THE RUHR POCKET

The world's largest industrial complex, the Ruhr was where Nazi Germany's war machine was forged. If the Allies could capture it the conflict in Europe would effectively be over

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Heeresgruppe B was Nazi Germany's last sizeable force in western Europe in the spring of 1945. Field Marshal Walter Model, its pugnacious, monocled commander, was a master of defensive warfare and was determined to stop the Western Allies advancing into the heart of Germany. But his 19 divisions were in a desperate state, as his Chief of Staff Carl Wagener lamented: "We had a confused army of stragglers who, when gathered up, only slipped away again."

Having never achieved a decisive envelopment of a German field army, General Omar Bradley planned to do just that by encircling Heeresgruppe B in the Ruhr and annihilating it. In the south the US First Army would break out of its bridgehead at Remagen, while 80 miles (130km) to the north General William Simpson's Ninth Army would strike east from Wesel. The jaws of the pincer were due to meet at the ancient city of Paderborn about 100 miles (160km) away.

On 25 March the offensive began, with General Joseph 'Lightning Joe' Collins' Seventh Corps attacking out of the Remagen bridgehead. After losing three Sherman tanks to a deadly German Tiger, one of the new, heavy M26 Pershing tanks showed its worth by destroying the dreaded panzer, and the Americans surged towards Altenkirchen.