266. Operation Varsity: Crossing the Rhine
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thanks to IP. Learn more at phrma.org slash IPWorksWonders. Hello and welcome to the latest episode of Battleground 45 with me, Patrick Bishop, and Saul David. We're

We're looking back 80 years to March 1945, when events shift finally and dramatically on the northwestern European front. By then, of course, the strategic balance had tilted ever more in the Allies' favor. After the failure of the German Ardennes Offensive, Germany was much weakened again.

And the final battle that was really going to might have actually tilted the war away from the Allies' advantage had been overcome with great cost, it must be said, and with a huge difficulty. But by the spring of 1945, basically Germany is going into the last chapter of its war.

And the advantage very much in men, in material and in geographical positioning is on the side of the Allies. Of course, the big barrier in front of them is the Rhine River and various other waterways that run north to south on the frontier of Germany. So we're going to talk about all that today. And of course, Saul is supremely well placed there.

to give us his expertise. His latest book, Sky Warriors, British Airborne Forces in the Second World War, came out to much acclaim and, of course, got into the bestseller list last year, and it's now about to come out in paperback. So if you didn't buy it in hardback, go out, you cheapskates, and get it in paperback. So, Saul, this is something you really don't know a hell of a lot about, but funnily enough, a lot of people don't, do they? One of the strangest things about it is that given the scale of the operation and its success,

Yeah.

Yeah, it's fascinating, isn't it? This operation we're going to be concentrating on today, which is Varsity. I mean, we're also going to cover a bit of plunder, of course, because you have to. The two operations are interlinked. But just to set the scene, as you say, to get there. I mean, the last detail we were speaking about on the podcast in relation to the Western Front was, of course, the failure of the Ardennes offensive, as you've just mentioned there.

Since then, the balance has shifted a fair bit. But what actually specifically has happened? Well, first of all, you've had the Soviets launching their own offensive in January, which in under a month had moved the front line more than 300 miles from the River Vistula in Poland to the River Oder in eastern Germany. And that's barely 50 miles from Berlin. So you can absolutely understand why Ike's thinking the Soviets are bound to get too

to Berlin. Now, possibly in a future podcast, we can cover the missed opportunity for the Allies, actually, but let's just concentrate on the crossing of the Rhine. But before we get to the crossing of the Rhine, Eisenhower had a crucial meeting with his army group commanders, that's Bradley and Monti,

on the 31st of January. And at that meeting, he decided to keep what he described as his broad front strategy going with no weak links to prevent the Germans from making sudden powerful thrusts into our lines of communication, as I put it. Now,

Of course, the context of all of this is that Montgomery wanted the main effort to be in northwest Germany. He was given a little bit more latitude than Bradley was in terms of resources because he'd been reinforced by William Simpson's U.S. 9th Army. So you've got Monty's 21st Army Group, which is the first Canadian army and his own, the British Second Army and Simpson's U.S. 9th.

army. Now, with those forces, he'd advanced slowly and steadily, a bit like the Russians in Ukraine, maybe not quite as slowly as the Russians in Ukraine, with various operations. First of all, Operation Veritable, an attack eastwards from Nijmegen to the Reichswald Forest, and that met stiff resistance.

from Germany's much smaller 1st Parachute Army, and then Simpson's Operation Grenade, which was postponed by German flooding of the Ruhr Valley, that's R-O-E-R Valley. But that made much more rapid progress when it did get going two weeks later after its start date of 23 February at a combined cost of 22,000 casualties.

the two forces had reached the west bank of the Rhine. So that's really where we've got to with the start of this story. Just to say a quick bit about what's happening further south, Jacob Deaver's US First Army, that's part of Bradley's army group, have captured the first bridge over the Rhine, the Ludendorff railway crossing at

Remagen with a remarkable display of daring and opportunism on 7th of March. That was never really a planned operation. It was just one that they took advantage of. And also Patton's US Third Army had seized its own bridgehead at Oppenheim on the 22nd. So you've already got two crossings of the Rhine and Monty's pretty keen to get in on the act, which is where we'll come to the operation we're talking about today.

So after these preparatory operations, by mid-March, towards the end of March, we're on the banks of the Rhine. Once the Allies get across the Rhine, they've got the whole North German plain in front of them. No real geographical obstacles between them and Berlin. But tell us something about how they plan the operation. They've got the

example, a very bad example of the Arnhem market garden, et cetera, in front of them. How do they go about adjusting their plans to apply the lessons they've learned from that essential failure? Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? That Montgomery, having had his nose bloodied at Arnhem, actually decides that airborne troops can make a real difference to the crossing of the Rhine. But one thing they're absolutely determined to do is to learn the lessons of Arnhem. So this combined operation is an interesting one.

separate ground and air components you've already mentioned, Patrick, Operation Plunder, and that's going to be the amphibious crossing of the Rhine and Varsity, the landing of paratroopers and glider-borne infantry and support on the East Bank. And it's not that different from Market Garden in the sense that the airborne troops are supposed to be doing exactly the same thing, which is to take important strategic objectives and then link up with the ground forces as they're coming to meet them. But there were vital differences

