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Operation ''Veritable'' (also known as the Battle of the Reichswald) was the northern part of an Allied pincer movement conducted by British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery's 21st Army Group, primarily consisting of the First Canadian Army under Harry Crerar and the British XXX Corps under Brian Horrocks. The operation took place during the Second World War between 8 February and 11 March 1945, with the objective to clear German forces from the area between the Rhine and Maas rivers, east of the German/Dutch frontier, in the Rhineland. It was part of General Dwight Eisenhower's "broad front" strategy to occupy the entire west bank of the Rhine before its crossing. ''Veritable'' (originally called ''Valediction'') had been planned for execution in early January, 1945 when the ground had been frozen and thus more advantageous to the Allies. The Allied expectation was that the northern end of the Siegfried Line was less well defended than elsewhere and an outflanking movement around the line was possible and would allow an early assault against the industrial Ruhr region. The operation had complications. First, the heavily forested terrain, squeezed between the Rhine and Maas rivers, reduced Anglo-Canadian advantages in manpower and armour and the situation was exacerbated by soft ground which had thawed after the winter and also by the deliberate flooding of the adjacent Rhine flood plain. Second, ''Veritable'' was the northern arm of a pincer movement. The southern pincer arm, Operation ''Grenade'', by the U.S. Ninth Army, had had to be postponed for two weeks when the Germans released the waters from the Roer dams and river levels rose. No military actions could proceed across the Roer until the water subsided. ''Veritable'' started on schedule, with XXX Corps advancing through the forest and the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division, in amphibious vehicles, clearing enemy positions in the drowned Rhine flood plain. The Allied advance proceeded more slowly than expected and at greater cost. The delay to ''Grenade'' had allowed German forces to be concentrated against the Anglo-Canadian advance and the local German commander, Alfred Schlemm acting against the assessments of his superiors, had strengthened the Siegfried Line defences and had fresh elite troops readily available to him. The fighting was hard, but the Allied advance continued. On 22 February, once clear of the Reichswald (German, Imperial Forest), and with the towns of Kleve and Goch in their control, the offensive was renewed under as ''Blockbuster'' and linked up with the US 9th Army near Geldern on 4 March. Fighting continued as the Germans sought to retain a bridgehead on the west bank of the Rhine at Wesel and evacuate as many men and as much equipment as possible. Finally, on 10 March, the German withdrawal ended and the last bridges were destroyed. After the war, American General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Allied Supreme Commander, commented this "was some of the fiercest fighting of the whole war" and "a bitter slugging match in which the enemy had to be forced back yard by yard". Montgomery, the 21st Army Group commander, wrote "the enemy parachute troops fought with a fanaticism un-excelled at any time in the war" and "the volume of fire from enemy weapons was the heaviest which had so far been met by British troops in the campaign." ==Context== General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Allied Commander, had decided that the best route into Germany would be across the relatively flat lands of northern Europe, taking the industrial heartland of the Ruhr. This first required that Allied forces should close up to the Rhine along its whole length. Montgomery's 21st Army Group had established a front along the River Maas in late 1944 and had also considered several offensive operations to enlarge and defend the Nijmegen bridgehead and its important bridges (captured during the operation to capture Arnhem). One such proposal, ''Valediction'' (a development of an earlier plan; ''Wyvern'') - an assault south-eastwards from Nijmegen between the Rhine and Maas rivers, initially had been shelved by Montgomery. A conference was convened at Maastricht on 7 December 1944 between Allied generals, to consider ways of maintaining pressure on the Germans throughout the winter. Consequently, ''Valediction'' was brought forward and allocated to the 1st Canadian Army. British XXX Corps were attached to the Canadians for the opereration and the date was provisionally set as 1 January 1945. At this point, the name ''Veritable'' was attached to the operation in place of ''Valediction''.〔Stacey, Chapter 17, pp 436 - 439〕 In the event, ''Veritable'' was delayed by the diversion of forces to stem the German attack through the Ardennes in December (Battle of the Bulge) and the advantages to the Allies of hard, frozen ground were lost. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Operation Veritable」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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