Operation Veritable

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Western Front (World War II)
France - The Netherlands - Dunkirk - Britain - Dieppe - Villefranche-de-Rouergue - Normandy - Dragoon - Siegfried Line - Market Garden - Aintree - Scheldt - Hurtgen Forest - Aachen - Bulge - Colmar Pocket - Plunder

Operation Veritable was the northern part of the Second World War pincer movement by Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery's 21st Army Group to clear the land between the Rhine and Roer rivers. General Dwight Eisenhower, the Allied Commander, had decided that the best route into Germany would be across the relatively flat lands of northern Europe. This required that Allied forces should close up to the Rhine along its whole length.

At this stage, 21st Army Group consisted of the British Second Army (Lieutenant General Miles Dempsey, First Canadian Army (General Harry Crerar) and the US Ninth Army (Lieutenant General William Simpson). While the British Second Army would hold the northern flank, the Canadian First Army, reinforced, would advance through the Reichswald Forest. The US Ninth Army was to execute Operation Grenade, the southern part of the pincer.

Operation Veritable began on February 8, 1945 and the next day the Germans blew the gates out of the largest Roer dam, sending water surging down the valley. The next day they added to the flooding by doing the same to dams further up stream on the Roer and the Urft. The river rose at two foot an hour and the valley down stream to the Meuse stayed flooded for about two weeks.

The British Second and the Canadian First were able to continue their advance with heavy fighting along the narrow neck of land between the Meuse and the Waal east of Nijmegen, but the U.S. Ninth were unable to advance until the waters went down during the third week.

During the two weeks that the river was flooded Hitler would not allow the Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt to withdraw East behind the Rhine arguing that it would only delay the inevitable fight. He ordered him to fight where his forces stood.

By the time the water had subsided and the Ninth Army was able to cross the Roer on February 23, other Allied forces were also close to the Rhine's west bank. Rundstedt's divisions which had remained on the west bank of the Rhine were cut to pieces in the battle of the Rhineland and 290,000 men were taken prisoner.