Operation Varsity

Operation Varsity was therefore planned with these three airborne divisions in mind, with all three to be dropped behind German lines in support of the 21st Army Group as it conducted its amphibious assaults to breach the Rhine. However, during the earliest planning stages, it became apparent that the 13th Airborne Division would be unable to participate in the operation, as there were only enough combat transport aircraft in the area to transport two divisions effectively.[16] The plan for the operation was therefore altered to accommodate the two remaining airborne divisions, the British 6th and U.S. 17th Airborne Divisions. The two airborne divisions would be dropped behind German lines, with their objective to land around Wesel and disrupt enemy defences in order to aid the advance of the British Second Army towards Wesel.[17]

To achieve this, both divisions would be dropped near the village of Hamminkeln, and were tasked with a number of objectives: they were to seize the Diersfordter Wald, a forest that overlooked the Rhine, including a road linking several towns together; several bridges over a smaller waterway, the River Issel, were to be seized to facilitate the advance; and the village of Hamminkeln was to be captured.[10] The Diersfordter Wald was chosen by Lieutenant-General Dempsey, the British Second Army commander, as the initial objective because its seizure would deny the Germans artillery positions from which they could disrupt Second Army's bridging operations.[18] Once these objectives were taken, the airborne troops would consolidate their positions and await the arrival of Allied ground forces, defending the territory captured against the German forces known to be in the area.

C-47s and CG-4A gliders before take-off, 24 March 1945

Operation Varsity would be the largest single-lift airborne operation conducted during the conflict; more significantly, it would contradict previous airborne strategy by having the airborne troops drop after the initial amphibious landings, in order to minimize the risks to the airborne troops learned from the experiences of Operation Market Garden, the attempt to capture the Rhine bridges in the Netherlands in 1944.[19] Unlike Market Garden, the airborne forces would be dropped only a relatively short distance behind German lines, thereby ensuring that reinforcements in the form of Allied ground forces would be able to link up with them within a short period: this avoided risking the same type of disaster that had befallen the British 1st Airborne Division when it had been isolated and practically annihilated by German infantry and armour at Arnhem.[20] It was also decided by the commander of the First Allied Airborne Army, General Lewis H. Brereton, who commanded all Allied airborne forces, including U.S. XVIII Airborne Corps, that the two airborne divisions participating in Operation Varsity would be dropped simultaneously in a single "lift," instead of being dropped several hours apart,[21] addressing what had also been a problem during Operation Market Garden. Supply drops for the airborne forces would also be made as soon as possible to ensure adequate supplies were available to the airborne troops as they fought.[22]

By this period of the conflict, the number of German divisions remaining on the Western Front was rapidly declining, both in numbers and quality, a fact in the Allies' favour.[23] By the night of 23 March, Montgomery had the equivalent of more than 30 divisions under his command, while the Germans fielded around 10 divisions, all weakened from constant fighting.[24] The best German formation the Allied airborne troops would face was the 1st Parachute Army, although even this formation had been weakened from the losses it had sustained in earlier fighting, particularly when it had engaged Allied forces in the Reichswald Forest in February.[25] First Parachute Army had three corps stationed along the river; the II Parachute Corps to the north, LXXXVI Army Corps in the centre, and LXIII Army Corps in the south.[26] Of these formations, the II Parachute Corps and LXXXVI Corps had a shared boundary that ran through the proposed landing zones for the Allied airborne divisions, meaning that the leading formation of each corps — these being the 7th Parachute and 84th Infantry Divisions — would face the airborne assault.[3] After their retreat to the Rhine both divisions were under-strength and did not number more than 4,000 men each, with 84th Infantry Division supported by only 50 or so medium artillery pieces.[3]