And the first and most important one, and it's interesting when you look at the briefing documents or at least the discussions going on after Arnhem as to what went wrong. Well, pretty much all the things they think went wrong, they tried to put right. So first of all, the drops would only begin...

after troops had got across the river. So, of course, the problem with Arnhem is they drop them and then they begin the launch up this 64-mile highway, single sort of road highway. But that, of course, has the jeopardy of, you know, lots of things can happen in between. So...

at plunder and varsity, the drops would only begin after the troops had got across the river. So the airborne forces would not again be marooned. Secondly, the airborne troops would be dropped in one wave as close to their objectives as possible. Again, we know from Arnhem, they were dropped seven or eight miles away and they were dropped in three waves. And those three waves actually became even more than three waves as weather intervened. So they're not going to make that mistake again. And thirdly, the airborne troops would,

would land within range of artillery support on the west bank of the Rhine. In other words, as soon as they landed, they'd already have support. That's making the link up with the advancing ground troops as easy as possible. The one similarity, Patrick, interesting enough, with Market Garden was the decision to land airborne troops by daylight. And this was discussed long and hard.

The risk of exposing the slow-flying blighters and transport aircraft to German flak was thought to be outweighed by the benefit of airborne troops being able to orientate themselves in daylight, assemble quickly and locate and engage the enemy. And one final compromise is

which was forced by the limited Allied airlift capability, which was a problem all the way through the war, was that the use of just two airborne divisions instead of the original three. So the first plan was to use two US and one British, which was similar to the Arnhem operation. So the two divisions chosen would be the US 17th Airborne. And it's interesting they chose that one because it had never...

had a combat drop, although it had had some combat experience in the Ardennes and the British Thick Thareborn, which, of course, had overcome the disruption of the night jump to achieve all its main objectives with such distinction on D-Day, which we spoke about last autumn, Patrick, when Sky Warriors came out. So that's the basic plan. And the idea was to drop them east of Vaisal in an area between the town and the River Isle.

Issel, where they would seize wooded high ground known as the Diesforter Forest, the town of Hammenkern, and several bridges over the Issel. They would then be in a position to prevent German reinforcements from counterattacking the amphibious bridgehead. Tell us something about the scale of this, because I think this is something that people don't really appreciate. It's just how big this operational combination of operations was. The numbers of men involved and the amount of equipment involved is absolutely staggering, isn't it?

Yeah, the official U.S. history said that it would rival D-Day in Normandy in terms not only of troops involved, but also in the buildup of supplies, transport and special equipment and in the amount of supporting firepower in complexity of deception plans and in general elaboration. So it was an enormous operation. Actually, the total number of troops involved was 250,000.

The British alone, that's just the British component, that's the northern part of the operation, in their area, they stockpiled 60,000 tons of ammunition, 30,000 tons of engineers, stores, and 28,000 tons of other commodities. And the U.S. 9th Army built up another 138,000 tons of supplies. The British had almost 3,500 artillery pieces. And actually, if you go back to, you know, what was supposed to be one of the biggest

artillery barrages, at least as far as the British were concerned, at Alamein. That was about 1,350, I think, guns involved in that. And the Americans had another 2,070. So there were 5,500 forms of guns. That's anti-aircraft, anti-tank, artillery pieces. And as I said, 250,000 troops. It was a massive operation.

And presumably they've got pretty much air supremacy, haven't they, at this point? Yeah, exactly. I mean, that's the other point. I mean, I'm not really even talking about that. I'll come on to the planes in terms of the number of planes involved. I mean, the British supporting, well, the Allies supporting the operation, that's the air operation, used 3,000 fighters, Patrick. I mean, it's absolutely astonishing when you think about it. I'll come on to how many planes were involved in gliders in a moment. But basically, that was enough

to sweep the Germans from the skies. I mean, they already effectively had, but they weren't taking any chances. And so they took along 3,000 fighters to make sure if any Germans were foolish enough to intervene, they would be immediately shot down. I mean, it's fair to say that the main threat to the gliders and paratroopers coming in was from anti-aircraft fire. And that was heavy, as we will come on to. There really wasn't an issue from...

German fighters during this operation. Yeah, I mean, just as a point of comparison, the Battle of Britain was fought with under 1,000 Spitfires and Hurricanes. So by now, we totally dominate the skies. What about on the German side? The Ardennes had pretty badly dented. There was certainly that they no longer really had an offensive capacity, but how much damage did it done to their defensive abilities?

