, the Third Reich was in tatters. 61st Station Workshop, Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers. Simpson planned to commit the XIX Corps as soon as possible after the bridgehead had been secured, using the XIII Corps to hold the Rhine south of the crossing sites. The 6th United States Army Group was an Allied army group that fought in the European Theater of Operations during World War II.Made up of field armies from both the United States Army and the French Army, it fought in France, Germany, Austria, and, briefly, Italy.Also referred to as the Southern Group of Armies, it was established in July 1944 and commanded throughout its duration by General . The Northern Army Group (NORTHAG) was a NATO military formation comprising five Army Corps from five NATO member nations. [33], Montgomery responded to these concerns by making a few small adjustments to the plan. Seeing this equipment moving up, his frontline soldiers did not need any orders from higher headquarters to tell them what it meant. This page is a list of British Armies in WWII. On 29 April, the British made an assault crossing of the Elbe, supported on the following day by the recently reattached XVIII Airborne Corps. The best introduction to the regimental system of the British army. See: Wallace, Linnel, Lt. 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Includes a chapter on the creation of the postmodern regimental system between 1945 and 1970 against the backdrop of postwar austerity and the consequent reorganization and amalgamation of many regiments. Army Group B commander Model committed suicide on 21 April. While the U.S. Ninth and First Armies held their ground from Magdeburg through Leipzig to western Czechoslovakia, Eisenhower ordered three Allied field armies (1st French, and the U.S. Five armies took part in the battle: the armies of Prince Rupert of the Rhine and the Marquis of Newcastle for the Royalists, and the Army of the Covenant, the Earl of Manchester's Eastern Association and Lord Fedinando Fairfax's Northern Association for the Allies. The Armistice that went into effect on 11 November . Brigade groups took over from divisions as the smallest operative units. Uniquely and rather confusingly, the Infantry, which is a collection of regiments, was organized in 1957 into Brigades, which were not fighting formations but rather provided depots for training recruits to the three or four regiments within the Brigade. The re-designation of Force Troops Command (FTC) to 6th (United Kingdom) Division (6 (UK) Div) will provide the Armys asymmetric edge , orchestrating Intelligence, Counter-Intelligence, Information Operations, Electronic Warfare, Cyber and unconventional warfare. Order 1977, SI 1977 No. Still, Allied intelligence could not entirely discount the possibility that remnants of the German forces would attempt a suicidal last stand in the Alps. "When I joined my regiment in 1980, the British Army of the Rhine alone had 900 tanks," Crawford wrote in U.K. Defense Journal. This increased the importance of the southern offensives across the Rhine. 3rd Armoured Division Transport Regiment, Royal Corps of Transport, 3rd Ordnance Battalion, Royal Army Ordnance Corps, Soest, 5th Armoured Workshop, Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, Soest, 6th Armoured Workshop, Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, Mnster, 11th Armoured Workshop, Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, Soest, 3rd Armoured Field Ambulance, Royal Army Medical Corps, Sennelager, 5th Armoured Field Ambulance, Royal Army Medical Corps, Mnster, 113th Provost Company, Royal Military Police, Werl, HQ 4th Armoured Brigade & 204 Signal Squadron, Royal Signals, Mnster, HQ 6th Armoured Brigade & 206th Signal Squadron, Royal Signals, Soest, HQ 33rd Armoured Brigade & 202nd Signal Squadron, Royal Signals, Paderborn, 46th (Talavera) Air Defence Battery, (36x, HQ 4th Armoured Division & Signal Regiment, Royal Signals, Herford, 14th Postal & Courier Squadron, Royal Engineers, Herford. [35], Although the armored division bolstered his offensive capacity within the bridgehead, Simpson was more interested in sending the XIX Corps across the Wesel bridges, as Montgomery had agreed, and using the better roads north of the Lippe to outflank the enemy in front of the 30th Division. Tanks and tank destroyers had been ferried across all morning, and by evening a Treadway bridge was open to traffic. A heavy bombing campaign by USAAF and RAF forces, known as the "Interdiction of Northwest Germany", designed primarily to destroy the lines of communication and supply connecting the Ruhr to the rest of Germany had been underway since February. [58], For their part, captured German soldiers often claimed to be most impressed not by American armor or infantry but by the artillery. It was originally composed of five corps, composed of two divisions each, plus a cavalry division:[1], IV Corps: Commanded by Sir Alexander Godley, VI Corps: Commanded by Sir Aylmer Haldane, IX Corps: Commanded by Sir Walter Braithwaite and later by Ivor Maxse, Cavalry Division (formed from 1st Cavalry Division). Welcome to DECODED, a blog site for those interested in the period of history between the end of the Second World War and the final reunification of Berlin, Germany. The right-wing of the British Second Army reached the Elbe southeast of Hamburg on 19 April. To the north, the 9th Army's XIX and XIII Corps would also drive for the Elbe, toward Magdeburg, about 65mi (105km) north of Leipzig, although the army commander, General Simpson, hoped he would be allowed to go all the way to Berlin. US General George Marshall estimated about 263,000 German battle deaths on the Western Front for the period from 6 June 1944 to 8 May 1945, or a longer period. The British Army of the Rhine (BAOR) were occupation forces set up in Germany following the two World Wars. Its primary combat formation was British I Corps. 