Who led a paratroop drop into the American rear during the last major German offensive campaign on the Western Front during World War II
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Operation Stösser Operation Stösser (English: Operation Auk) was a paratroop drop into the American rear in the High Fens area during the Battle of the Bulge in World War II. Its objective was to take and hold the crossroads at Belle Croix Jalhay N-68 - N-672 until the arrival of the 12th SS Panzer Division. Both roads were main supply routes, the N-68 Eupen to either Malmedy or Elsenborn and the N-672 Verviers up to Belle-Croix hence up to either Malmedy or Elsenborn. The operation was led by Oberst Freiherr Friedrich August Freiherr von der Heydte, who was given eight days to prepare the mission. The majority of the Fallschirmjäger (paratroopers) and pilots assigned to the operation were undertrained and inexperienced. Kampgruppe Von Der Heydte took up a position at Porfays in the forest east of the N-68 and conducted some local skirmishes on small US convoys and made even some POWs. The mission was a failure.
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Battle of the Bulge The Battle of the Bulge (16 December 1944 – 25 January 1945) was the last major German offensive campaign on the Western Front during World War II. It was launched through the densely forested Ardennes region of Wallonia in eastern Belgium, northeast France, and Luxembourg, towards the end of World War II. The surprise attack caught the Allied forces completely off guard. American forces bore the brunt of the attack and incurred their highest casualties of any operation during the war. The battle also severely depleted Germany's armored forces, and they were largely unable to replace them. German personnel and, later, Luftwaffe aircraft (in the concluding stages of the engagement) also sustained heavy losses.
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Second Battle of the Aisne The Second Battle of the Aisne (French: "Bataille du Chemin des Dames" or "Seconde bataille de l'Aisne" , 16 April – mid-May 1917) was the main part of the Nivelle Offensive, a Franco-British attempt to inflict a decisive defeat on the German armies in France. The strategy was to conduct sequenced offensives from north to south, by the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) and several French army groups. General Robert Nivelle planned the offensive in December 1916, after he replaced Joseph Joffre as Commander-in-Chief of the French Army. The objective of the attack on the Aisne was to capture the prominent 80 km , east–west ridge of the Chemin des Dames, 110 km north-east of Paris, and then attack northwards to capture the city of Laon. When the French armies met the British advancing from the Arras front, the Germans would be pursued towards Belgium and the German frontier. The offensive began on 9 April, when the British attacked at the Battle of Arras. On 16 April, the "Groupe d'armées de Reserve" (GAR) attacked the Chemin des Dames and the next day, the Fourth Army of "Groupe d'armées de Centre" (GAC), near Reims to the south-east, began the Battle of the Hills.
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Edwin F. Harding Edwin Forrest Harding (September 18, 1886June 5, 1970) commanded the 32nd Infantry Division at the beginning of World War II. He graduated 74th among his classmates from the United States Military Academy in 1909, who included John C. H. Lee (12), Jacob L. Devers (39), George S. Patton (46), Horace H. Fuller (59), Robert L. Eichelberger (68), and William H. Simpson (101). His first field command, the 32nd division was the first American unit, after the Battle for Guadalcanal, to engage in offensive operations in the Pacific Theater of Operations. The 32nd was understrength, ill-trained, poorly equipped, and thrust into its first battle against seasoned Japanese units. The unit finally logged a total of 654 days of combat during World War II, more than any other U.S. Army division. They were among the first to enter the war and were still engaging attacking Japanese after the Armistice was declared.
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Battle of Sidi Bou Zid The Battle of Sidi Bou Zid ("Unternehmen Frühlingswind" /Operation Spring Breeze) took place during the Tunisia Campaign from 14–17 February 1943, in World War II. The battle was fought around Sidi Bou Zid, where a large number of American units were mauled by German and Italian forces. It resulted in the Axis recapturing the strategically important town of Sbeitla in central Tunisia. The success at Sidi Bou Zid was reversed by April by counter-attacks by British and American forces. The battle was planned by the Germans to be a two-part offensive-defensive operation against US positions in western Tunisia.
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Mius-Front The Mius-Front was a heavily fortified defensive line created by the Germans in October 1941 under direction of General Paul Ludwig Ewald von Kleist along the Mius River during World War II.
