38 - The Race for the Rhine
The WW2 Podcast
Angus Wallace
4.6 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 1 March 2017
⏱️ 49 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Once the Allies had crossed the English Channel on D-Day the next large natural barrier would be the crossing of the Rhine into Germany.
Toward the end of 1944 the fighting had been hard, the Americans had slogged through the Hürtgen Forest, everyone had reeled against the German counter attack in the Ardennes. The Rhine is a perfect natural border, the crossing of which would be symbolically crossing the last line of defence in to Germany from the West.
The task was given to Montgomery's 21st Army. As ever Monty put together an enormous set piece battle (Plunder), he knew the war was close to the end, many of the Allied troops in his command had fought for years. He couldn't afford for the crossing to fail.
4,000 guns opened up on the 23rd March, in the American sector they fired 65,000 shells in one hour! Varsity, the airborne arm of the operation was the largest airborne operation in history, with over 16,000 troops flown in.
To discuss this, and the crossings that beat Monty to it, I'm joined by Marc DeSantis. If that name sounds familiar that is because Marc is also regular guest on the Ancient Warfare Magazine Podcast. He is also a regular contributor to many history magazines on WWII topics.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Whether it's an under the radar genre or a proper out there podcast, sometimes it's better when you get weird, especially when it comes to switching up your soft drink, introducing new Dr Pepper Zero |
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| 0:24.1 | Weird, but in a surprisingly good way, try more weird with Dr Pepper Zero. |
| 0:29.6 | The World War II podcast is made possible from the kind donations of listeners like yourself. |
| 0:36.4 | There are thousands of you out there. |
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| 0:44.4 | Go to patreon.com slash W.W.2 podcast and have a poke about you'll see a |
| 0:50.9 | short video of me explaining it all and for those who become |
| 0:54.4 | patrons of the show I do try to give a bit extra back with outtakes and off-topic |
| 1:00.3 | chat with contributors. |
| 1:01.6 | Hello and welcome to another World War II podcast. |
| 1:05.0 | I don't know how many of you are aware but I also do the Ancient Warfare magazine |
| 1:09.6 | podcast. |
| 1:10.6 | Chatting with regular Mark DeSantis, he told me his other expertise with the Second World War, |
| 1:15.0 | and he just written an article for a magazine on the Ryan Crossings. |
| 1:20.0 | The Ryan Crossings have always interested me. |
| 1:22.0 | I have a buck on my |
| 1:22.9 | bookshelf I bought years ago, sat unread on my shelf. This seemed like an ideal |
| 1:27.4 | opportunity to dust it off. So I ask Mark if you'd like to come on and talk |
... |
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