For educational purposes
During the final months of 1944, British and American forces marched relentlessly through France and Belgium towards the western borders of the Third Reich, flowing in between the borders the great, wide river of the Rhine.
For the Germans, the Rhine was also a psychological barrier, they were determined to defend it to the last after Hitler's counter-offensive in the Ardennes had failed.
Though briefly humiliated at Arnhem, the Allies plunged onward toward Berlin in late 1944, drunk with confidence -- and dangerously underestimating their German foes.
In March 1945 the Rhine was overcome with the help of considerable artillery and air bombardments, this resulted in the total collapse of the German resistance.
