british army of the rhine order of battle british army of the rhine order of battle

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. [38], The British Prime Minister and Chiefs of Staff strongly opposed the new plan. British 2nd. When the 4th Armored Division and elements of the 89th Infantry Division captured the small town of Ohrdruf, a few miles south of Gotha, they found the first concentration camp taken by the Western Allies. All had been unceremoniously repulsed by the vastly superior Allied forces. The only potent unit left for commitment against the Allied Rhine crossings in the north, the 116th began moving south from the Dutch-German border on 25 March against what the Germans considered their most dangerous threat, the U.S. 9th Army. Soldiers posted copies of General Eisenhower's Proclamation No. Such reinforcement units are indicated in the list below in italics followed by the higher command they were to reinforce in Germany in brackets. This NATO creation saw the BAOR being placed under its command. 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. Although the defense of these sites was somewhat more determined than that XII Corps had faced, the difficulties of the Boppard and St. Goar crossings were compounded more by terrain than by German resistance. [26], On 19 March, Eisenhower told Bradley to prepare the 1st Army for a breakout from the Remagen bridgehead any time after 22 March. Both were originally occupation forces in Germany, one after the First World War and the other after the Second World War. During Operation Lumberjack, Operation Plunder and Operation Undertone, German casualties during FebruaryMarch 1945 are estimated at 400,000 men, including 280,000 men captured as prisoners of war.[18]. HQ 1st Infantry Brigade & 215 Signal Squadron Royal Corps of Signals. IF YOU WOULD PREFER TO STAY ANONYMOUS OR KEEP ALL CONTENTS PRIVATE PLEASE STATE THIS CLEARLY ON SUBMISSION: All rights reserved. . The first British Army of the Rhine (BAOR) was created in March 1919 to control troops in the British occupation zone along the Rhine. At the very beginning of 1945, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force on the Western Front, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, had 73 divisions under his command in North-western Europe of which 49 were infantry divisions, 20 armored divisions and four airborne divisions. Recce Intelligence Centre (Gtersloh), Intelligence Corps. The same court sits in both areas and in the following tables the overall figures shown include Berlin trials. The Field Army rebalancing is part of the Armys response to the emerging Defence thinking and will create a Field Army of integrated, interdependent and complementary formations from 1 Aug 2019. Forty-nine of these divisions were American, 12 British, eight French, three Canadian and one Polish. [59], Several German political leaders have described the invasion as "liberation", including President Richard von Weizscker in 1985[60] and Chancellor Angela Merkel in 2019. 3rd Base Ammo Depot, Royal Army Ordnance Corps. Holding the middle of the Allied line from the 9th Army's right flank to a point about 15 miles (24km) south of Mainz was the 12th Army Group under the command of Lieutenant General Omar Bradley. Forward Vehicle Depot, Royal Army Ordnance Corps. The . [49], Meanwhile, on the 7th Army's right, the VI Corps had moved southeast alongside the French 1st Army. 39th District Workshop Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers. In 198485, the nine districts were Eastern (19th and 54th Brigades), London, North-East (2nd Infantry Division, 15, 24, and 49 Brigades), North-West District (42 Brigade), Scotland (51 and 52 Brigades), South-Eastern District (2 and 5 Brigades), South-West District (UK Contingent, ACE Mobile Force, 1, and 43 Brigades) Headquarters Wales (160 Brigade), and Western District (143 Brigade).[9]. 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]. This was the first major . The deployment and distribution of the divisions of the Wehrmacht and subordinate units of allies one day before the Allied air invasion near Arnhem on 17 September 1944 and the stabilization of the Western Front after the break-out of the Allied armies from Normandy.. The battle was a victory for the Allies, and resulted in the capture of over 250,000 German soldiers. In the. The first wave of boats was halfway across when the Germans began pouring machine-gun fire into their midst. [8] These districts controlled the regular army brigades in the UK (inc 1st and 5th Brigades) and the predominantly TA regional brigades. With the surrender of the German Army on 9 May 1945, the 21st Army Group became an army of occupation. While certainly incomplete (especially for the period 1120 April 1945), they reflect the ratio between casualties in both theaters in the final months of the war. Eisenhower thus turned his attention to other objectives, most notably a rapid meet-up with the Soviets to cut the German Army in two and prevent any possibility of a unified defense. While manpower and force size was limited by budgetary constraints, quality of training and equipment was commonly reported of a high standard. Despite scattered resistance from a few isolated units, the war in Europe was over. Once this was done, the 21st Army Group would take Lbeck and Wismar on the Baltic Sea, cutting off the Germans remaining in the Jutland peninsula of Denmark, while the 6th U.S. Army Group and the 3rd Army drove south into Austria. . The change resulted from an agreement between the American and Soviet military leadership based on the need to establish a readily identifiable geographical line to avoid accidental clashes between the converging Allied forces. With the Soviets at the door of Berlin, the western Allies decided any attempt on their behalf to push that far east would be too costly, concentrating instead on mopping up resistance in the west German cities. 