I mean, generally speaking, Patrick, as we know at this stage of the war, the Germans have been severely depleted, particularly after Arnhem, where they've lost a lot of their mechanized capability, particularly their tanks.

and specifically facing Operation Plunder and Varsity along the entire 22-mile zone of assault was a German army or German force estimated at only 85,000 troops. And many of these were second-rate Volkssturm units made up of the young and the old. So you don't even have 85,000 regulars. And even that figure, I mean, that was the estimate from the Allies, and even that figure was probably an

overestimate. The largest of the three corps that made up Germany's first parachute army, which was opposed in this sector, the positions that would be attacked was only 12,000 strong. While the Germans undoubtedly lacked tanks and self-propelled guns, they did have a reasonable complement of artillery and anti-aircraft guns, which, as I've mentioned, are going to be a problem, some of which had been withdrawn from Holland to deter an Allied airborne attack.

So it's a relatively small force against them. And the theory is they can overcome it reasonably rapidly. I was going to say to the layman, Saul, it sounds like this ought to be a walkover, wouldn't it? I mean, of course, it isn't for a number of reasons. As always, we're astonished by the Germans'

ability against all odds to A, to keep on fighting, so the morale aspect, but B, using very limited resources very effectively. Tell us something about that. Yeah, I mean, just one quick thing I should add, actually, there was a strategic element to the preparation for this attack, just like there was at D-Day, in which thousands of Allied heavy bombers, this is coming into your wheelhouse for a second, Patrick, carried out a month-long campaign to destroy railway networks and bridges in northwest Germany. And the

the whole point of that was to prevent reinforcements from reaching the area, just like they'd done prior to D-Day. They also targeted German airfields, flak defences and other military installations. How many bombs dropped? A combined tonnage of 52,000. So they're really knocking the Germans badly. And yet, nevertheless, as we're going to discover, there was a certain amount of opposition put up. I mean, we must remember river crossings are always tricky and

airborne operations almost always go wrong. So you've got those two elements really in this operation, even though the German opposition wasn't particularly strong. That means you've got those variables that bad things can happen. Yet nevertheless, it had been meticulously planned. And I think this idea of making sure they could get across the river first was a sensible one, given what had happened at Arnhem. Tell us something about relations between the commanders, particularly the

Eisenhower and Monty, because that's a very fractured story, isn't it? From D-Day or even before D-Day onwards. So things settle down by now. Is there reasonable harmony on the Allied side? No, not really. I mean, Monty's still making himself incredibly unpopular with, with like by, by demanding the central role in this advance into Germany, as I've already hinted at. I mean, what's interesting about Ike is he kind of,

Although he stamps on Monti every now and again, he also gives him a lot of latitude. There was a respect for Monti, which you saw also with Alexander in Italy and Sicily, really allowing Monti to have his head, so to speak. So although Ike had insisted on this broad front strategy, he was still giving most of the resources and energy.

adding the US 9th Army to Monty's army group, much to the fury of Bradley, of course, because he felt that a US army should have been in his army group. And it was eventually returned, actually, in a month or so back, not a month or so, just in a week or so, back to Bradley. But at this stage,

Monty had it. And in other words, he was going to attempt this crossing with overwhelming force. And he then hoped once he'd made the successful crossing, he was going to be allowed to drive on to Berlin. Well, that's for another story, Patrick. But certainly the relationship between the two is still relatively fractious at this point. Give us an idea of the fighting. I think it's quite hard for listeners to envisage or to visualize, rather,

what it would be like, you know, in the early spring of 1945. You're in this kind of quite soggy sort of landscape, aren't you? What would it be like for, say, an armoured unit moving forward? Are they getting held up in not many big towns around there, are there? So what's the kind of nature of the fighting?

I mean, it's been horrendous through the winter. And I spoke about those two previous operations, Grenade and Veritable, in which they were moving through unbelievably tricky terrain. I remember the Germans were flooding everything they can. So they were coming through the kind of Ruhr River Valley. And it was a very brutal, slow process. And that's off the back of, you know, also some terrible fighting the previous autumn, which we mentioned in the Hürtgen. And the British...

trying to get to the Reichsfall. So that was all really tricky. I think once they got to the Rhine and certainly once they were over the Rhine, things were going to improve, not least because the weather was improving, of course. And it's interesting that Monty gives the final go ahead for the operation late on the 23rd of March because the weather, in his view, was favourable and the attack could begin. Now, obviously, it needs to be favourable for an airborne operation in terms of

the wind not being too strong and, you know, and there not being too much rain. And so the weather was favorable and the order went out, we're going to attack. And the date for Operation Varsity is the 24th of March. That's how it's remembered in the history books. But the operation itself, Plunder, that is the amphibious operation, begins the evening before at 9pm, starts off with shelling of the German positions, and then they begin to cross the Rhine.

