Operation Veritable

8th February 1945: The British and Canadians mount a massive set-piece attack through mud and flooded villages

Infantry advance through the Reichswald during Operation 'Veritable', 8 February 1945

Churchill tanks supporting infantry of the 2nd Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders during Operation 'Veritable', 8 February 1945.

On the northern flank of the Allied front in northwest Europe the British XXX Corps and the 1st Canadian Army now launched a massive assault on the German lines. Operation Veritable aimed to push southeast to join up with the US Ninth Army and force the Germans up against the Rhine. The month-long battle was intended to coincide with Operation Grenade, the US Ninth Army pushing northwest in a pincer movement. However, after the Germans flooded the ground in front of the Americans, preventing any attack in the south, Operation Veritable went ahead anyway.

Churchill tanks of 34th Tank Brigade towing ammunition sledges at the start of Operation 'Veritable', 8 February 1945.

Churchill AVRE with fascine in the Reichswald during Operation 'Veritable', 8 February 1945.

The British and Canadians found themselves constricted by the terrain of the Reichswald Forest and progress was slower than expected over the wet, muddy battlefield.

Lt Gen Brian Horrocks addresses men of XXX Corps at Rees, on the German side of the Rhine, in May 1945.

Lieutenant-General Horrocks¹ who commanded XXX Corps, writing after the war, describes how the attack was launched:

By the evening of 7th February our concentration was complete, and the woods and outskirts of Nijmegen were thick with troops, guns, vehicles, workshops, tanks - all the paraphernalia of modern war. It would have been almost impossible to drop a pea into the area without hitting something. This was probably the last of the old-type set piece attacks because, in face of the threat of tactical atomic missiles, no concentration like this can ever take place again.