The seven divisions that formed the 1st Parachute Army were short of manpower and munitions, and although farms and villages were well prepared for defensive purposes, there were few mobile reserves, ensuring that the defenders had little way to concentrate their forces against the Allied bridgehead when the assault began.[27] The mobile reserves that the Germans did possess consisted of some 150 armoured fighting vehicles under the command of 1st Parachute Army, the majority of which belonged to XLVII Panzer Corps.[28] Allied intelligence believed that of the two divisions that formed XLVII Panzer Corps, the 116th Panzer Division had up to 70 tanks, and the 15th Panzergrenadier Division 15 tanks and between 20–30 assault guns. Intelligence also pointed to the possibility of a heavy anti-tank battalion being stationed in the area.[3] Also, the Germans possessed a great number of antiaircraft weapons; on 17 March Allied intelligence estimated that the Germans had 103 heavy and 153 light anti-aircraft guns, a number which was drastically revised a week later to 114 heavy and 712 light anti-aircraft guns.[28] The situation of the German defenders, and their ability to counter any assault effectively, was worsened when the Allies launched a large-scale air attack one week prior to Operation Varsity. The air attack involved more than 10,000 Allied sorties and concentrated primarily on Luftwaffe airfields and the German transportation system.[3] The German defenders were also hampered by the fact that they had no reliable intelligence as to where the actual assault would be launched; although German forces along the Rhine had been alerted as to the general possibility of an Allied airborne attack, it was only when British engineers began to set up smoke generators opposite Emmerich and began laying a 60-mile (97 km) long smokescreen that the Germans knew where the assault would come.[6]

The first element of the British 6th Airborne Division to land was the 8th Parachute Battalion, part of the 3rd Parachute Brigade under Brigadier James Hill.[34] The brigade actually dropped nine minutes earlier than scheduled, but successfully landed in drop zone A, while facing significant small-arms and 20 mm anti-aircraft fire. The brigade suffered a number of casualties as it engaged the German forces in the Diersfordter Wald, but by 11:00 hours the drop zone was all but completely clear of enemy forces and all battalions of the brigade had formed up.[31] The key place of Schnappenberg was captured by the 9th Parachute Battalion in conjunction with the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion, the latter unit having lost its Commanding Officer (CO), Lieutenant Colonel Jeff Nicklin, to German small-arms fire only moments after he had landed.[34] Despite taking casualties the brigade cleared the area of German forces, and by 13:45 Brigadier Hill could report that the brigade had secured all of its objectives.[31] Canadian medical orderly Corporal Frederick George Topham was awarded the Victoria Cross for his efforts to recover casualties and take them for treatment, despite his own wounds, and great personal danger.[35]

British paratroopers in Hamminkeln, 25 March 1945

The next British airborne unit to land was the 5th Parachute Brigade, commanded by Brigadier Nigel Poett.[36] The brigade was designated to land on drop zone B and achieved this, although not as accurately as 3rd Parachute Brigade due to poor visibility around the drop zone, which also made it more difficult for paratroopers of the brigade to rally. The drop zone came under heavy fire from German troops stationed nearby, and was subjected to shellfire and mortaring which inflicted casualties in the battalion rendezvous areas.[37] However, the 7th Parachute Battalion soon cleared the DZ of German troops, many of whom were situated in farms and houses, and the 12th Parachute Battalion and 13th Parachute Battalion rapidly secured the rest of the brigade's objectives.[37] The brigade was then ordered to move due east and clear an area near Schermbeck, as well as to engage German forces gathered to the west of the farmhouse where the 6th Airborne Division Headquarters was established. By 15:30 Brigadier Poett reported that the brigade had secured all of its objectives and linked up with other British airborne units.[37]

The third airborne unit that formed a part of the 6th Airborne Division was the 6th Airlanding Brigade, commanded by Brigadier Hugh Bellamy.[38] The brigade was tasked with landing in company-sized groups and capturing several objectives, including the town of Hamminkeln.[39] The gliders containing the airborne troops of the brigade landed in landing zones P, O, U and R under considerable antiaircraft fire, the landing being made even more difficult due to the presence of a great deal of haze and smoke. This resulted in a number of glider pilots being unable to identify their landing areas and losing their bearings; a number of gliders landed in the wrong areas or crashed.[37] However, the majority of the gliders survived, allowing the battalions of the brigade to secure intact the three bridges over the River Issel that they had been tasked with capturing, as well as the village of Hamminkeln with the aid of American paratroopers of the 513th Parachute Infantry Regiment, which had been dropped by mistake nearby. The brigade secured all of its objectives shortly after capturing Hamminkeln.[37]

