XXX Corps (United Kingdom)

The depleted XXX Corps pulled back to El Alamein, the last defensible position west of the River Nile. It was the only place in the Western Desert campaign in which there would not be an open flank (a normal rule of desert warfare), due to the soft ground of the Qattara Depression, immediately south of the opposing forces and the Mediterranean Sea. The northern, coastal sector was assigned to XXX Corps.[4]

Due to significant previous casualties and equipment losses, XXX Corps was reinforced at Alamein by the attachment of units from other Commonwealth armies (that had previously been attached to XIII Corps): the South African Army's 1st Infantry Division and the Australian Army's 9th Infantry Division. The corps's other main unit was the British 23rd Armoured Brigade Group.[5]

In July 1942, XXX Corps again sustained heavy casualties, at the First Battle of El Alamein, although a major Axis offensive was repelled. Willoughby Norrie was replaced as corps commander by William Ramsden.[6]

In August, as a result of the previous defeats and losses, Prime Minister Winston Churchill dismissed Claude Auchinleck as commander-in-chief of Middle East Command and General Officer Commanding (GOC), Eighth Army. Auchinleck was replaced as Allied commander by Harold Alexander and as GOC, Eighth Army by William Gott (previously commander of XIII Corps). Gott was killed soon afterwards, when the aircraft carrying him was shot down; he was replaced by Bernard Montgomery.[7]

At the end of August, Rommel again decided to attempt a breakthrough, this time at the southern end of the line attacking a ridge named Alam el Halfa. While this was directed mainly at XIII Corps, XXX Corps was the subject of several diversionary raids. In September, Ramsden was replaced by Oliver Leese.[8]

XXX Corps was to be the focus of Montgomery's first major offensive, codenamed Operation Lightfoot. To the units already mentioned were added the New Zealand 2nd Division (previously XIII Corps), the British 51st (Highland) Infantry Division and the Indian 4th Infantry Division, along with the British 9th Armoured Brigade.[9]

On the night of 24 October, Lightfoot commenced with a prolonged and intense artillery bombardment, XXX Corps attacked. The corps quickly sustained very heavy casualties but the Australian, New Zealand, South African and Highland divisions continued to push the attack, creating several gaps in the minefields, before German resistance stopped further advances. To bring XXX Corps up to strength, 50th (Northumbrian) Infantry Division (XIII Corps) was added.[10]

Early on the morning of 2 November, X Corps and XXX Corps launched the fourth phase of Lightfoot, codenamed Operation Supercharge. By 4 November the tanks of X Corps had broken through and the Allies had won the Second Battle of El Alamein.[11]

The Australian 9th Division was transferred to the South West Pacific theatre. The 1st South African Division was left in Egypt. After El Alamein, XXX Corps pushed forward steadily. It stopped its advance at the Mareth Line in Tunisia in late February 1943.[12]

On 19 March, XXX Corps launched an attack on the Mareth Line as part of Operation Pugilist, with the 50th (Northumbrian) and 51st (Highland) infantry divisions in the lead. They managed to create a gap but it was quickly contained by Rommel's 15th Panzer Division. During Operation Supercharge II a force commanded by Lieutenant-General Brian Horrocks composed of the New Zealand Corps and 1st Armoured Division from X Corps exploited a flanking position established by the New Zealanders during Pugilist and broke the German flank defences on the night of the 26th/27th, forcing the outflanked German forces to withdraw northwards to Wadi Akrit.[13]

In mid-April, XXX Corps attempted to attack the position head on but made little progress against determined German and Italian resistance. By that time the British First Army had broken through the German line on their left in central Tunisia and the Axis forces were forced to surrender.[14]

The order of battle was as follows:[17]
General Officer Commanding Lt-Gen Gerard Bucknall (to 3 August 1944)
Lt-Gen Brian Horrocks (from 4 August 1944)

• Corps Troops:
  • 11th Hussars (armoured cars)
  • 73rd Anti-Tank Regiment, Royal Artillery[18]
  • 27th Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment, RA[19]
  • 4th (Durham) Survey Regiment, RA[20]
  • XXX Corps Troops, Royal Engineers[21][22]
  • XXX Corps Signals, Royal Corps of Signals
• 5th Army Group, RA[23]
  • 4th Regiment, Royal Horse Artillery[24]
  • 7th Medium Regiment, RA[25]
  • 64th (London) Medium Regiment, RA[26]
  • 84th (Sussex) Medium Regiment, RA[27]
  • 121st (West Riding) Medium Regiment, RA[28]
  • 52nd (Bedfordshire Yeomanry) Heavy Regiment, Royal Artillery[29]

