British XXX Corps

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XXX Corps cross the road bridge at Nijmegen during Market Garden.
Active	1941 – 1945
Country	United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Branch	British Army
Type	Corps
Battles/wars	North African Campaign Italian Campaign Battle of Normandy Operation Market Garden
Commanders
Notable commanders	Lieut.Gen. William Havelock Ramsden Lieut.Gen. Sir Oliver Leese Lieut.Gen. Gerard Bucknall Lieut.Gen. Sir Brian Horrocks

The British XXX Corps was an armoured corps in the British Army during World War II. Its ensignia was a prancing lion.

1 History
2 Market Garden
3 Ardennes
4 The Rhineland Campaign
5 Commanders
6 See also

[edit] History

[edit] North Africa

It played a major role in the Western Desert Campaign, where it was initially formed for the British Armoured Units in North Africa in preparation for Operation Crusader, the last British attempt to relieve the siege of Tobruk . It took severe casualties, mainly because of obsolete British tank tactics, (especially charging anti-tank guns) but finally forced Rommel's Afrika Korps to withdraw to El Agheila in Central Libya.

In 1942, however, Rommel had counter-attacked and driven the British back to Gazala , a few kilometers west of Tobruk. The plan of 8th Army Commander Neil Ritchie was to have XIII Corps hold the line, while XXX Corps would stop any attempt to outflank the position south of Bir Hachiem, held by the 1st Free French Brigade. They managed to slow Rommel's armour down, and forced Rommel's tanks into The Cauldron, the gap left in the British Lines by the destruction of the 150th Infantry Brigade. British Counterattacks attempted to crush it, but failed. Eventually, the Free French at Bir Hachiem were forced to withdraw, and Rommel was able to break out of the Cauldron. XXX Corps then was forced to retreat to Mersa Matuh, held by the newly formed British X Corps. However, the Germans quickly broke through, surrounded X Corps (Which, fortunately for the British, managed to successfully break out), and pushed XXX Corps back to El Alamein.

[edit] El Alamein

The depleted XXX Corps pulled back to El Alamein, the last defensible position short of the River Nile. It was the only place in the desert in which the normal rule of desert operations - "There is always an open flank" did not apply. XXX Corps was assigned to hold the northern part of the line (though at this point, it was reinforced by units from XIII Corps, including the 1st South African Division since it was in extremely bad shape). Rommel's Afrika Korps, exhausted and depleted, could not break through the shattered XXX Corps.

Upset over the defeats in North Africa, British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill decided to sack General Auchinleck, Commander-in-Chief of British Forces in the Middle East, and at that point, the Commander of the 8th Army. He was replaced as CiC Middle East by Harold Alexander, and as GOC Eighth Army by Major General William Gott, commander of the 7th Armoured Division. However, Gott died in a plane crash, and his place was taken by Bernard Montgomery

A month after the 1st Battle of El Alamein, Rommel again decided to attempt a breakthrough at El Alamein. This time, towards Alam Halfa ridge. This attack put a lot of pressure on XIII Corps, but XXX Corps was involved because of several German diversionary raids. After the victory at Alam Halfa, Montgomery prepared to go on the offensive. He brought more troops including the veteran 9th Australian Division, 2nd New Zealand Division and 51st (Highland) Infantry Division to reinforce XXX Corps. XXX Corps was then involved in extensive retraining, as it was to make a major push and create a corridor for the Tanks of X Corps to break through.

On the night of 24 October, Montgomery was ready with his attack. After a huge artillery bombardment unseen since the First World War, XXX Corps left its trenches, and began to attack. XXX Corps took horrendous casualties, but the experienced Australians, New Zealanders, Highlanders and South Africans continued to push the attack and soon several gaps were created in the minefields. Finally, XXX Corps attacks were ground to a halt because of German resistance. Early in the morning of 2 November, Montgomery launched Operation Supercharge, a major attack by X Corps and XXX Corps (which was reinforced by the 50th (Northumbrian) Division. By 4 November, X Corps had broken through, and the Battle of el Alamein was won.

