The 12th Army Group was the largest and most powerful American formation ever to take to the field. It controlled the majority of American forces on the western front in 1944 and 1945. It was commanded by General Omar Bradley.
The 12thArmyGroup was the largest and most powerful American formation ever to take to the field.
After the breakout from beach-head at Normandy, the 12thArmyGroup occupied the center of the Western Front to the North was the British 21st ArmyGroup and to the south, after their breakout from the Mediterranean coast, was the US 6th ArmyGroup.
As the 12th advanced through Germany in 1945, it controlled four field armies: US First Army;US Third Army;US Ninth Army and US Fifteenth Army.
This was to have been the northern part of a pincer movement, with the US Ninth Army moving northwards towards Dusseldorf and Krefeld (Operation Grenade), to clear the west bank of the Rhine, north of Cologne.
Canadian First Army wheeled left and liberated northern Holland, British Second Army occupied much of north-west Germany and liberated Denmark, and US Ninth Army formed the northern arm of the encirclement of German forces in the Ruhr pocket and, on 4 April, reverted to Bradley's 12thArmyGroup.
It was redesignated the British Army of the Rhine on 25 August 1945, and would eventually form the nucleus of the British forces stationed in Germany throughout the Cold War.
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