In Normandy XXX Corps, now commanded by Lieutenant-General Gerard Bucknall, again included the 50th Division which landed on Gold Beach. It quickly overwhelmed the German defenders of the 716th Infantry Division and had linked up with the I Corps by the end of D-Day. Following D-Day the corps launched Operation Perch. It made slow gains facing stiff resistance but by 10 June had linked up with US forces advancing from Omaha Beach. On 12 June, an opportunity arose. The Germans had a gap in their front lines near the Town of Caumont-l'Éventé. The 7th Armoured Division was sent to exploit the gap and head towards Villers-Bocage in an attempt to outflank the German Panzer-Lehr-Division and force them to withdraw, resulting in the Battle of Villers-Bocage. This attack was thwarted by elements of the Panzer Lehr Division and the 101st SS Heavy Panzer Battalion. Bucknall was heavily criticised for his decisions during the operation and battle.[30]

XXX Corps was then involved in a battle of attrition with only minor gains being made. Up to 24 July, the front line remained relatively unchanged. The next day however, the Americans launched Operation Cobra, an attack on German positions on the western end of the Contentin Peninsula. They made considerable progress and the British Second Army launched Operation Bluecoat to support the attack and to exploit the momentum. VIII Corps, on the right flank made considerable progress but XXX Corps was sluggish. Annoyed, Montgomery sacked Bucknall and replaced him with Lieutenant-General Brian Horrocks, a distinguished veteran of North Africa. After the sacking of Bucknall, the performance of XXX Corps improved considerably and it managed to keep up with the other British Corps during the Battle for the Falaise Gap. After the German collapse, XXX Corps quickly advanced north-east and liberated Brussels and Antwerp in Belgium. There the advance was halted because of a shortage of fuel. Elements of the Guards Armoured Division and the 2nd Household Cavalry Regiment managed to secure a bridge across the Maas-Schelde canal into the Netherlands. This bridge was nicknamed Joe's Bridge in honour of Lieutenant Colonel Joe Vandeleur of the 2nd Battalion, Irish Guards who captured the bridge.[31]

After the success in France and Belgium, General Montgomery commanding the 21st Army Group turned his attention to outflanking the Siegfried Line and invading the Ruhr in a pincer movement. The northern part of the pincer would be near Arnhem at the Dutch/German border. Allied troops would concentrate at this point to form the northern part of the pincer. XXX Corps, consisting of approximately 50,000 men, would advance along the main axis of the British Second Army's line of the offensive, and reach Arnhem within 48 hours, and continue on to the Dutch/German border. XXX Corps, the ground operation, was to be the GARDEN part of the operation to project past Arnhem. This required crossing a number of choke points over water obstacles, the last of them a road bridge at Arnhem. When the pincer closed, this would allow ground troops to trap the German 15th Army, splitting it from the 1st Parachute Army on the way around the northern flank of the Siegfried Line.[32]

The MARKET part of the operation was to seize the bridges up to Arnhem Montgomery requested from General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander on the Western Front, to deploy the First Allied Airborne Army. The U.S. 101st Airborne Division, under Major General Maxwell D. Taylor, was dropped at Eindhoven, to secure the Son and Wilhelmina Canal bridges, the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division, under Brigadier General James M. Gavin, dropped at Nijmegen, to secure the Grave and Nijmegen bridges, while the British 1st Airborne Division, under Major-General Roy Urquhart, dropped at Arnhem, to secure the bridgehead over the Neder Rijn. Attached to the 1st Airborne Division was the Polish 1st Parachute Brigade, under Major General Stanisław Sosabowski.[33]

Vehicles of the Guards Armoured Division of XXX Corps passing through Grave having linked up with the US 82nd Airborne Division.

