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. Its primary combat formation was British I Corps. [2] The Cologne Post was a newspaper published for members of the BAOR during this period. In the event of war with the Warsaw Pact the Commander-in-Chief of BAOR would have assumed command of NATO's Northern Army Group (NORTHAG), which was tasked with defending Northern Germany up to the river Elbe. S. L. A. Marshall. They include the Royal Artillery, the Royal Engineers, the RoyalSignals and the Intelligence Corps. The Battle of the Rhine was the last major battle of the United States Army in World War II. The following is a hierarchical outline for the structure of the British Army in 1989. 10th Field Squadron (Airfields), 38th Engineer Regiment, Royal Engineers. 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). 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). The Site is now approaching three years of age and much has happened in that time. Simpson, in turn, ordered a combat command of the 2nd Armored Division, which had just reached Beckum, to make a 15mi (24km) advance southeast to Lippstadt, midway between Beckum and the stalled 3rd Armored Division spearhead. Combat Support units: These units provide support to the combat units in the combat zone. The 2nd Army's XII Corps and the 9th Army's XVI Corps began the main effort about 02:00 on 24 March, following a massive artillery and air bombardment. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. On mobilisation the regiments would join their divisional artillery. On 12 April, additional 9th Army elements attained the Elbe and by the next day were on the opposite bank hopefully awaiting permission to drive on to Berlin. This is known as the Central Europe Campaign in United States military histories. Luftwaffe Data Book. There have been two formations named British Army of the Rhine ( BAOR ). By the end of 28 March, Hodges' 1st Army had crossed the Lahn, having driven at least 50mi (80km) beyond the original line of departure, capturing thousands of German soldiers in the process. The initial assault waves crossed the river quickly, meeting only light opposition. If successful, this pincer movement would envelop the industrial Ruhr area, neutralizing the largest concentration of German industrial capacity left. [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. Such reinforcement units are indicated in the list below in italics followed by the higher command they were to reinforce in Germany in brackets. 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. Soldiers requisitioned housing and office space as needed from residents. [33], Montgomery responded to these concerns by making a few small adjustments to the plan. In the. is infantry division. 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]. Trackpad Publishing, 2022. At first, this was done informally with occupants evicted immediately and taking with them few personal possessions, but the process became standardized, with three hours' notice and OMGUS personnel providing receipts for buildings' contents. In the center of the front, defending the Ruhr, Kesselring had Field Marshal Walther Model commanding Army Group B (15th Army and 5th Panzer Army) and in the south Paul Hausser's Army Group G (7th Army, 1st Army and 19th Army). [7] In 1967, the force was reduced in strength to 53,000 soldiers, compared with 80,000 ten years earlier. 27th District Workshop, Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers. These rapid advances on the Eastern Front destroyed additional veteran German combat units and severely limited German Fhrer Adolf Hitler's ability to reinforce his Rhine defenses. [34], For the American crossing, Simpson had chosen the veteran 30th and 79th Infantry Divisions of the XVI Corps. All had been unceremoniously repulsed by the vastly superior Allied forces. 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. In a double envelopment, the French captured Stuttgart on 21 April, and by the next day, both the French and the VI Corps had elements on the Danube. The events of the first few days of the final campaign would be enough to convince him that this was the proper course of action. 1997. For operational tasks a battle group would be formed around a combat unit, supported by units or sub-units from other areas. 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. 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. In the end, the campaign proceeded as Eisenhower had planned it. 