And what are they crossing in? Well, they're crossing in these extraordinary vehicles, actually, called buffalo amphibious vehicles. So, of course, we know about the ducks, don't we, that were used so effectively to resupply both in Sicily and also at D-Day. But the buffalo has been something that's developed specifically for rivers. Don't ask me about all the technical attributes of the buffalo, Patrick. I'm not that sort of historian who goes into all the finer detail about that sort of stuff. But they have

They had developed it specifically for river crossings, and it was very effective. And what's interesting about that river crossing is that it faced very light opposition. It only took two and a half minutes, apparently, which sounds incredibly unlikely to me. But that's the figure I've got in the book, and that's the figure I took from the official accounts of the crossing, to get from one side to another. And

As I say, the initial troops who went across, and they were the British 51st Highland Division, did not meet much opposition. And then they move on very quickly to their main objective, which is the town of Rees. They reach the outskirts and they then begin the firefight to take control of Rees. Meanwhile, the German army group commander,

who's in charge of this sector, Blazkowicz, General Oberst Blazkowicz. I think some listeners may remember Blazkowicz from the Didi operation. I'm pretty sure he's in charge of the neighbouring army group to the one that Rommel's running. Is he not, Patrick? If I remember rightly, I think that's the kind of Bordeaux sector. But in any case, Blazkowicz, with the rest of the German armies, has come back

And the first thing he does when he realizes there's been an amphibious crossing is order a counterattack, which was the German way, by one of his reserve formations. And that's the 15th Panzergrenadier Division. Okay, we'll take a quick break there. We'll be back in a minute.

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Welcome back. So what's the time gap then between the crossings and the fall of Berlin? Even though geographically speaking, it's not that far away, as we've been saying, German defences are pretty depleted, yet the fighting goes on. Did you learn anything about what was motivating the Germans to carry on? Did you form a view of why it was when clearly the game is up at this point, they stuck literally to their guns?

You could ask that question. It's so fascinating, Patrick. You could ask that question about what is making them fight from D-Day onwards. And they do fight tooth and nail. I mean, the only thing I can... Well, there are two points, I think, to make. And I'm not the first historian to say this. On the one hand, a lot of German troops, but particularly those in the elite formations, were quite ideologically motivated. They were committed Nazis, but certainly not all the Wehrmacht was. So what are the rest of them up to? Well,

it's just sheer professionalism. I mean, you know, it's like we're in the German army. Our commander in chief is Hitler.

the assassination attempt had failed. How they'd have reacted if the assassination attempt had been successful and senior army people had come out in support of the assassination is another matter. But of course, that hadn't happened. And it was just a question of, yeah, we're going to carry out our orders to the best of our ability. I mean, it's an extraordinary determination to continue on as professional soldiers. And actually, a lot of the guys asked at the end of the war what their motivations were, said exactly that.

So it makes it kind of somehow all the more tragic, isn't it, when some of the casualties you mention in your book, you have various vignettes of actions in which guys who've made it all the way from D-Day are then struck down in this final phase. That's quite a sort of bitter pill to swallow, isn't it? But obviously...

the victim, it's too late for him, but for your comrades remain behind, it must have given an extra edge to the sort of bitterness of the fighting I would have thought. Well, there is a theory, Patrick, and it's a very good question, actually, because there is a theory that the British and American armies weren't fighting as well as they might have done as they got closer to Berlin, because they knew the war was almost over and who wants to die in the last two or three months of the war? That's an argument that's been put forth by Max Hastings and others. But

personally having read a lot of the first-hand accounts and seen the heroism a lot of the guys and i'll mention one or two people during the operation in a moment i can't really see any sign of that that they're kind of pulling back certainly not in the elite formations like airborne divisions and some of the crack infantry divisions like 51st division they're still fighting incredibly hard and if i was to tell you patrick that just an hour or two after the events we're discussing the uh

commanding officer of the 51st Highland Division, a character called Tom Rennie, wonderful character actually, appeared in my very first book, Churchill's Sacrifice of the Highland Division. He was captured with the bulk of the Highland Division in 1940, managed to escape and worked his way up through the ranks. He's now a major general by the time of this operation in the spring of 1945. And he's killed

That is, the major general is killed by a mortar bomb as he's getting out of his jeep, having crossed the Rhine and gone out to see his men and to see that all was well. So it's still an incredibly dangerous war, even for a major general. He is one of the more senior officers killed in action on the British side during the whole of the war.

That's a particularly poignant story, isn't it? Because, as you said, your first book, that was a moment of shame, not perhaps the right word, but certainly the Highlanders felt that this was a terrible moment in their history. For him to have come back like that, to have escaped and taken command again,

is a marvellous sort of circularity to the story only to end in this tragic way. Yeah, just to add a little codicil to that, Patrick, I mean, they actually changed the order of battle or the order of advance as they're moving through Normandy to allow the Highlanders to actually march past St. Valerie where their forebears had been captured and Rennie is in command of the division. So he takes the salute that day and that must have been an incredibly moving occasion for him knowing that a lot of the

his comrades in the Black Watch, he was a Black Watch officer in 1940, were still incarcerated in Germany. I mean, they are going to be released in a couple of months' time. But of course, this was the summer of 1944 when that happened. So once they're across, the landings have been made. Well, were they made successfully? How much opposition was there to the gliders and the airborne as they come in?

