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European Theater Group Reading Questions
Operation Market Garden
1) What was the goal of Operation Market Garden?
2) What were the Allies trying to capture? How did they go about doing this?
3) Why did the Operation fail?
4) What might you have done differently to ensure the operation succeeded?
Battle of Kursk
5) What was the fatal German mistake made when planning the attack?
6) How many tanks were fought at Prokhorovka? How large was that battlefield?
7) What was significant about the Battle of Kursk?
Battle of the Bulge
8) What were the two goals of Hitler for the offensive?
9) What enabled the Americans to launch their planes and begin their counter attack?
10) Why was the Battle of the Bulge significant?
Operation: Market Garden
Market Garden was one of the boldest plans of World War Two. Its goal was to end the
war by Christmas. Thirty thousand British and American airborne troops were to be flown
behind enemy lines to capture the eight bridges that spanned the network of canals and rivers on
the Dutch/German border.
At the same time, British tanks and infantry were to push up a narrow road leading from
the Allied front line to these key bridges. They would relieve the airborne troops, and then cross
the intact bridges.
The plan was conceived by General Bernard Montgomery, commander of the British
forces in Europe. The glittering triumph of the D-Day landings in France had become bogged
down in the slow and costly progress through the Normandy fields and hedgerows, which the
Germans defended with skill and tenacity.
Despite this, after weeks of heavy fighting, the Allies had finally broken through. For the
next three weeks they rolled through France and Belgium, liberating Paris and Brussels. Victory
for the Allies seemed close.
But Hitler's forces were regrouping, and as the Allies pushed nearer to Germany's
borders, German resistance stiffened. Montgomery believed that a powerful, narrow thrust deep
into German lines would be more effective than an advance on a broad front, which had become
difficult to supply from the few
ports controlled by the Allies,
and this was why he devised
Operation Market Garden.
Dropping by parachute
and in gliders these divisions
would land near the Dutch towns
of Eindhoven, Nijmegen and
Arnhem, to take the eight key
bridges. The planners called this
an 'airborne carpet', along which
the advancing British armor of
XXX corps could push through
to Germany.
On Sunday 17 September, 500 gliders and 1,500 aircraft flew over the men of XXX
corps, whose job was to follow beneath them in their tanks and trucks. As the aircraft flew over,
the Allied guns began a huge barrage to hit the Germans guarding the road ahead. The weather
that day was beautiful, with a cloudless blue sky and a warming autumn sun. American and
British gliders and parachutists drifted down on target, gathered up their equipment and began to
move towards the bridges they had to take. The road up which XXX corps would have to travel
to reach the bridges was narrow, just wide enough for two vehicles to pass. It was defended by
small groups of determined German infantry. As the XXX corps tanks approached, German
infantry picked off the leading nine vehicles, bringing the whole column to a standstill. It was 40
minutes before they moved again. The Germans were quick to organize against the airborne
troops.
The British paratroopers began their advance towards Arnhem, and were soon under
attack. They quickly found that their radios didn't work properly. It was impossible to coordinate the attack properly, because no one could communicate. However, one British battalion
did find a way through the German perimeter around Arnhem, and by 8pm on the first day, they
had captured the northern end of the road bridge across the Rhine. The Americans had also
reached their objectives. But most of the bridges had been blown up before they could be
captured.
At the end of the first day, XXX corps had advanced only seven miles from their start
line, and had not reached the first in the sequence of bridges. Meanwhile the Germans were
reinforcing, and their tanks were moving into Arnhem ready to take on the lightly armed British
paratroopers.
By the time the route to Arnhem was secured, it was too late for the British parachute
battalion at the north end of the bridge. The Germans had moved their tanks into the town, and
one by one they were demolishing the houses in which the British were fighting.
By now the paratroops had few anti-tank weapons, they had no food, and, crucially, they
had little ammunition left. The Allied troops were forced to abandon their positions near the
bridge, and to try and fight their way out. Three miles from Arnhem British paratroops were
holding a pocket of land at the village of Oosterberck. By now XXX corps, commanded by
General Horrocks, was on the other side of the river from the airborne troops. They could not,
however, cross.
German artillery controlled the river. Horrocks decided to evacuate the British survivors;
only some 2,500 eventually made the crossing. The Parachute division had left behind nearly
1,500 dead, and more than 6,500 prisoners, many badly wounded.
Operation Market Garden had failed. It would be another four months before the Allies
crossed the Rhine again and captured the German industrial heartland. The war dragged on,
costing the lives of many thousands of civilians and servicemen.
Battle of Kursk
The Battle of Kursk, Germany’s last grand offensive on the Eastern Front and the largest ever
tank battle the world’s ever seen, began 4 July 1943.
Operation Barbarossa had shown the power of armored warfare when Hitler unleashed Blitzkrieg
on the Red Army. Together with aerial support,
the Wehrmacht’s tanks had torn swathes through
the masses of the Russia Army. The Russian
(Red) Army had little in reserve and the
Germans nearly made it to Moscow before the
infamous Russian winter set in at the end of
1941. However, after the defeat at Stalingrad, the
German army on the Eastern Front had been in
retreat. If this retreat west continued, it would
prove to Germany’s enemies that the nation’s
military power had been fatally wounded at
Stalingrad. A continued retreat would also
encourage the work of the Russian partisans
massed in the west of their country – waiting to
strike on a retreating army. Therefore, for the
morale of the German Army, the German High
Command had to organize a massive offensive
against Russia – if only to prove that the German
Armed Forces based in Russia were still mighty
and a force to be reckoned with.
