Riviera to the Rhine
Riviera to the Rhine

Author: Robert Ross Smith

Publisher: CreateSpace

Published: 2015-07-27

Total Pages: 628

ISBN-13: 9781515233794

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With the publication of "Riviera to the Rhine", the Center of Military History completes its series of operational histories treating the activities of the U.S. Army's combat forces during World War II. This volume examines the least known of the major units in the European theater, General Jacob L. Devers' 6th Army Group. Under General Devers' leadership, two armies, the U.S. Seventh Army under General Alexander M. Patch and the First French Army led by General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny, landing on the Mediterranean coast near Marseille in August 1944, cleared the enemy out of southern France and then turned east and joined with army groups under Field Marshal Sir Bernard L. Montgomery and General Omar N. Bradley in the final assault on Germany. In detailing the campaign of these Riviera-based armies, the authors have concentrated on the operational level of war, paying special attention to the problems of joint, combined, and special operations and to the significant roles of logistics, intelligence, and personnel policies in these endeavors. They have also examined in detail deception efforts at the tactical and operational levels, deep battle penetrations, river-crossing efforts, combat in built-up areas, and tactical innovations at the combined arms level.

First to the Rhine
First to the Rhine

Author: Mark Stout, Harry Yeide

Publisher:

Published:

Total Pages: 440

ISBN-13: 9781616739652

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This is the story of the Allied forces--the U.S. 6th Army Group and French 1st Army--that landed in southern France on August 15th, 1944. The book follows the action from the French beaches to the Vosges Mountains, where the first Allied penetration along the entire Western front reached the Rhine River. First to the Rhine covers the vicious fighting during the German Nordwind counteroffensive in January 1945 and the French-American offensive to clear the Colmar Pocket. It then pursues the forces of the Third Reich across the Rhine to their ultimate destruction. Unlike the forces landing in Normandy, these American divisions were hard-bitten veterans of the war in Italy, and, in the case of the 3d Infantry Division, North Africa. The French units included many veterans of the Italian campaign and comprised Frenchmen and Africans in almost equal numbers. As the campaign went on, the French ranks were swelled by tens of thousands of Free French Forces of the Interior, the famous maquis. The German forces arrayed against the Allies included the famed 11th Panzer Division, an Eastern front veteran known as the "Ghost Division," which would hit the Allied advance time and again only to slip away before it could be pinned and destroyed. This is the harrowing story First to the Rhine tells, from the strategic plane-down through the corps, division, and regimental levels to the personal experience of the men in combat, including the likes of Audie Murphy, Americas most decorated infantryman of the war. The book features little-known battles, including one at Montelimar, when an ad hoc American armored command and the 36th Infantry Division came within a hairs breadth and several days of hard fighting of cutting off the entire German 19th Army. This is the first popular work in English to explore the French role in the fighting and the relationship between the U.S. Army and the French forces fighting under American command.

The Lorraine Campaign
The Lorraine Campaign

Author: Hugh Marshall Cole

Publisher:

Published: 1984

Total Pages: 740

ISBN-13:

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This account focuses on the tactical operations of the Third Army and its subordinate units between 1 September and 18 December 1944.

United States Army in WWII - Europe - Riviera to the Rhine
United States Army in WWII - Europe - Riviera to the Rhine