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]). As the invasion of Germany commenced, Eisenhower had a total of 90 full-strength divisions under his command, with the number of armored divisions now reaching 25. The choice was obvious because the Main River, flowing northward 30 miles (48km) east of and parallel to the Rhine, turns west and empties into the Rhine at Mainz and an advance south of the city would involve crossing two rivers rather than one. 262 Signal Squadron Royal Corps of Signals. Since the Allied armies on the Rhine were more than 300 miles (480km) from Berlin, with the Elbe River, 200 miles (320km) ahead, still to be crossed it seemed clear that the Soviets would capture Berlin long before the Western Allies could reach it. However, concerned that the bypassed Germans would flood much of the nation and cause complete famine among a Dutch population already near starvation, Eisenhower approved an agreement with the local German commanders to allow the Allies to air-drop food into the country in return for a local ceasefire on the battlefield. [10] Many of the units stationed in the United Kingdom were to move immediately to Germany to reinforce British Army of the Rhine (BAOR) in case of war between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. 57th Station Workshop, Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers. Positioned on the North German Plain, it is the command element of NATO's Northern Army Group (NORTHAG). Only on 20 April, after breaching the ring of anti-aircraft guns and fighting house-to-house for the city, did its forces take Nuremberg. 4th Petrol Depot, Royal Army Ordnance Corps. In July 1944, soon after the Allied invasion of Normandy on D-Day (June 6, 1944), the British 11th Armoured Division broke out of the Normandy beachhead and advanced into France, before turning northward to Belgium. british army of the rhine order of battle. 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. Regimental headquarters are administrative and ceremonial in nature. The next day they gained some more ground, and one even seized its objective, having slogged a total of 6 miles (9.7km), but the limited progress forced Hobbs to abandon the hope for a quick breakout. [29], By midafternoon on 23 March, all three regiments of the 5th Infantry Division were in the bridgehead, and an attached regiment from the 90th Infantry Division was crossing. Additional losses in the Rhineland further weakened the German Army, leaving shattered remnants of units to defend the east bank of the Rhine. But two days later, on 15 April, they had to abandon these hopes. 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. . Eisenhower sent Bradley his final word on the matter: the 9th Army was to stay putthere would be no effort to take Berlin. Soldiers posted copies of General Eisenhower's Proclamation No. On the morning of 10 April, the 12th U.S. Army Group's drive to the Elbe began in earnest. While manpower and force size was limited by budgetary constraints, quality of training and equipment was commonly reported of a high standard. S. L. A. Marshall. 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. Denying this opportunity became another argument for rethinking the role of the southern drive through Germany. The last date on which the Army did not contain either a Guard's Brigade or Division as an operational unit was in 1920. [36], Simpson began by moving elements of the XIX Corps' 2nd Armored Division into the XVI Corps bridgehead on 28 March with orders to cross the Lippe east of Wesel, thereby avoiding that city's traffic jams. This consisted of: 10th Infantry Brigade Group11th Infantry Brigade Group12th Infantry Brigade Group. Again, these Divisions were not fighting formations, but like the earlier Brigades, provided depots for centralised training of recruits to the units within the Division. But these decisions were made in good faith and had little bearing on the ultimate outcome of the campaign. [5] Its original function was to control the corps districts which were running the military government of the British zone of Allied-occupied Germany. [38], The British Prime Minister and Chiefs of Staff strongly opposed the new plan. 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. Although Kesselring brought an outstanding track record as a defensive strategist with him from the Italian campaign, he did not have the resources to make a coherent defense. Brigades consist of several "units," which are regiment- or battalion-sized, and which consist of a number of sub-units. [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. The initial advance into Romania, the First JassyKishinev Offensive in April and May 1944 was a failure; the Second JassyKishinev Offensive in August succeeded. 