57th Station Workshop, Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers. Up until now, if you have played a war game on the pc it's probably been a top-down hex game that's turn based, makes absolutely no use whatsoever of your machine's graphics and sound capabilities. In preparation for the Allied invasion of Germany east of the Rhine, a series of offensive operations were designed to seize and capture its east and west banks: Operation Veritable and Operation Grenade in February 1945, and Operation Lumberjack and Operation Undertone in March 1945; these are considered separate from the main invasion operation. The British Army is the land warfare branch of the British Armed Forces. German Orders of Battle from March 1, 1945 before the Allies crossed the Rhine. The Southern half of the Federal Republic of Germany was to be defended by the four Army Corps of NATO's Central Army Group (CENTAG). Welcome to BAOR Locations. The British Second Army was a field army active during the First and Second World Wars. Tactical commanders hastily enclosed huge open fields with barbed wire creating makeshift prisoner of war camps, where the inmates awaited the end of the war and their chance to return home. The divisions were created from 6th (Soest) and 20th (Detmold) Armoured Brigades and the divisional troops of 4th Division. 21 Field Hospital, Royal Army Medical Corps, 32 Field Hospital, Royal Army Medical Corps, Hannover, 83 Field Medical Equipment Depot, Royal Army Medical Corps, Hannover. The Allied front along the Rhine stretched 450 miles (720km) from the river's mouth at the North Sea in the Netherlands to the Swiss border in the south. After what had been initially a one man attempt to discover more about the British Army of the Rhine, to which he had never served under, there is now a full team in place determined towards preventing this precious history drifting into obscurity. From 1952 the commander-in-chief of the BAOR was also the commander of NATO's Northern Army Group (NORTHAG) in the event of a general war with the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies. The British Army of the Rhine (BAOR) and the Royal Air Force Command constituted Great Britain's armed forces in Germany and were one of the main pillars of the NATO defence doctrine on West German soil. 9th Field Workshop, Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (V). The last date on which the Army did not contain either a Guard's Brigade or Division as an operational unit was in 1920. Should the U.S. political leadership direct him to take Berlin, or if a situation arose in which it became militarily advisable to seize the German capital, Eisenhower would do so. 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. Was Colonel in Quartermaster branch and talks of the logistic problems - stockpiling ammunition for the crossing of the Rhine, supplies stuck in sand before Alamein. However, Hobbs had not fully taken into account the nearly nonexistent road network in front of the XVI Corps bridgehead. [80] The brigade had been disbanded in September 1981 with its units and area initially having been taken over by 8th Infantry Brigade. and comes complete with a manual big enough to be deemed as an offensive weapon i.e. West German military historian Burkhart Mller-Hillebrand estimated 265,000 dead from all causes and 1,012,000 missing and prisoners of war on all German battlefronts from 1 Jan 1945 30 April 1945. 529 Air Support Specialist Team Corps of Royal Engineers. But the other discovery made by the 3rd Army on 4 April horrified and angered those who saw it. In the early morning hours of 25 March, elements of the 87th Infantry Division crossed the Rhine to the north at Boppard, and then some 24 hours later elements of the 89th Infantry Division crossed 8 miles (13km) south of Boppard at St. Goar. Ziethen's I Army Corps was granted the honour of being the first major Allies force to enter Paris. In the British Army, divisions and brigades are referred to as "formations." [57], The crossing of the Rhine, the encirclement and reduction of the Ruhr, and the sweep to the ElbeMulde line and the Alps all established the final campaign on the Western Front as a showcase for Western Allied superiority over the Germans in maneuver warfare. Sup Regt RSA listed with SW Dist by Isby & Kamps 1985. [37], Beginning the next day, 26 March, the armored divisions of all three corps turned these initial gains into a complete breakout, shattering all opposition and roaming at will throughout the enemy's rear areas. At the very beginning of 1945, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force on the Western Front, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, had 73 divisions under his command in North-western Europe of which 49 were infantry divisions, 20 armored divisions and four airborne divisions. On October 9, the 1st Battalion, 120th Regiment, 30th Infantry Division, was ordered to take part in an afternoon attack on the fortified village of Birk, three miles north of Aachen. On roulement deployment from February 1989 to February 1991. [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. Even before the encirclement had been completed, the Germans in the Ruhr had begun making attempts at a breakout to the east. HQ Allied Mobile Force & 249 Signal Squadron (AMF(L)). 