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Leonard Lomell Leonard G. “Bud” Lomell (January 22, 1920 – March 1, 2011) was a highly decorated former United States Army Ranger who served in World War II. He is best known for his actions in the first hours of D-Day at Pointe du Hoc on the coast of Normandy, France. Pointe du Hoc was the site of the German Army’s largest coastal weapons, five 155-millimeter German guns with a 25-kilometer range that endangered the tens of thousands of troops landing on Omaha Beach and Utah Beach, and thousands of watercraft in the English Channel supporting the Normandy invasion. Unbeknownst to the Allied intelligence, the Germans had concealed the guns in an orchard, but left them operational and ready to fire. Through skill, courage and “pure luck,” Lomell found and quickly disabled all five guns. Lomell was recognized by historian Stephen Ambrose as the single individual — other than Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower — most responsible for the success of D-Day. Six months later, in the Battle of Hürtgen Forest, he would again distinguish himself, earning a Silver Star for his heroism and leadership as the 2nd Ranger Battalion captured and held Hill 400. After the war he returned to Ocean County, New Jersey, becoming an attorney in Toms River.
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Albert W. Kenner Albert Walton Kenner (December 15, 1889 – November 12, 1959) was a highly decorated Major General in the Medical Corps of the United States Army. During World War II, he was a Chief medical officer for Operation Torch and Operation Overlord.
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Operation Quicksilver (deception plan) Operation Quicksilver was a Second World War military deception. Undertaken by the Allies in 1944, the operation threatened an invasion of France in the Pas de Calais region through the simulation of a large Field Army in South East England. Quicksilver formed part of the Operation Fortitude deception, itself part of the strategic Operation Bodyguard plan. The key element of Quicksilver was the creation in German minds that "First United States Army Group" (FUSAG) commanded by General George Patton supposedly would land in the Pas-de-Calais for the major invasion of Europe, after the landings in Normandy had lured the German defenders to that front. (FUSAG was a genuine army group headquarters which later became Omar Bradley's 12th Army Group, but was given a fictitious role and many non-existent divisions for purposes of deception.)
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Normandy landings The Normandy landings (codenamed Operation Neptune) were the landing operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 (termed D-Day) of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. The largest seaborne invasion in history, the operation began the liberation of German-occupied northwestern Europe from Nazi control, and contributed to the Allied victory on the Western Front.
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Arthur F. Gorham Lieutenant Colonel Arthur Fulbrook Gorham (January 11, 1915 – July 12, 1943) was a United States Army officer and paratrooper. Gorham was the first commander of the 1st Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, part of the 82nd Airborne Division. He led the unit from its inception until Operation Husky, the July 1943 Allied invasion of Sicily, where he was killed in action.
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Battle of Le Transloy The Battle of Le Transloy was the last offensive of the Fourth Army of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in the 1916 Battle of the Somme in France, during the First World War. The battle was fought in conjunction with attacks by the French Tenth and Sixth armies on the southern flank and the Reserve/5th Army on the northern flank, against "Heeresgruppe Rupprecht" (Field Marshal Rupprecht of Bavaria) created on 28 August, from the 1st and 2nd armies of the dissolved "armeegruppe Gallwitz-Somme" and the 6th and 7th armies. General Ferdinand Foch the commander of "groupe des armées du nord" (Northern Army Group) and co-ordinator of the armies on the Somme, was unable to continue the sequential attacks by the Anglo-French armies achieved in September, because persistent rain, mist and fog grounded aircraft, turned the battlefield into a swamp and greatly increased the difficulty of transporting supplies to the front over the few roads in the area and the land that had been devastated since 1 July.
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Operation Fischreiher Operation Fischreiher (German for heron) was an extension to Operation Blue II during the German invasion of the Soviet Union in World War II. General Friedrich Paulus' 6th Army, and part of the 4th Panzer Army under General Hermann Hoth, was to advance across the Don river towards the city of Stalingrad on the Western bend of the Volga river.
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Operation Atlantic Operation Atlantic (18–21 July 1944) was a Canadian offensive during the Battle of Normandy in the Second World War. The offensive, launched in conjunction with Operation Goodwood by the Second Army, was part of operations to seize the French city of Caen and vicinity from German forces. It was initially successful, with gains made on the flanks of the Orne River near Saint-André-sur-Orne but an attack by the 4th and 6th Canadian Infantry Brigades of the 2nd Canadian Infantry Division, against strongly defended German positions on Verrières Ridge to the south was a costly failure.