Operation Market Garden commenced at 14:00H on Sunday 17 September 1944, with the artillery preparation by 350 guns at 14:35.[34] It was to be the most ambitious ground offensive operation by the British Army in the war so far. However, it was also beset by problems. The ground was assessed to be too soft to accommodate the Sherman tanks of the leading Irish Guards Battle Group, forcing the entire Guards Armoured Division to stay on the single highway. As the XXX Corps advanced north-east, it became obvious that the single highway was prone to traffic jams and was extremely vulnerable to enemy counter-attacks.[35]

The lead elements of XXX Corps, Major-General Allan Adair's Guards Armoured Division were ambushed by German anti-tank defences, causing delays to the advance while the infantry dealt with the enemy. As a result, they were far short of the 82nd Airborne Division's objectives, having not even reached the 101st Airborne Division by the end of the first day. On the second day of GARDEN, the Guards Armoured Division continued northwards to Eindhoven, where they met elements of the 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division. They soon discovered that Taylor's 101st had failed to secure the bridge at Son intact, creating more delays before XXX Corps engineers arrived to build a Bailey bridge.[36]

On the morning of the 19th the Guards Armoured Division advanced without facing much resistance reaching the Nijmegen Bridge on the same day, where they found that the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division had failed to capture the road bridge at Nijmegen with troops only at the southern end of the bridge. XXX Corps brought up boats used by bridge engineers, allowing two companies of Major Julian Cook's 3rd Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment to cross the river to assault the bridge from the northern end. XXX Corps captured the Nijmegen bridge running their tanks over. The Guards Armoured Division advanced and quickly established positions on the northern bank to secure the bridge.[37]

Further south, in the 101st Airborne Division's sector, many units from the XXX Corps had to be detached to fight off repeated attempts by the German 106th Panzerbrigade to cut the highway. The 231st Infantry Brigade (from the 50th Division) and the 4th Armoured Brigade spent most of the time during Operation Market Garden reacting to these probes by German Panther tanks and panzergrenadiers. This created major traffic jams and delayed reinforcements reaching Adair's Guards Armoured Division–particularly the 43rd (Wessex) Infantry Division, under Major-General Ivor Thomas, and the 69th and 151st Brigades of the 50th Division, which further slowed down the XXX Corps advance.[38]

By 21 September the Guards Armoured Division troops were exhausted, and Horrocks also took ill, with XXX Corps periodically being commanded by its Brigadier General Staff (BGS) Brigadier Harold Pyman, for which he would be made Chief of Staff of Second Army after the operation. They had fought continuously for five days, much of it against fierce German resistance, and were unable to continue the offensive any longer. The 43rd Division was brought up to continue the offensive, who managed to defeat elements of the 10th SS Panzer Division that penetrated to Nijmegen area, and advanced to the Neder Rijn and the area called "the Island". There the 4th Battalion, Dorset Regiment successfully crossed the Rhine as a diversion, so that the remnants of the British 1st Airborne Division could withdraw more safely, but many men of the 4th Dorsets were themselves left behind on the north bank of the Rhine when the division withdrew.[39]

The failure of Gavin's 82nd Airborne Division to seize the Nijmegen bridge caused a long delay for the XXX Corps to arrive at the Arnhem bridge as planned. This caused the British 1st Airborne Division, which was surrounded at Arnhem and suffered very heavy losses, to retreat from the Arnhem bridge after the delay enabled the Germans to reinforce with armoured divisions. Most of the British 1st Airborne Division either died fighting, surrendered, or withdrew to the Polish 1st Parachute Brigade positions, and effectively ended the offensive[40]

During the Battle of the Bulge, units of XXX Corps moved to secure the bridges over the Meuse.[41] On 27 December the Corps pushed the 2nd Panzer Division out of Celles. On 31 December they captured Rochefort at the western end of the salient.[41]

Lieutenant-General Horrocks addresses XXX Corps staff at Rees on the banks of the Rhine, 26 May 1945.

XXX Corps was heavily involved in the fighting that preceded the Rhine crossings. Under command of the 1st Canadian Army, and with additional divisions, it was responsible for the successful, if difficult, advance through the Reichswald Forest that was the first phase of Operation Veritable in February 1945. The subsequent phases were redesignated as Operation Blockbuster. The terrain now allowed a two corps front, with XXX Corps taking the western side until meeting at Geldern with elements of the 9th US Army on 3 March.[42]