The 507th Parachute Infantry Regiment, under the command of Colonel Edson Raff, was the lead assault formation for the 17th Airborne Division, and was consequently the first American airborne unit to land as part of Operation Varsity. The entire regiment was meant to be dropped in drop zone W, a clearing 2 miles (3 km) north of Wesel; however, excessive ground haze confused the pilots of the transport aircraft carrying the regiment, and as such when the 507th dropped it split into two halves.[40] Colonel Raff and approximately 690 of his paratroopers landed northwest of the drop zone near the town of Diersfordt, with the rest of the regiment successfully landing in drop zone W.[40] The colonel rallied his separated paratroopers and led them to drop zone W, engaging a battery of German artillery en route, killing or capturing the artillery crews before reuniting with the rest of the regiment.[40] By 2 pm, the 507th PIR had secured all of its objectives and cleared the area around Diersfordt, having engaged numerous German troops and also destroying a German tank.[41] The actions of the 507th Parachute Infantry during the initial landing also gained the division its second Medal of Honor, when Private George Peters posthumously received the award after charging a German machine gun nest and eliminating it with rifle fire and grenades, allowing his fellow paratroopers to gather their equipment and capture the regiment's first objective.[42]

The city of Wesel lies in ruin after Allied bombardment.

The 513th Parachute Infantry Regiment was the second American airborne unit to land after the 507th, under the command of Colonel James Coutts.[41] En route to the drop zone, the transport aircraft carrying the 513th had the misfortune to pass through a belt of German antiaircraft weapons, losing 22 of the C-46 transport aircraft and damaging a further 38.[43] Just as the 507th had, the 513th also suffered from pilot error due to the ground haze, and as such the regiment actually missed its designated drop zone, DZ X, and was dropped on one of the landing zones designated for the British 6th Airlanding Brigade.[44] Despite this inaccuracy the paratroopers swiftly rallied and aided the British glider-borne troops who were landing simultaneously, eliminating several German artillery batteries that were covering the area.[44] Once the German troops in the area had been eliminated, a combined force of American and British airborne troops stormed Hamminkeln and secured the town.[45] By 2 pm, Colonel Coutts reported to Divisional Headquarters that the 513th Parachute Infantry had secured all of its objectives, having knocked out two tanks and two complete regiments of artillery during their assault.[45] During its attempts to secure its objectives, the regiment also gained a third Medal of Honor for the 17th Airborne Division when Private First Class Stuart Stryker posthumously received the award after leading a charge against a German machine-gun nest, creating a distraction to allow the rest of his platoon to capture the fortified position in which the machine-gun was situated.[42]

American glider troops of the 194th Glider Infantry Regiment after landing near Wesel

The third component of the 17th Airborne Division to take part in the operation was the 194th Glider Infantry Regiment (GIR), under the command of Colonel James Pierce.[34] Troopers of the 194th GIR landed accurately in landing zone S, but their gliders and tow aircraft took heavy casualties; 12 C-47 transports were lost due to anti-aircraft fire, and a further 140 were damaged by the same fire.[34] The regiment landed in the midst of a number of German artillery batteries that were engaging Allied ground forces crossing the Rhine, and as such many of the gliders were engaged by German artillery pieces that had their barrels lowered for direct-fire.[34] However, these artillery batteries and their crews were defeated by the glider-borne troops, and the 194th Glider Infantry Regiment was soon able to report that its objectives had been secured, having destroyed 42 artillery pieces, 10 tanks, 2 self-propelled anti-aircraft vehicles and 5 self-propelled guns.[34]

The casualties taken by both airborne formations were quite heavy, although lighter than had been expected.[2] By nightfall of 24 March, the 6th Airborne Division had suffered around 1,400 personnel killed, wounded or missing in action out of the 7,220 personnel who were landed in the operation. The division also claimed to have secured around 1,500 prisoners of war.[2] The 17th Airborne Division suffered a similar casualty rate, reporting around 1,300 casualties out of 9,650 personnel who took part in the operation, while the division claimed to have taken 2,000 POWs, a number similar to those taken by 6th Airborne.[2] This made a total of around 3,500 POWs taken by both airborne formations during the operation. Between 24 and 29 March, the 17th Airborne had taken a total of 1,346 casualties.[51] The air forces involved in the operation also suffered casualties; 56 aircraft in total were lost during the 24th,[52] 21 out of the 144 transport aircraft transporting the 17th Airborne were shot down and 59 were damaged by antiaircraft fire, and 16 bombers from the Eighth Air Force were also shot down during supply drops.[2]

In the British and Commonwealth system of battle honours, there was no distinct award for service in Operation Varsity. Instead, units that participated in the operation were included in the awards made between 1956 and 1959 to all units that participated in the Rhine crossing between 23 March and 1 April 1945: Rhine, or The Rhine to Canadian units, later translated to Le Rhin for French Canadian units.[53]