Author: Robert Ross Smith

Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing

Published: 2014-08-15

Total Pages: 886

ISBN-13: 1782894152

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[Includes 35 maps and 77 illustrations] Riviera to the Rhine examines a significant portion of the Allied drive across northern Europe and focuses on the vital role played in that drive by the U.S. 6th Army Group, commanded by General Jacob L. Devers, and its two major components, the American Seventh Army, under General Alexander M. Patch, and the French First Army, under General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny. Had these forces not existed, Eisenhower’s two northern army groups, those commanded by Field Marshal Sir Bernard L. Montgomery and General Omar N. Bradley, would have been stretched much thinner, with their offensive and defensive capabilities greatly reduced. In such a case the German offensive of Dec. 1944 might have met with greater success, easily postponing the final Allied drive into Germany with unforeseen military and political consequences. Riviera thus should balance the greater public attention given to the commands of Montgomery and Bradley by concentrating on the accomplishments of those led by Devers, Patch, and de Lattre and, in the process, by highlighting the crucial logistical contributions of the southern French ports to the Allied war effort. Finally Riviera is the study of a combined, Franco-American military effort, one which frequently saw major combat units of each nation commanded by generals of the other on the field of battle. Although outwardly similar, each national component had its own unique style, and a deep appreciation of one another’s strengths and weaknesses was vital to the success of the combined force. National political considerations also played a significant role in the operations of the combined force as did personal conflicts within both chains of command, all of which had to be resolved primarily by the principal commanders in the field.

United States Army in WWII - Europe - the Last Offensive
United States Army in WWII - Europe - the Last Offensive

Author: Charles B. MacDonald

Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing

Published: 2014-08-15

Total Pages: 792

ISBN-13: 1782894195

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[Includes 26 maps and 92 illustrations] The American armies that absorbed the shock of the German counteroffensives in the Ardennes and Alsace in the winter of 1944-45 were the most powerful and professional that the United States had yet put in the field. That this was the case was abundantly demonstrated as the final campaign to reduce Nazi Germany to total defeat unfolded. The campaign was remarkably varied. As it gathered momentum in the snows of the Ardennes and the mud and pillboxes of the West Wall, the fighting was often as bitter as any that had gone before among the hedgerows of Normandy and the hills and forests of the German frontier. Yet the defense which the Germans were still able to muster following the futile expenditure of lives and means in the counteroffensives was brittle. The campaign soon evolved into massive sweeps by powerful Allied columns across the width and breadth of Germany. That the Germans could continue to resist for more than two months in the face of such overwhelming power was a testament to their pertinacity but it was a grim tragedy as well. To such an extent had they subjugated themselves to their Nazi leaders that they were incapable of surrender at a time when defeat was inevitable and surrender would have spared countless lives on both sides. It was a dramatic campaign: the sweep of four powerful U.S. armies to the Rhine; the exhilarating capture of a bridge at Remagen; assault crossings of the storied Rhine River, including a spectacular airborne assault; an ill-fated armored raid beyond Allied lines; the trapping of masses of Germans in a giant pocket in the Ruhr industrial region; the uncovering of incredible horror in German concentration camps; a dashing thrust to the Elbe River; juncture with the Russians; and a Wagnerian climax played to the accompaniment of Russian artillery fire in the Führerbunker in Berlin.

The Liberator
The Liberator

Author: Alex Kershaw

Publisher: Crown

Published: 2013-10-15

Total Pages: 466

ISBN-13: 0307888002

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The untold story of the bloodiest and most dramatic march to victory of the Second World War—now a Netflix original series starring Jose Miguel Vasquez, Bryan Hibbard, and Bradley James “Exceptional . . . worthy addition to vibrant classics of small-unit history like Stephen Ambrose’s Band of Brothers.”—Wall Street Journal Written with Alex Kershaw's trademark narrative drive and vivid immediacy, The Liberator traces the remarkable battlefield journey of maverick U.S. Army officer Felix Sparks through the Allied liberation of Europe—from the first landing in Italy to the final death throes of the Third Reich. Over five hundred bloody days, Sparks and his infantry unit battled from the beaches of Sicily through the mountains of Italy and France, ultimately enduring bitter and desperate winter combat against the die-hard SS on the Fatherland's borders. Having miraculously survived the long, bloody march across Europe, Sparks was selected to lead a final charge to Bavaria, where he and his men experienced some of the most intense street fighting suffered by Americans in World War II. And when he finally arrived at the gates of Dachau, Sparks confronted scenes that robbed the mind of reason—and put his humanity to the ultimate test.