The industrial city of Kursk, 320 miles
south of Moscow, had been captured by the Germans in November 1941, during the early stages of the
Nazi-Soviet war, and retaken by the Soviets in February 1943. Now held by the Soviets, Kursk and the
surrounding area comprised a salient, or a ‘bulge’, 150 miles wide and 100 miles deep, into German-held
territory. German Field-Marshall Erich von Manstein wanted to recapture Kursk as early as March 1943
by ‘pinching the salient’ from the north and south, thereby cutting it off from the rest of the Soviet
territory.
The normally bellicose Hitler was unusually nervous about the planned offensive, confessing to
his general, Heinz Guderian, ‘Whenever I think of this attack, my stomach turns over’. Three times he
delayed the date of attack. The delays were to prove fatal.
Intelligence had forewarned the Soviets of Nazi intentions and coupled with the delays on Hitler’s
part, by the time the Germans did launch their counterattack, starting at 3 am on 4 July 1943, Kursk was
fully fortified and prepared. One German soldier, on the eve of the attack, thought the mission suicidal,
writing bleakly, ‘It is time to write out the last will and testament’. Almost a million men, 2,000 German
tanks and supporting aircraft attacking, as originally planned, from north and south of the salient, were
more than matched by the Soviets.
The Soviets had built a line of defense up to 200 miles deep, stretching over 3,800 miles.
Hundreds of anti-tank guns were put in place, half a million mines were laid in the first trench alone – the
equivalent to two mines per German soldier. 1.3 million men were waiting on the Soviet side, a further
million in reserve. Leading the defense at the Battle of Kursk was Stalin’s top commander, Georgi
Zhukov, defender of Moscow and Leningrad.
The climax of the Battle of Kursk took place near a village called Prokhorovka on 12 July, when
one thousand tanks and a thousand aircraft on each side clashed on a two-mile front, fighting each other
to a standstill. The melee was intense as tanks bumped into each other.
The Battle of Kursk dragged on for another month but with the German lines continuously
disrupted by partisan activity and the Russian capacity of putting unending supplies of men and
equipment into the fray, the Germans ran out of energy and resources. Losses on both sides were huge
(70,000 Germans and probably an equal if not greater number of Soviets) but with the Soviet Union’s
vast resource of manpower and with huge amounts of aid coming in from the US, Stalin could sustain his
losses. Hitler, however, could not. Germany never again launched an offensive in the East.
Battle of the Bulge
16 December 1944 saw the start of the German ‘Ardennes Offensive’ (the Battle of the Bulge). It
was to be the US’ biggest pitched battle in their history, involving 600,000 American troops. The Allied
forces were advancing towards Germany, pushing the Germans back town by town and believing the war
to be almost won. But this
was Hitler’s last attempt to
stop the momentum. His
aim was to advance through
the wooded area of the
Ardennes in Luxembourg
and Belgium and cut the
Allied armies in two and
then push on towards the
port of Antwerp, a vital
Allied stronghold.
The Allies knew
there was a build-up of
German troops and
equipment around the
Ardennes but never
believed Hitler was capable
of such a bold initiative. Only the day before the attack, the British commander, Bernard Montgomery,
told Dwight D Eisenhower, the Allies’ Supreme Commander, that the Germans would be incapable of
staging ‘major offensive operations’. Captured Germans spilled the plans but their information was
ignored. Thus, the attack came as a complete surprise.
Thick snow and heavy fog prevented the Americans from employing their airpower and the
German advance of 250,000 men forced a dent in the American line (hence battle of the ‘Bulge’).
Germans, dressed in American uniforms and driving captured US jeeps, caused confusion and within five
days the Germans had surrounded almost 20,000 men of the 101st Airborne at the crossroads of Bastogne.
Their situation was desperate but when the German commander gave his American equivalent, MajorGeneral Anthony McAuliffe, the chance to surrender, McAuliffe answered with just the one word ‘Nuts!’
US soldiers near the town of St Vith were not so lucky and 8,000 of them surrendered – the
largest surrender of US troops since the American Civil War 80 years before. Elsewhere, the Germans
taunted the Americans, using loudspeakers to ask, ‘How would you like to die for Christmas?’
Finally, near Christmas, the fog lifted, and the Americans were able to launch their planes. Patton,
considering the weather, said, ‘It’s a cold, clear Christmas – lovely weather for killing Germans’. While
Patton moved reinforcements into Bastogne and relieved its desperate defenders, Montgomery prevented
the Germans from crossing the River Meuse. The men of the 101st Airborne who were relieved by Patton
said that they didn’t need to be rescued.
The Americans then counterattacked; the Germans ran out of fuel and the bulge was burst. The
Ardennes Offensive did delay the Allied advance but on 22 January the Germans began their retreat and
by the 28th the line was back to where it was on 16 December. But at a cost – the US lost over 80,000
men killed or wounded. Amongst the dead, were 101 unarmed American prisoners, murdered by the SS.
The Germans lost over 100,000 and, vitally, much of its aircraft and tanks which, at that stage of the war,
were impossible to replace. The march on Berlin was back on. The Germans were never again able to
mount an offensive in the West.