Yeah, just to finish off the business of crossing the river. I mean, it sounds like it was a bit of a cakewalk. Actually, there was a little bit more opposition, but the attacks continued all the way through the night. So they begun on the evening of the 23rd. The attacks continue. That is, the crossings continue through the night. So you've got 15 Scottish troops.

come over at 2 a.m. The U.S. 30th Infantry Division just to the south also comes over. The U.S. 79th Infantry Division. So you've got four infantry divisions over and they've created nine small bridgeheads on the eastern bank of the Rhine, relatively light casualties. Dempsey, I was just reading his diary this morning, actually, General Miles Dempsey, who's commanding the British Second Army,

wrote later, we had crossed the Rhine and all the hard work had paid off. So you might think, well, actually, do we really need the airborne at this point? The guys are across the Rhine, you know, it's sort of job done, but not entirely because the Germans are about to launch a bigger counterattack. And the job of the airborne is actually to intercede between where that counterattack may come from and the British and American troops who've crossed over the river. So I mentioned before these certain key places that they were determined to

to capture. And their operation begins at 7am on the 24th of March. They've got basically roughly a three-hour flight from the UK. In the case of the 6th Airborne, the first of 240 Dakota transport planes takes off from airfields in East Anglia, carrying the 3rd and 5th Parachute Brigades of the 6th Airborne Division. And they're followed into the air by the 429 TUGs

carrying the gliders with the 6th Air Landing Brigade on board. And in total, if you take the Americans as well, there were 540 Dakotas and 1,300 gliders. And they're all being pulled by tugs, of course, protected, as I said before, Patrick, by almost 3,000 fighters. So it was an unbelievable

Unbelievable that Marden, there's quite a nice quote from Churchill, actually, because he was on a hilltop with Monty at Monty's Tactical HQ watching this all unfold. And he writes, it was full daylight before the subdued but intense roar and rumbling of swarms of aircraft stole upon us.

After that, in the course of half an hour, over 2,000 aircraft streamed overhead in their formations. Soon they returned at a different altitude. Their parachutes dropped or their gliders released. And Churchill witnessed, as he wrote, with a sense of tragedy, aircrafts in two and threes coming back askew, asmoked.

or even in flames. But in reality, the operation had gone pretty well. The first guys had got there at 9.52 a.m. The first parachutes appeared over drop zones to the west of Hammond Kelm and they begin dropping at that point.

um brigadier hill who's in command of one of the parachute brigades and his eighth battalion descended into as he described it a hail of small arms fire from germans dug into the edge of the deeds porter forest and we've got a nice quote from a german who's fighting there during the artillery barrage he wrote we pressed ourselves into our trenches they didn't seem quite deep enough then only to re-emerge as the first aircraft arrived by that time we had set up the gun parachutes were in the air within a few minutes there were hundreds of them at

and many were collecting at various points, I'm sure we must have drawn attention to ourselves because one group fell on us quickly. And he's later captured Siegel, although he claims to have shot up up to 20 British parachutists, some in the air before his post was overwhelmed. And he's wounded by grenade fragments and taken prisoner. Yeah, I was struck by that particular story because if I was him, I wouldn't go around boasting about how many of the enemy... I know, quite...

I think if when he was captured, they'd known that he'd been up to this, then he might not have been treated particularly well. I doubt that they would have shot him, but I don't think they'd have been very friendly towards him. But there again, you get this, you know, indomitable, if you're being polite or being congratulatory about it, but deeply weird. On the other hand, determination to keep

biting on. So what was the proportion of parachuters to glider-borne? In terms of numbers, it was the usual divisional two to one. So you had two parachute brigades and one glider unit. So in rough terms, you had three, twice as many parachuters as you did have glider-borne troops. The glider-borne troops, interesting enough, had the toughest job. And the reason they were given the toughest job is because

In gliders, they can take down anti-tank guns with them, which, of course, you can't do with parachutes. They're much more likely armoured. And their jobs are to hold those crossings over the Issel River, which is where the Germans are going to counterattack from. If you would say there was any key engagement that day, it was at those various bridges, which the Germans were trying to retake and the air landing troops were determined to protect.

Yeah, well, you've answered my next question there, Saul, because I was going to say again, you know, to the layman, you think, well, surely airborne troops are the last people you want to be protecting the main force. Surely it should be the other way around. But on the issue of the bridges.

If they've got the wherewithal actually to hold the bridges, that makes sense. But I think in your book, in one case, you mentioned they'd actually capture the bridge and then actually had to blow it up because German counterattack was so fierce.