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. Both were originally occupation forces in Germany, one after the First World War and the other after the Second World War. [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. [31], Plunder called for the Second Army to cross at three locations along the 21st Army Group frontat Rees, Xanten and Rheinberg. Although he declined to increase the size of the American crossing force beyond two divisions, he agreed to keep it under the 9th Army rather than Second Army control. 1st Armoured Division Transport Regiment, Royal Corps of Transport, 1st Ordnance Battalion, Royal Army Ordnance Corps, Verden, 7th Armoured Workshop, Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, Fallingbostel, 12th Armoured Workshop, Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, Osnabrck, 1st Armoured Field Ambulance, Royal Army Medical Corps, Bergen-Hohne, 2nd Armoured Field Ambulance, Royal Army Medical Corps, Osnabrck, 111th Provost Company, Royal Military Police, Bergen-Hohne, HQ 7th Armoured Brigade & 207th Signal Squadron, Royal Signals, Soltau, HQ 12th Armoured Brigade & 212th Signal Squadron, Royal Signals, Osnabrck, HQ 22nd Armoured Brigade & 201st Signal Squadron, Royal Signals, Bergen-Hohne, 10 (Assaye) Air Defence Battery (under command of Field regiment for admin), HQ 3rd Armoured Division & Signal Regiment, Royal Signals, Soest, 13th Postal & Courier Squadron, Royal Engineers, Soest. 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. Seeing this equipment moving up, his frontline soldiers did not need any orders from higher headquarters to tell them what it meant. British Commandos on the outskirts of Wesel 3-inch mortar of the 8th Royal Scots under enemy fire during the Rhine crossing, 24 March 1945 Aftermath [ edit] Impact on German forces and command [ edit] The Allied operation was opposed by the German 1st Parachute Army, commanded by General Alfred Schlemm, a part of Army Group H. They include the Adjutant-Generals Corps, the Army Medical Services, the Royal Logistics Corps and the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers. 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. An intense exchange of fire lasted for about thirty minutes as assault boats kept pushing across the river and those men who had already made it across mounted attacks against the scattered defensive strongpoints. 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. Here the Germans turned a thick defense belt of antiaircraft guns against the American ground troops with devastating effects. Unfortunately, because of pressure from the Germans in the northern part of the 2nd Army bridgehead, the British were having trouble completing their bridges at Xanten and were, therefore, bringing most of their traffic across the river at Wesel. During the Second World War the army was the main British contribution to the Normandy landings on 6 June 1944 and advance across Europe . The Rhineland Campaign, 1945 The Hard Winter On New Year's Day 1945, eight German divisions attacked south out of the Saar attempting to trap Eisenhower's thinned-out flank in Alsace. [33], Another important aspect of Montgomery's plan was Operation Varsity, in which two divisions of Major General Matthew Ridgway's XVIII Airborne Corps were to make an airborne assault over the Rhine. After overcoming stiff initial resistance, XV Corps also advanced beyond the Rhine, opposed primarily by small German strongpoints sited in roadside villages. Once the bridgehead was secured the British 6th Airborne Division would be transferred to Second Army control, while the U.S. 17th Airborne Division would revert to 9th Army control. Inf.Div. 89) are: Area 1 The Federal Republic of Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands; Area 2 Berlin. Several other patrols from the 69th had similar encounters later that day, and on 26 April the division commander, Maj. Gen. Emil F. Reinhardt, met Maj. Gen. Vladimir Rusakov of the Soviet 58th Guards Rifle Division at Torgau in the first official link-up ceremony. 34 Evacuation Hospital, Royal Army Medical Corps, 31st District Workshop, Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, Catterick. 