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. 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. [16][notes 1][17] Combined with the capture of Berchtesgaden, any hope of Nazi leadership continuing to wage war from a so-called "national redoubt" or escape through the Alps was crushed, shortly followed by unconditional German surrender on 8 May 1945. 2 Postal and Courier Regiment, Royal Engineers. [1][2] The most authoritative source for this type of information available is Ministry of Defence (Army Department), Master Order of Battle, (ASD 6500-25 Ministry of Defence, 1991)[3][4][5] and United Kingdom Land Forces, HQ UKLF, UKLF ORBAT Review Action Plan, HQ UKLF, 1990. Eisenhower sent Bradley his final word on the matter: the 9th Army was to stay putthere would be no effort to take Berlin. Greenhill Books. 13. 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. 21st Army Group was then instead ordered to move northeast toward Bremen and Hamburg. Under the new concept, Bradley's 12th U.S. Army Group would make the main effort, with Hodges' 1st Army in the center heading east for about 130mi (210km) toward the city of Leipzig and the Elbe River. . In December 1989, Headquarters UK Land Forces at Wilton directed field forces through a three-star's command, Commander UK Field Army, Lieutenant General Sir David Ramsbotham. Nevertheless, the 7th Army broke out of its Rhine bridgehead, just south of Frankfurt, on 28 March, employing elements of three corpsthe XV Corps to the north, the XXI Corps in the center, and the VI Corps to the south. [27], These were exactly the orders Patton had hoped for; he felt that if a sufficiently strong force could be thrown across the river and significant gains made, then Eisenhower might transfer responsibility for the main drive through Germany from Montgomery's 21st Army Group to Bradley's 12th. 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. [46], As was the case throughout the campaign, the German ability to fight was sporadic and unpredictable during the drive to the ElbeMulde line. At 11:30 on 25 April, a small patrol from the 69th Infantry Division met a lone Soviet horseman in the village of Leckwitz. At the top of the Army organisation is the Army Board of the Defence Council. 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. During the three days leading up to Montgomery's attack, targets in front of the 21st Army Group zone and in the Ruhr area to the southeast were pummeled by about 11,000 sorties, effectively sealing off the Ruhr while easing the burden on Montgomery's assault forces. By then, the paratroopers had taken all their first day's objectives in addition to 3,500 prisoners. The 339th Infantry [85th Division] reached Austrian soil east of Dobbiaco at 0415, 4 May; the Reconnaissance Troop, 349th Infantry. . . On the Western Front, the Allies had been fighting in Germany with campaigns against the Siegfried Line since the Battle of Aachen, the Battle of Metz and the Battle of Hrtgen Forest in late 1944 and by January 1945, had pushed the Germans back to their starting points during the Battle of the Bulge. It was administered by the War Office from London, which was subsumed into the Ministry of Defence in 1964. Use the search function to locate the Order of battle by title or file name. "I have been visiting some of the units and found them, ready for the . There have been two formations named British Army of the Rhine (BAOR). Entering in the night, the commandos secured the city late on the morning of 24 March, although scattered resistance continued until dawn on the 25th. 27th District Workshop, Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers. [6], As the potential threat of Soviet invasion across the North German Plain into West Germany increased, BAOR became more responsible for the defence of West Germany than its occupation. Drawing on the experience gained during the campaign in Normandy and the Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine, the Western Allies demonstrated in western Germany and Austria their capability of absorbing the lessons of the past. As the first boats reached the east bank, seven startled Germans surrendered and then paddled themselves unescorted to the west bank to be placed in custody. The right-wing of the British Second Army reached the Elbe southeast of Hamburg on 19 April. The BAOR was no exception. In the British Army division-level formations are administrative or deployable formations. by | Jun 30, 2022 | robert a altman cause of death | what vpn does rush limbaugh endorse | Jun 30, 2022 | robert a altman cause of death | what vpn does rush limbaugh endorse [49], On 30 April, elements of 7th Army's XV and XXI Corps captured Munich, 30 miles (48km) south of the Danube, while the first elements of its VI Corps had already entered Austria two days earlier. 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. In a few days the war in Europe would be over. 2nd Infantry Division was to defend the Corps Rear Area and prepare a last line of defense along the Western bank of the Weser river. [16] Also on 4 May, after a shift in inter-army boundaries that placed Salzburg in the 7th Army sector, that city surrendered to elements of the XV Corps. 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. By 9 April, both the 9th and 1st Armies had seized bridgeheads over the Leine, prompting Bradley to order an unrestricted eastward advance. HQ North-East District & 240 (North) Signal Squadron. Otherwise, he would pursue those objectives that would end the war soonest.