FROM NORMANDY TO THE RHINE – 1944: Pas-de-Calais, Arnhem, Ardennes, Walcheren

In 1944, the Allied advance following the destruction of the German forces in the Falaise Pocket was almost as momentous as the closing of the pocket on 14 August: Paris was liberated on 15 August and, in north-eastern France, Patton's Third Army advanced rapidly towards the border, taking Reims on 29 August and Verdun on the 30th. In Belgium, on 4 September, British troops entered Antwerp; Canadian troops liberated Ostend on the 8th, allowing the Belgian government-in-exile to return to its country.

In early September, the Allied armies paused to regroup and, by the time they were ready to advance again, the Germans had formed a new defensive line. Operation Market Garden — an audacious thrust conceived by Montgomery to bypass the Siegfried Line and drive into the heart of Germany — was launched on 17 September and was intended to end German resistance in the Netherlands. It ended in failure on the 25th with the capture of more than 6,000 paratroopers, the bridge at Arnhem having proved to be a bridge too far.

At the end of October, the Scheldt clearing operations began around Walcheren and opened the port of Antwerp to the Allies. Hard fighting continued until 8 November, and clearance work well beyond that date, but on the 28th the first Allied convoy entered Antwerp. Belgium was at last liberated from the Nazi yoke.

Finally, on 16 December, Hitler made his last gamble with a major German counter-attack in the Ardennes, aimed at splitting the Allied armies and recapturing Antwerp. At the start of 1945, the Germans also attacked in the Saar, in the hope of retaking Strasbourg. This would be their last attempt: the American defenders held firm and, as the weather improved, Patton's army...