After El Alamein, XXX Corps pushed forward slowly and made sure they didn't run out of supplies. They finally stopped at the Mareth Line, in Tunisia in Late February. However, to Montgomery's dismay, the excellent 9th Australian Division was withdrawn and sent to the Pacific on the insistence of the Australian Government, and the 1st South African was left in Egypt

[edit] Tunisia

In late March, XXX Corps launched an attack on the Mareth Line, with the British 50th Infantry and 51st Infantry Division in the lead. They managed to create a gap, but it was quickly contained by Rommel's 15th Panzer Division. However, the New Zealand Corps had found a way around the position and had outflanked it by the night of the 26th/27th, forcing the outflanked German Forces to withdraw northwards to Wadi Akrit.

In mid-April, XXX Corps attempted to attack the position head on, but made little progress against determined German and Italian Resistance. However, by that time, the British First Army had broken through the German line elsewhere, and the Axis forces were forced to surrender.

[edit] Sicily

On 10 July 1943, XXX Corps was sent to invade the Italian island of Sicily. XXX Corps (under Lieutenant General Oliver Leese) was to compose the Left Flank of the British Eighth Army. For this, it was reinforced with the 1st Canadian Infantry Division and the 231st Infantry Brigade, made up of units from Malta. However, the 2nd New Zealand and the 4th Indian Division were not available for Sicily, because they had both incurred heavy losses.

XXX Corps landed near Pachino, in Sicily, and made early gains against the Italian 206th Coastal Division and the Napoli Division. By 18 July, it was halfway to Messina. Progress slowed considerably after that, because Sicily's mountainous terrain favoured well-equipped defenders (like the German forces in Group Schmalz), and they managed to move very little. The Axis began withdrawing troops from Sicily, and the Germans put up a brave fighting withdrawal. By 17 July, the last German troops had pulled back across the straits of Messina, and the Allies were in control of Sicily. XXX Corps was then pulled out of the line, and sent to the UK to re-fit and re-train for Operation Overlord

[edit] Normandy

In Normandy, XXX Corps again included the 50th Northumbrian Division, which landed on Gold Beach. It quickly overwhelmed the German defenders of the 716th Infantry Division, and had linked up with the British 1st Corps by the end of D-Day. It was then engaged in a gruelling process of attrition, making slow gains, but by 10 June, had linked up with US forces advancing from Omaha Beach. On 12 June, an opportunity arose. The Germans had a massive gap in their front lines near the Town of Camount. 7th Armoured was quickly sent to exploit the gap, and head towards Villers Bocage in an attempt to outflank the German Panzer Lehr Division and force them to withdraw. This attack was thwarted by Tiger Ace Michael Wittmann, leading the 101st SS Heavy Tank Battalion, which smashed the spearhead of the British 7th Armoured, 4th County of London Yeomanry, and forced the British back. The gap was quickly sealed. The Commander of XXX Corps, Lieutenant General Gerard Bucknall received a lot of criticism for this, because Montgomery believed that if other units of 7th Armoured had moved up quicker, it would have been successful and several German divisions could have been destroyed.

The Corps was then involved in the battle of attrition with only minor gains being made. Up to 24 July, the front line remained relatively unchanged. On that day, the Americans launched Operation Cobra, a full scale attack on German positions in the Contentin. They made considerable progress, and the British Operation Bluecoat was launched to exploit the momentum. VIII Corps, on the right flank of Bluecoat, made considerable progress, but XXX Corps was sluggish. Annoyed, Montgomery sacked Bucknall and replaced him with Brian Horrocks, a veteran of North Africa. After the sacking of Bucknall, the performance of XXX Corps improved considerably, and it managed to keep up with the other British Corps during the Battle for the Falaise Gap. After the German collapse, XXX Corps quickly advanced North-east and liberated both Antwerp and Brussels in Belgium. There the advance was halted because there was a shortage of fuel. Elements of Guards Armoured and the 2nd Household Cavalry Regiment managed to secure a bridge across the Meuse-Escaut canal into Holland. This bridge was nicknamed Joe's Bridge in honour of Lieutenant Colonel Joe Vandeleur, Commander of the 2nd Battalion, Irish Guards who captured the bridge.