Curtiss C-46 "Commando" in flight

One specific failure in the massive operation was the critical lack of transport aircraft for the operation, an unsolved flaw that had dogged every large-scale airborne operation the Allies had conducted. In the original planning for Varsity, an extra airborne division, the 13th, had been included; however, a lack of transport aircraft to drop this division led to it being excluded from the final plan.[15] Thus, the unsolved problem of a shortage of transport aircraft meant that a third of the planned troops to be used were discarded, weakening the fighting power of the airborne formation.[62] In the event, the airborne troops actually employed were sufficient to overwhelm the defenders.[58]

There was also a shortage of gliders, although Brereton eventually got the 906 CG-4As he needed for Varsity and 926 for Operation Choker II , an American crossing of the Rhine at Worms planned for March. New gliders were shipped crated from America for assembly in Europe. Some were recovered from the Netherlands despite pilfering for fabric and instruments and a storm which destroyed over a hundred; after two months only 281 of the 2000 gliders there were retrieved. There was little recovery of gliders from Normandy.[63]

Some historians have commented on this failure; Gerard Devlin argues that because of this lack of aircraft the remaining two divisions were forced to shoulder the operation by themselves.[58]

Losses of airborne troops were high. The cause of this high casualty rate can most likely be traced to the fact that the operation was launched in full daylight, rather than a night-assault. The airborne landings were conducted during the day primarily because the planners believed that a daytime operation had a better chance of success than at night, the troops being less scattered.[58][Note 6]

However, landing paratroopers, and especially gliders, without the cover of darkness left them exceedingly vulnerable to anti-aircraft fire.[64] The official history of the British Airborne Divisions highlights the cost of this trade-off, stating that of the 416 gliders that landed, only 88 remained undamaged by enemy fire, and that between 20–30 percent of the glider pilots were casualties.[65] Another historian argues that the gliders landing in daylight was a calamity, with the 194th Glider Infantry Regiment having two-thirds of their gliders hit by ground fire and suffering heavy casualties as they landed.[64] The casualty rates were worsened by the slow rates of release and descent of the gliders themselves, and the fact that each aircraft towed two gliders, slowing them even further; as the time to release a glider unit was 3–4 times longer than a parachute unit, the gliders were vulnerable to flak.[64]

A British Hadrian Glider

A large number of paratroop drop aircraft were hit and lost as well. This was largely due to the hostile conditions encountered by the drop aircraft. Operation Varsity's paratroop drop phase was flown in daylight at slow speeds at very low altitudes, using unarmed cargo aircraft, over heavy concentrations of German 20 mm, 37 mm, and larger calibre antiaircraft (AA) cannon utilizing explosive, incendiary, and armor-piercing incendiary ammunition. By that stage of the war, German AA crews had trained to a high state of readiness; many batteries had considerable combat experience in firing on and destroying high speed, well-armed fighter and fighter-bomber aircraft while under fire themselves. Finally, while many if not all of the C-47s used in Operation Varsity had been retrofitted with self-sealing fuel tanks,[66] the much larger C-46 Commando aircraft employed in the drop received no such modification. This was exacerbated by the C-46's unvented wings, which tended to pool leaked gasoline at the wing root where it could be ignited by flak or a stray spark. Although 19 of 72 C-46 aircraft were destroyed during Operation Varsity, losses of other aircraft types from AA fire during the same operation were also significant, including 13 gliders shot down, 14 crashed, and 126 damaged; 15 Consolidated B-24 bombers shot down, and 104 damaged;[67][68] and 30 C-47s shot down and 339 damaged.[69]

Lieutenant-Colonel Otway, who wrote an official history of the British airborne forces during World War II, stated that Operation Varsity highlighted the vulnerability of glider-borne units. While they arrived in complete sub-units and were able to move off more quickly than airborne troops dropped by parachute, the gliders were easy targets for anti-aircraft fire and short-range small-arms fire once landed; Otway concluded that in any future operations, troops dropped by parachute should secure landing zones prior to the arrival of glider-borne units.[70] Thus, by having the landings conducted during daylight to ensure greater accuracy, the Allied planners incurred a far greater casualty rate, particularly amongst the glider-borne elements. The operation also suffered from poor piloting. Although the piloting was of a better quality than in the Sicilian and Normandy operations, there were still significant failures on the part of the pilots, especially when it is considered that the drop was conducted in daylight.[71] A significant error occurred when the pilots of the transports carrying 513th Parachute Infantry Regiment dropped much of the regiment several miles from their designated drop zones, with the mis-dropped units actually landing in the British landing zones.[71]