Word: roer
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Meanwhile, the British Second Army and the U.S. Ninth Army stood on a 45-mile stretch of the Roer's west bank, from Roermond south beyond Düren. They could not risk a crossing so long as the Germans threatened to loose a flood on them from above. Before giving up the biggest dam, to the advancing First, the Germans last week demolished the floodgates. That dumped a huge volume of water into the valley, and the Allied armies on the west bank got out of its way. When the flood subsided, that danger would be gone...
...these were not the offensives worrying the Germans. Their spokesmen pointed northward, to the 40-mile stretch held by the Allies along the Roer where the guns of Lieut. Gen. William Hood Simpson's Ninth Army were already drumming a prelude to battles to come. Six new armored divisions, four new infantry divisions had suddenly appeared in this area, said the Nazi radio. The Allies, it added, were preparing for a smash across the Cologne plain to the Rhine...
...already showing the effect of serious losses. Although they kept up their bizarre token offensive in Alsace, they were pulling men and armor out of the Rhineland into central Germany, evidently hoping to hold the Westwall with Volksgrenadiere. The British profited by this withdrawal to move up to the Roer River, while Allied air attacks on the enemy's eastward movement gave direct tactical help to Russia...
Best Platform. The Roer River flows into the Maas at Roermond. Last week the British Second Army moved up to the west bank all the way from the confluence down to the U.S. Ninth Army's left flank above Jülich. The Ninth also took up some slack...
These moves gave General Eisenhower a 40-mile stretch of the Roer from the Maas down past Düren. It was still the best platform for a leap to the Rhine-as soon as the Allies could make...