14th Independent Topographic Squadron, Royal Engineers. All the armies assigned to cross the Rhine had elements east of the river, including the Canadian 1st Army in the north, which sent a division through the British bridgehead at Rees, and the French 1st Army in the south, which on 31 March established its own bridgehead by assault crossings at Germersheim and Speyer, about 50mi (80km) south of Mainz. Rolling northward 45mi (72km) without casualties, the mobile force stopped for the night 15mi (24km) from its objective. Here the Germans turned a thick defense belt of antiaircraft guns against the American ground troops with devastating effects. 30th District Workshop, Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, HQ South-East District & 251 Signal Squadron, Royal Signals, Aldershot, 640 Signal Troop (Electronic Warfare), Royal Corps of Signals, at, B Squadron (assigned to 3rd Commando Brigade, Royal Marines), C Squadron (assigned to protect key government personnel and the, Falklands Band of the Parachute Regiment (Large Infantry Band), 50 Field Squadron (Construction) [to 39 Engineer Regiment, RE]. 35th Base Workshop, Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers. 5 Ordnance Battalion, Royal Army Ordnance Corps, 6 Ordnance Battalion, Royal Army Ordnance Corps, Bielefeld, 2 Aircraft Support Unit, Royal Army Ordnance Corps, Detmold, 1st (BR) Corps Troops Workshop, Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, Bielefeld, 20 Electronics Workshop, Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, Minden, 71 Aircraft Workshop, Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, Detmold, 110 Provost Company, Royal Military Police, Sennelager, 115 Provost Company, Royal Military Police, Osnabrck, HQ 1st Armoured Division & Signal Regiment, Royal Signals, Verden, 11th Postal & Courier Squadron, Royal Engineers, Verden. 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. The 339th Infantry [85th Division] reached Austrian soil east of Dobbiaco at 0415, 4 May; the Reconnaissance Troop, 349th Infantry. The English Army was founded in 1660, was succeeded in 1707 by the new British Army, incorporating the existing Scottish regiments. The BAOR was formerly armed with tactical nuclear weapons. During the Cold War NORTHAG was NATO's forward defence in the Northern half of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). On 29 November 1952, the Headquarters of Northern Army Group (NORTHAG) formed. This structure was in force until the 1992 amalgamation of Royal Irish Rangers and Ulster Defence Regiment, after which 3rd Infantry Brigade returned to control its traditional area of County Armagh and County Down. At Worms, about 25 miles (40km) south of Mainz, the 7th Army's XV Corps established a bridgehead, which it consolidated with the southern shoulder of the 3rd Army's bridgehead early the next day. Elements of the 1st Army's V Corps made first contact. These mobile forces made great thrusts to isolate pockets of German troops, which were mopped up by additional infantry following close behind. This secondary drive would also give Eisenhower a degree of flexibility in case the northern attack ran into difficulties. [33], In the southernmost sector of the 21st Army Group's attack, the 9th Army's assault divisions were to cross the Rhine along an 11 miles (18km) section of the front, south of Wesel and the Lippe River. 5 (Gibraltar 177983) Field Battery, 94th Locating Regiment Royal Artillery. In Operation Eclipse, the 17th Airborne Division, 82d Airborne Division, 101st Airborne Division, and a British brigade were to seize the Tempelhof, Rangsdorf, Gatow, Staaken, and Oranienburg airfields. To accomplish both objectives, Patch's 7th Army on Devers' left was to make a great arc, first driving northeastward alongside Bradley's flank, then turning south with the 3rd Army to take Nuremberg and Munich, ultimately continuing into Austria. Journal of the US Army War College. 44th District Workshop, Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, HQ South-West District & 243 (Southern) Signal Squadron, Royal Signals, Bulford, Permanent Planning Group Joint Force Headquarters, Bulford. As soon as Patton had received the orders on the 19th to make a crossing, he had begun sending assault boats, bridging equipment and other supplies forward from depots in Lorraine where they had been stockpiled since autumn in the expectation of just such an opportunity. The BAOR was no exception. 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]. Forty-nine of these divisions were American, 12 British, eight French, three Canadian and one Polish. [28], The location of the river-crossing assault was critical. 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. 63rd Station Workshop, Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, Special Investigations Branch (Germany), JHQ Rheindahlen. British Order of Battle Mid 1980 In 1980 the British Army was still organised in the Task Force system. Also during this year on 1 April, 11th Armoured Division was reorganised into 4th Infantry Division. The Battle of the Rhine was the last major battle of the United States Army in World War II. Still, by 11 April 7 Army had penetrated the German defenses in-depth, especially in the north, and was ready to begin its wheeling movement southeast and south.
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