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By the end of the summer of 1944,

it seemed as though the German armies were finally being broken beyond repair.

Allied assaults at Normandy, and most particularly at the fillet's gap,

had sent German forces back towards their home.

Seizing the opportunity to strike,

Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery ordered the British Second Army, from Antwerp to northern Belgium,

routing the German forces they found along the way and securing a vast and vital stretch of land for the Allies.

The first Canadian army had begun to oust German forces on its way to recapture the crucial ports of Dieppe, Le Havre and Boulogne-Sermere.

From the south, the United States 12th Army Group had arrived at the German border,

securing a rigid perimeter at the belly of the country,

and making plans to lay siege to the vital entry point city of Aachen in the west,

Germany's gateway to Belgium and the Netherlands.

General George S. Patton's Third Army had rolled straight through France and were busy convening at the German border state of Saar.

Recapturing vital ports had finally allowed for the heavy artillery, so essentially needed by the Allied forces in order to take larger towns, to finally make their way across the channel.

But the problem now lay in how to transport these colossal weapons across towards Germany.

In order to cut off German supplies during the previous years,

the Allies had spent considerable effort in bombing French rail networks,

thereby preventing German artillery from reaching the western

coasts. To compound matters, the onset of poor weather and rising seas on the French coast

...