ERO Presents: Bouncing The Rhine – Operation Varsity 24 March 1945

As the Western Allies emerged from the bitter cold winter of 1944-45 victory over Hitler’s Third Reich seemed tantalizingly close. Just one last major barrier stood in their path before the anticipated final battles before Berlin, the formidable River Rhine.

Field Marshal Montgomery planned to bounce the Rhine with a combined Anglo-Canadian-US assault. Pushed on by an increasingly impatient Prime Minister, Winston Churchill he planned to cross the Rhine on 24 March with the meticulously planned Operation Plunder.

A key component of Plunder was Operation Varsity, an Airborne landing involving British, Canadian and American Airborne formations. The British 6th Airborne Division including the glider-borne troops of 6th (Airlanding) Brigade would cross the Rhine alongside the recently formed US 17th Airborne Division.

Varsity took place just five months after the disastrous Battle of Arnhem. Many of the lessons of Operation Market Garden were incorporated into the Varsity plan, however, for the Glider Pilot Regiment (GPR) crossing the Rhine so soon after Arnhem presented significant challenges. The airfields of Essex and many others across East Anglia would be the launch point for many of the gliders involved in Varsity.

The ferocious fighting in Arnhem and around Oosterbeek had decimated the GPR, which was at peak strength just before this operation where it had committed over 1300 Glider Pilots to Market Garden.

After nine days of fighting the regiment’s two Wings had suffered 90% casualties. These men were simply irreplaceable. If British Airborne forces were to deploy gliders in meaningful numbers again a radical solution had to be found, and quickly.

In ‘Bouncing the Rhine’ Military Historian, Mike Peters joins us to talk about the lessons learned after Arnhem, the reconstitution of the Glider Pilot Regiment in the winter of 1944-45 and the key role played by the men of the Glider Pilot Regiment on Op Varsity.

Army Air Corps Veteran, Mike Peters is a Military Historian and Battlefield Guide. Mike has published books on the Airborne Operations on Sicily and at Arnhem.

He is also co-author of Bomb Group – a history of the 381st BG USAAF, and Ops Normal, the authorised operational history of the AAC.

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