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. CONTENTS OF EMAILS MAY BE DISPLAYED ON THIS SITE (BUT IN AN ENCRYPTED FORMAT TO DETER SPAMMERS) TO BENEFIT HISTORY. . [36], Adding to the Germans' woes, the 6th Army Group made an assault across the Rhine on 26 March. It was administered by the War Office from London, which was subsumed into the Ministry of Defence in 1964. Only when Soviet artillery was falling around his Berlin headquarters bunker did he begin to perceive the final outcome. [28], The terrain in the vicinity of Nierstein and Oppenheim was conducive to artillery support, with high ground on the west bank overlooking relatively flat land to the east. Last edited on 12 February 2023, at 22:39, "Outline of the British Army at the end of the Cold War", Learn how and when to remove this template message, Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, 2nd Infantry Divisional Transport Regiment, Royal Corps of Transport, The Green Howards (Alexandra, Princess of Wales's Own Yorkshire Regiment), Prince of Wales's Own Regiment of Yorkshire, 71st (Scottish) Engineer Regiment Corps of Royal Engineers (V), 73rd Volunteer Engineer Regiment Corps of Royal Engineers (V), 39th Airfield Damages Repair Engineer Regiment Corps of Royal Engineers, 33rd Explosive Ordnance Disposal Engineer Regiment Corps of Royal Engineers, 7th Parachute Regiment, Royal Horse Artillery, 13th/18th (Queen Mary's Own) Royal Hussars, 266 (Gloucestershire Volunteer Artillery) Observation Post Battery, 157th (Wales & Midlands) Transport Regiment, 74th (Antrim Artillery) Engineer Regiment Corps of Royal Engineers (V), 75th Volunteer Engineer Regiment Royal Corps of Engineers (V), 33 (Lancashire and Cheshire) Signal Regiment, 3rd (Volunteer) Battalion, Cheshire Regiment, 103rd (Lancashire Artillery Volunteers) Air Defence Regiment, Royal Artillery, 156th (Merseyside and Greater Manchester) Transport Regiment, 102nd (Ulster) Air Defence Regiment, Royal Artillery, Blowpipe surface-to-air missile launchers, The Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment), 4th (Volunteer) Battalion (North Irish Militia), Royal Irish Rangers, 5th (Volunteer) Battalion, Royal Irish Rangers, 16th (British Army of the Rhine) Signal Regiment, 21st Air Support Signal Regiment Royal Corps of Signals, 28 Amphibious Engineer Regiment, Royal Engineers, 1st Field Regiment, Royal Horse Artillery, Structure of the British Armed Forces in 1989, United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus, 7th Duke of Edinburgh's Own Gurkha Rifles, "British Army: NATO Order of Battle 1989", "19911216 MORBAT Redacted PP 01 85 BAOR U", "19911216 MORBAT Redacted PP 86 105 Non UK Units U", "19911216 MORBAT REDACTED PP 106 229 UK Based Units U", "Senior Army Appointments:Deputy Commander-in-Chief, Land Forces", "British Army of the Rhine Order of Battle, July 1989", "British Army of the Rhine & Royal Air Force Germany 1989: Organisation and stationing of the British Armed Forces in Germany in 1989", "British Army units from 1945 on 2 Regiment", "British Army units from 1945 on Regiments 1 to 10", "British Army units from 1945 on 210 Squadron", "British Army units from 1945 on Green Howards", "Military Bands Monday 14 May 1990 Hansard UK Parliament", "British Army units from 1945 on Prince of Wales's Own Regiment of Yorkshire", "British Army units from 1945 on Light Infantry", "British Army units from 1945 on 27th Regiment RA", "British Army units from 1945 on 16th Regiment RA", "British Army units from 1945 on 209 Squadron", "British Army units from 1945 on Royal Hussars", "British Army units from 1945 on 45th Regiment RA", "British Army units from 1945 on Squadrons 1 to 10", "British Army units from 1945 on Ordnance Companies 20 to 70", "British Army units from 1945 on Field, Infantry & Armoured Workshops 6 to 10", "British Army units from 1945 on Field Ambulances 11 to 20", "British Army units from 1945 on Provost Companies 101 to 169", "British Army units from 1945 on 216 Squadron", "British Army units from 1945 on Life Guards", "British Army units from 1945 on 1st Bn Parachute Regiment", "British Army units from 1945 on 2nd Bn Parachute Regiment", "British Army units from 1945 on 7th Regiment RHA", "British Army units from 1945 on District Workshops", "British Army units from 1945 on 203 Squadron", "British Army units from 1945 on Worcestershire and Sherwood Foresters Regiment", "FOI(A) relating to the Ulster Defence Regiment battalion locations and company locations in 1989", "British Army units from 1945 on 218 Squadron", "British Army units from 1945 on Hampshire Regiment", "British Army units from 1945 on Gloucestershire Regiment", "British Army units from 1945 on Provost Companies 170 to 260", "British Army units from 1945 on 213 Squadron", "British Army units from 1945 on Black Watch", "British Army units from 1945 on 33 Squadron", "The British Military Garrison in Ireland British Army", "British Army of the Rhine Order of Battle July 1989", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Outline_of_the_British_Army_at_the_end_of_the_Cold_War&oldid=1139014224, HQ Scotland District & 242 (Scottish) Signal Squadron, Royal Signals, Edinburgh.