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American airborne landings in Normandy The American airborne landings in Normandy were the first American combat operations during Operation Overlord, the invasion of Normandy by the Western Allies on June 6, 1944, during World War II. Around 13,100 American paratroopers of the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions made night parachute drops early on D-Day, June 6, followed by 3,937 glider troops flown in by day. As the opening maneuver of Operation Neptune (the assault operation for Overlord) the two American airborne divisions were delivered to the continent in two parachute and six glider missions.
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Battle of Alam el Halfa The Battle of Alam el Halfa took place between 30 August and 5 September 1942 south of El Alamein during the Western Desert Campaign of the Second World War. "Panzerarmee Afrika"—a German–Italian force commanded by "Generalfeldmarschall" Erwin Rommel—attempted an envelopment of the British Eighth Army, commanded by Lieutenant-General Bernard Montgomery. In the last major Axis offensive (Operation Brandung/"Unternehmung Brandung") of the Western Desert Campaign, Rommel had planned to defeat the Eighth Army before Allied reinforcements made an Axis victory in Africa impossible.
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Charles H. Corlett Major General Charles Harrison Corlett (July 31, 1889 – October 13, 1971), nicknamed “Cowboy Pete,” was a senior United States Army officer who commanded troops in both the Pacific and European Theaters during World War II. He led the attack on Kiska in 1943 and commanded the 7th Infantry Division in the taking of Kwajalein in 1944. After D-Day he led the XIX Corps in pursuit of the retreating German Army through France, Belgium, Holland, and Germany.
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Hindenburg Line The Hindenburg Line ("Siegfriedstellung" or Siegfried Position) was a German defensive position of World War I, built during the winter of 1916–1917 on the Western Front, from Arras to Laffaux, near Soissons on the Aisne. In 1916, the German offensive at the Battle of Verdun had been a costly failure. The Anglo-French offensive at the Battle of the Somme had forced a defensive battle on the Germans, leaving the western armies ("Westheer") exhausted. On the Eastern Front, the Brusilov Offensive had inflicted huge losses on the Austro-Hungarian armies in Russia and forced the Germans to take over more of the front. The declaration of war by Romania had placed additional strain on the German army and war economy. Construction of the Hindenburg Line in France was begun by the Germans in September 1916, to make a retirement from the Somme front possible, to counter an anticipated increase in the power of Anglo-French attacks in 1917.
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818th Tank Destroyer Battalion The 818th Tank Destroyer Battalion was a tank destroyer battalion of the United States Army active during World War II. It first saw combat in July 1944, when it deployed into the Normandy beachhead in preparation for the breakout into France by Lieutenant General George Patton's Third Army. Working closely with the 5th Infantry Division, it moved through northern France up to the Moselle region, where it was involved in the Battle for Metz through September, October and November. In December, it disengaged from defensive positions along the German border and was moved north to fight in the Battle of the Bulge with the 26th Infantry Division. After securing the Allied flanks and mopping up the Bulge, it refitted for two months before fighting south along the Siegfried Line and crossing the Rhine in March. In April and early May, it rushed through southern Germany into Austria and Czechoslovakia, where it ended the war. After a brief spell of occupation duties, it was returned to the United States and disbanded in November. During the European campaign, the battalion lost a total twenty-six men and eight tank destroyers in combat.
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Hellmuth Reymann Hellmuth Reymann (24 November 1892 – 8 December 1988) was an officer in the German Army ("Heer") during World War II. Reymann was one of the last commanders of the Berlin Defense Area during the final assault by Soviet forces on the city of Berlin.
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Operation Braunschweig Operation "Braunschweig" (Eng: "Brunswick"), named after the German city, was the German summer offensive that began on 28 June 1942. The operation was initially named "Fall Blau" (Case Blue), which is the common name used for the whole offensive. The name was changed from "Blau" to "Braunschweig" on 30 June. The plans following the original Case Blue (originally named "Blue I" and "Blue II") were renamed to Operation Clausewitz and Operation Dampfhammer. "Clausewitz" detailed the beginning of the operations of Army Group A in July 1942, "Dampfhammer" the follow-up operations in July 1942.
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Ray Barker Ray Wehnes Barker (December 10, 1889 – June 28, 1974) was a Major General of the Allied Forces, and served in the European Theater of Operations During World War II. General Barker was a key member of the combined United States-British group, which became known as COSSAC (Chief of Staff to Supreme Allied Commander). This group planned the Battle of Normandy, codenamed "Operation Overlord", also known as D-Day, which liberated Occupied France. He served as the Deputy Chief of Staff of the European Theater from 1943–1944, and Deputy Chief of Staff for Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force.