Yeah, the question of Pegasus Bridge has always been an interesting one. I remember when I was giving some talks about Pegasus Bridge, which of course was the bridge captured at D-Day. And, you know, the question's always been asked, the Germans had counterattacked it heavily, which they never really did. I mean, they put in a certain amount of attempt to get

their hands back to re-recover it, but not really in as big a force as they could have done if orders had been issued earlier. The question is, what would the guys defending it have done? They wanted to keep it because it's useful for the breakout. But as in the case of the ISIL, it shows you that if a counterattack is put in as much strength as it was at Operation Varsity,

The plan is, you know, the last case scenario is you blow it up. And that's exactly what they did on the Issel. So, yes, it's not going to be useful for you to use once, you know, the breakout begins. But it's also stopped the counterattack. And that's exactly what would have happened to Pegasus. And it happens on one of the bridges over the Issel. But they do manage to hold most of the others. And the counterattack, which could have been very dangerous from the 116th

Panzer Division, which also had counterattacked the Americans to the south, was actually beaten off ultimately. And so, you know, overall, people have asked the question, was it worth sending in the airborne? They did an extraordinary job. They knocked out all the defensive combatants

positions around the forest, around the town of Hammingkell, and they took that. But they also held these crossings over the Rhine and prevented the 116th from counterattacking. I mean, they did their job, Patrick. And the only broader question, I suppose, at the end of all of this is whether or not their losses were worth it.

Just to mention one or two other things, because there were some extraordinary acts of heroism this day. And I would like to just have a quick nod to the Canadians who don't always get their due credit, do they, Patrick? I mean, you've written about them in arguably their worst hour, which is at Dieppe. But they do do some extraordinary things. In Italy, actually, I've noticed, I was just...

working on something in relation to the Italian campaign recently, where they do some extraordinary things actually in the capture of Monte Cassino, but also, or the breakout after Monte Cassino, but also here during the Operation Varsity. And the reason they're here is because the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion is actually part of the 6th Airborne Division.

Yeah, you're absolutely right. The Canadians don't really get their fair share of credit, even in the case of Dieppe. It wasn't their fault that the operation was such a disaster. The whole thing could never have succeeded in the first place. And they were in some ways the sacrificial lambs in all this. So give us some examples of their achievements in Dieppe.

in this operation. Well, I'll mention a couple of people. One tragic, but shows you how dangerous parachuting was even for senior officers. So the senior parachutist to die during Operation Varsity was Lieutenant Colonel Jeff Nicklin, who was the commander of the 1st Parachute Battalion. And his death was particularly unfortunate. It's like those ones we often see depicted of the Americans landing at San Marigliese.

His parachute apparently got tangled in the branches of a tall tree. And as he hung there desperately trying to free himself, he's riddled with bullets by the Germans below, you know, showing absolutely no quarter. But later on that day, you get one of the most extraordinary acts of heroism. And I think I might be taken to task by listeners for this. I think the only Canadian VC of the Second World War is certainly the only Canadian parachutist VC of the Second World War. And that's this wonderful character, Fred Topham,

Now, Topham was a medic. And I always think personally, Patrick, I don't know your feeling about this, that, you know, when medics get given VCs, that's really that that's the top of the list for me, really, because their job is to save people. And that's exactly what Topham was trying to do that day. He's a 27 year old from he'd previously worked in the gold mines at

Kirkland Lake, Ontario, before enlisting in 1942 and then, of course, volunteering for parachute duty. He does a number of extraordinary things during the operation, but it's really all about rescuing wounded comrades. At 11am, he goes forward through intense fire to treat a badly wounded man in the open. And as he worked, he shot through the nose, believe it or not. But ignoring the severe bleeding, everybody knows how much a nose bleeds when it's got a wound on it, and intense pain. He kept working on the casualty. Then he

Then he carried the guy to safety. During the next two hours, he refused to have his wound treated and carried on looking for casualties who he himself would treat. And I suppose the most extraordinary story is when he comes across a burning Bren gun carrier with wounded men inside. He's told by an officer to stand back. There's nothing they can do. You know, they can't get to the men because of the flames. German mortar bombs were exploding all around. Some of the ammunition in the carrier had already ignited

And guess what happens next? Topham refuses all entreaties not to go forward, all the danger, and he goes immediately forward and rescues some of the men in the carrier. He gets three of them out. One dies soon after, but the other two were evacuated and owe their lives to Topham. I mean, have you heard of a more extraordinary example of courage during the whole of the Second World War? I'm not sure I have. Yeah, that is a remarkable story.

But just to stem the tide of emails to Canadian listeners, I'd better just point out that at Dieppe, there were two Canadian VCs. One not dissimilar, actually. One of them was a chaplain, Captain John Foote, who went ashore, obviously unarmed, on those beaches, the main beach right in front of the town where it was just a kind of slaughterhouse.