[edit] Market Garden

After the success in France and Belgium, General Montgomery now turned his attention to establishing a bridge crossing over the Rhine. The bridge at Arnhem looked ideal - capturing it would liberate Holland, trap the German 25th Army and 1st Airborne Army there, and allowing the Allies a way to outflank the Siegfried Line. To do this, he decided to deploy the 1st Allied Airborne Army, with the US 101st Airborne Division dropped at Eindhoven, to secure the Son, and Wilhelmina Canal bridges, the US 82nd dropped at Nijmegen, to secure the Grave and Nijmegen bridge, while the British 1st Airborne was dropped at Arnhem, to secure the bridge over the Neder Rijn. XXX corps which consisted of about 50,000 men was supposed advance and reach Arnhem to relieve the paratroops within 48 hours.

Vehicles of the Guards Armoured Division of XXX Corps passing through Grave having linked up with US 82nd Airborne Division.

Operation Market Garden kicked off at 14:00 on Sunday 17 September 1944 and it was the largest airborne operation in history. It was, however beset by problems. There were not enough transport planes to drop all the divisions in one day - the British 1st Airborne Division landed with only two of its four brigades on 17 September, and the gliders of the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions didn't arrive until 20 September. Furthermore, as XXX Corps advanced north, it soon became obvious that the single highway was extremely vulnerable to enemy counter-attack and was prone to traffic jams.

The lead elements of XXX Corps, Guards Armoured Division, were ambushed by unexpectedly strong German defences causing delays to the advance. As a result, they were nowhere near their objectives by the end of the first day. On the second day of Market Garden, the Guards Armoured continued northwards to Eindhoven, where they met elements of the 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division. They soon discovered that the 101st had failed to secure the bridge over the Son intact, and there were quite a lot of delays before bridge engineers arrived to build a pontoon bridge.

After that, Guards Armoured advanced without facing much resistance, and had reached the Nijmegen Bridge by the fourth day of the advance, where they found that the US 82nd Airborne Division had failed to capture the bridge. XXX Corps brought up boats, allowing elements of the 82nd to be ferried across the river, where they captured the Nijmegen bridge. The Guards Armoured advanced and quickly established positions on the northern bank.

Further south, in the 101st Airborne Sector, many units from XXX Corps had to be detached to fight off repeated German attempts to cut the corridor. The 231st Infantry Brigade (from 50th Northumbrians) and the 4th Armoured Brigade spent most of the time during Operation Market Garden rushing up and down the 101st Airborne Sector. This created major traffic jams on the road, and delayed reinforcements to the spearheads in the north - particularly the 43rd Wessex Division and the other two brigades of the 50th, which further slowed down the advance.

By the fifth day, Guards Armoured was exhausted. It had fought continuously for 5 days, much of it against fierce German resistance, and they were unable to continue the advance any longer. 43rd Wessex was brought up to continue the advance, and they managed to defeat the elements of the 10th SS Panzer Division facing them, and advanced to the Neder Rhine. There, a battalion of the 43rd crossed the River in an attempt to relieve 1st Airborne, but were forced to withdraw. In the end, only 2,000 out of 11,000 men of the 1st Airborne Division managed to escape across the Neder Rhine, and the final bridge over the Rhine was not secured.

Market Garden had failed.

In the following weeks, XXX Corps spent most of its time guarding the tiny strip of corridor that it had managed to create during the advance. Eventually, this corridor would be expanded, and would provide the 1st Canadian Army with a secure base to jump off from when they attacked Arnhem.

[edit] Ardennes

During the Battle of the Bulge, units of XXX Corps moved to secure the bridges over the Meuse. On 27 December the Corps pushed the 2nd Panzer Division out of Celles. On 31 December they captured Rochefort at the western end of the salient.