And he went there, moving from wounded man to wounded man, comforting them, amazingly survived. So he got up easy. And then Lieutenant Colonel Charles Merritt, who landed on beaches to the west, did a remarkable job. Again, showing incredible personal bravery, getting his men across a bridge by boat.

by sheer sort of um by demonstrating amazing courage he walked back and forth across it saying this this is this is okay guys you know there's nothing to worry about sort of thing clearly there was but it was an inspirational moment for which he thoroughly deserved his vc so uh

hold back on the emails, Canadian listeners. Thanks for that, Patrick. And you know, this is a big mayor couple for me, because actually I've just had a quick look at the statistics of 16 Canadian VCs who were won during the Second World War, which you wouldn't be surprised about at all. But no, the statistic I was thinking is the only Canadian VC winner. And even more extraordinary than that, the only member of the whole six

Airborne Division. And if you think of the 6th Airborne Division's feats at D-Day, Patrick, that's pretty remarkable, isn't it? He was the only member of the Airborne Division to be awarded the Victoria Cross. We could do a whole programme. Maybe we should one day about the inequities of gong awards because...

It's often the case that it's failure, you know, sort of disasters bring the biggest crop of VCs. That was certainly the case at Saint-Nazaire, wasn't it? But let's now take stock of where we are. When does the operations, the joint operations actually end? And what are we looking at next? What's the next phase?

I mean, I suppose you'd say there's a kind of two or three day total for the whole operation. But in reality, by the end of the first day, the 24th of March, the two airborne divisions, British 6th and US 70th, had taken most of their objectives and linked up with each other and the 15th Scottish Division advancing from the Rhine, which basically was job done. Yes, of course, they stay in their posts for another couple of days, but

It's astonishing how quickly this operation is done and dusted. But I suppose we get to the kind of the grimmer aspect of all of this is that, you know, we've honed in on a couple of moments. There was, of course, a lot of fierce fighting and the real danger for airborne troops in daytime, which was the debate as to whether to go in daytime

time or not, is that you can be knocked out before you actually got to the ground. A lot of casualties were taken both by the air landing and the parachute troops actually being shot up in the air. The total number of casualties for the 6th Airborne were 1,344. That's killed and wounded of the original 5,000 involved. 238 of those killed. I mean, that's a pretty severe casualty rate, Patrick. That's 27%. US 17th Airborne lost 1,584 out of 9,384.

Seven with 223 killed, a little bit of a slightly lower attrition rate of just under 17%. But that's still pretty stiff losses. I mean, if you compare it to Arnhem, of course, that, you know, they're minuscule. And of course, it was successful. I mean, at Arnhem, the first airborne division lost eight out of 10,000.

Yeah, that's still a pretty heavy toll, though, isn't it? I'm surprised at that number at that stage. There we are. Now, looking back with the benefit of 20-20 hindsight that some historians, not us, use...

Some have said, was it actually worth all the effort? Was there another way of doing it? What's your view, A, about the debate? And what's your conclusion? Yeah, I mean, with the use of airborne forces, there's always been this question mark. And I think there's a certain amount of jealousy. They are elite troops, as I've explained before, when we've been talking about

the Sky Warriors. And certainly the US official historian who, you know, is looking at the whole of the army issue question whether Operation Vast had either been necessary or justified. And he wrote, in view of the weak condition of the German units east of the Rhine, which is the point you made, Patrick, and the particular vulnerability of airborne troops in an immediately following descent, some overbearing need for the special capability of airborne divisions would be required.

to justify their use. Although the objectives of sign were legitimate, they were objectives that ground troops alone under existing circumstances should have been able to take without undue difficulty and probably with considerably fewer casualties. Well, needless to say, a lot of the reports at the time, including by people who weren't airborne, contradicted that, including Montgomery, who said it was absolutely right to use airborne troops and that they absolutely made a difference. My personal view is that the official report

The US official historian is wrong. The capture of the bridges over the Issel and the prevention of effective German counterattack undoubtedly assisted the ground forces in consolidating their bridgehead. The airborne forces also accounted for 1,000 German casualties and captured another 4,000, along with 90 major artillery pieces and lots of other guns and machine guns. And all of these noted Brigadier James Hill

could have been used to impede the deployment of the British and American armies across the Rhine. So, you know, you have to make your own decision on whether it was all worth it. I think it was. And certainly in the context of British airborne during the whole of the Second World War, it was probably the high point. Yes, D-Day was important, but this operation, you know, was...

almost without fault, apart from the relatively heavy casualties. And as I write in Sky Warriors, Patrick, Britain's airborne force had left the best until last, and in 1945, adversity had reached its zenith. That really is a big point, isn't it, to make, because this is really it for airborne operations, isn't it? They've

had a very brief life with mixed fortunes, but they go out on a high note because thereafter, there isn't really another operation. I'm thinking of Suez, which there's an airdrop there, but it's not decisive by any means.

So this is really the glory hour of your Sky Warriors. Well, that was brilliant. Thanks very much for talking so lucidly and so entertainingly about the operation. And just a reminder to listeners, Saul David, Sky Warriors, British Airborne Forces in the Second World War. It's all laid out there, not just this story, but many other fascinating stories.

fascinating episodes all in great detail with fantastic analysis and wonderful stories so it's out in paperback in a couple weeks time go out and buy it thank you very much see you next friday for the latest episode on ukraine all sorts of things going on there and of course next wednesday for another episode of battleground 45 goodbye

Hi there. I'm Al Murray, co-host of We Have Ways of Making You Talk, the world's premier Second World War history podcast from Goldhanger. And I'm James Holland, best-selling World War II historian. And together we tell the best stories from the war.

This time, we're doing a deep dive into the last major attack by the Nazis on the West, the Battle of the Bulge. And what's so fascinating about this story is we've been able to show how quite a lot of the popular history about this battle is kind of the wrong way around, isn't it, Jim? The whole thing is a disaster from the start. Even Hitler's plans for the attack are insane and divorced from reality.

Well, you're so right. But what we can do is celebrate this as an American success story for the ages. From their generals at the top to the GIs on the front line full of gumption and grit, the bold should be remembered as a great victory for the USA. And if this sounds good to you, we've got a short taste for you here. Search We Have Ways wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks.

Yeah. Anyway, so who is Obersturmbannfuhrer Joachim Peiper? But I see his jaunty hat and I just think... And his SS skull and crossbones. Well, I see his reputation and I think, you know, you might be a handsome devil, but the emphasis is on the devil bit rather than the handsome. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway...

Be that as may, he's 29 years old and he's got a very interesting career, really, because he comes from a pretty right-wing family, let's face it. He's joined the SS at a pretty early stage. He's very international socialism. He's also been Himmler's adjutant. He took a little bit of time off in the summer of 1940 to go and fight with the 1st Waffen-SS Panzer Division.

Yeah. Did pretty well. Went back to being Himmler's adjutant. Then went off and commanded troops in the Eastern Front. Rose up to be a pretty young regimental commander. I mean, there's not many people that age. Or an Obersturmbannfuhrer, which is a sort of colonel. Yes, I... You see, what must it have been like if you're in...

If Himmler's adjutant turns up and he's been posted to you as an officer, do you think, well, he only got that job because of his connections? For Piper, it must have been always, he's always having to prove himself, surely, because he has turned up. He's not worked his way through the ranks of the Waffen-SS. He's dolloped in, having come from head office, as it were.

It must be a peculiar position to be in, right? He's got lots to prove, right? That's what I'm saying. Yeah, and he's from a sort of middle-class background as well. Yeah. But he's got an older brother who's had mental illness and attempted suicide and never really recovers and actually has died of TB eventually in 1942. He's got a younger brother called Horne.

He's also joined the SS and Totenkopfverbande and died in a never really properly explained accident in Poland in 1941. Piper gains a sort of growing reputation on the Eastern Front for being kind of very inspiring, fearless, you know, obviously courageous. You know, all the guys love him, all that kind of stuff. But he's also ordered the destruction of the entire village of Krasnaya Polyana in a kind of revenge killing by Russian partisans.

Yeah. And his unit becomes known as the Blowtorch Battalion because of his penchant for touching Russian villages. So he's got all the gongs. He's got Iron Cross, Second Class, First Class, Cross of Gold, Knight's Cross. Did very well at Kursk. Briefly in Northern Italy, actually. Then in Ukraine. Then in Normandy, he suffers a nervous breakdown. Yeah.

Yeah. And he's relieved of his command on the 2nd of August. And he's hospitalized from September to October. So he's not in command during Operation Lutich. And then he rejoins 1st SS Panzer Regiment as its commander again in October 1944. It's really, really odd. I mean... But isn't that interesting, though? Because if you're a Lancer, if you're an ordinary soldier, you're not allowed to have a nervous breakdown. You don't get hospitalized. You don't get time off.

How you could interpret this is this is a sort of Nazi princeling, isn't he? He's him as adjutant. He's demonstrated the necessary Nazi zeal on the Eastern Front and all this sort of stuff. It comes to Normandy where they're losing. Why else would he have a nervous breakdown? He's shown all the zeal and application in the Nazi manner up to this point, and they're losing, you know. And because he's a knob, you know, because he's well connected, he gets to be hospitalized if he has a nervous breakdown. He isn't told like an ordinary German soldier, there's no such thing as combat fatigue, mate.

go back to work. Yes, and it's a nervous breakdown, not combat fatigue. Well, yes, of course. But, you know, what's the difference? One SS soldier said of him, Piper was the most dynamic man I ever met. He just got things done. Yeah. You get this image I have of him of having this kind of sort of

slightly manic energy, kind of. He's virulently National Socialist. He's got this great reputation. He's damned if anyone's going to tarnish it. You know, he's a driver, you know, all those things. He's trying to make the will triumph, isn't he? He's working towards the Fuhrer. He's imbued with, he knows what's expected of him, extreme violence and cruelty and pushing his men on. I mean, he's sort of, he's the Fuhrer Princip writ large, isn't he? As an SS officer. Yeah. Yeah.

which is why cruelty and extreme violence are bundled in to wherever he goes, basically.