PLEASE FOLLOW OUR E BAY STORE. PLEASE READ WHOLE ADD. We do not want your feed back. We want your repeat business. We get by having best prices on the net. American Defense Service Medal. Service between 8 September 1939 and 7 December 1941. And Department of the Navy. September 8, 1939 (retroactive). December 7, 1941 (retroactive). About 2,000,000. World War II Victory Medal. Served in the armed forces between 7 December 1941 and 31 December 1946. The Army Good Conduct Medal was established by Executive Order 8809. Dated 28 June 1941, and authorized the award for soldiers completing three years active service after that date. The criteria were amended by Executive Order 9323. Dated 31 March 1943, to authorize the award for enlisted soldiers having three years of service after 27 August 1940 or one year of service after 7 December 1941 while the United States is at war. Dated 10 April 1953, revised the criteria to authorize the award for soldiers having three years of service after 27 August 1940; one year of service after 7 December 1941 while the United States is at war; and for soldiers having the first award for service after 27 June 1950 upon termination of service, for periods less than three years, but more than one year. An initial award of the Good Conduct Medal can also be awarded to soldiers with less than one year of service if the soldier was discharged due to an injury sustained in the line of duty or if died in service. Operation Varsity (24 March 1945) was a successful airborne forces operation launched by Allied troops toward the end of World War II. Involving more than 16,000 paratroopers and several thousand aircraft, it is the largest airborne operation ever conducted on a single day and in one location. Varsity was part of Operation Plunder, the Anglo-American-Canadian effort, led by Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, to cross the northern Rhine River and from there enter Northern Germany. Varsity was meant to help the surface river assault troops secure a foothold across the Rhine in Western Germany by landing two airborne divisions on its eastern bank near the village of Hamminkeln and the town of Wesel. The plans called for dropping two divisions from U. XVIII Airborne Corps, under Major General Matthew B. Ridgway, to capture key territory and to generally disrupt German defenses to aid the advance of Allied ground forces. The British 6th Airborne Division was to capture the villages of Schnappenberg and Hamminkeln, clear part of the Diersfordter Wald (Diersfordt Forest) of German forces, and secure three bridges over the River Issel. 17th Airborne Division was to capture the village of Diersfordt and clear the rest of the Diersfordter Wald of any remaining German forces. The two divisions would hold the territory they had captured until relieved by advancing units of 21st Army Group, and then join in the general advance into northern Germany. The airborne forces made several mistakes. Pilot error caused paratroopers from the 513th Parachute Infantry Regiment, a regiment of the U. 17th Airborne Division, to miss their drop zone and land on a British drop zone instead. Still, the operation was a success: both divisions captured Rhine bridges and secured towns that could have been used by Germany to delay the advance of the British ground forces. The two divisions incurred more than 2,000 casualties, but captured about 3,500 German soldiers. The operation was the last large-scale Allied airborne operation of World War II. The Allied disposition in western Europe by March 1945. By March 1945, the Allied armies had advanced into Germany and had reached the River Rhine. The Rhine was a formidable natural obstacle to the Allied advance, [12] but if breached would allow the Allies to access the North German Plain and ultimately advance on Berlin and other major cities in Northern Germany. Following the Broad Front approach laid out by General Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force, it was decided to attempt to breach the Rhine in several areas. [13] Field Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery, commanding the Anglo-Canadian 21st Army Group, devised Operation Plunder, subsequently authorized by Eisenhower, for a Rhine crossing by the forces under his command. Plunder envisioned the British Second Army, under Lieutenant-General Miles C. Dempsey, and the U. Ninth Army, under Lieutenant General William Simpson, crossing the Rhine at Rees, Wesel, and an area south of the Lippe Canal. To ensure that the operation was a success, Montgomery insisted that an airborne component be inserted into the plans for the operation, to support the amphibious assaults that would take place; this was code-named Operation Varsity. [15] Three airborne divisions were initially chosen to participate in the operation, these being the British 6th Airborne Division, the U. 13th Airborne Division and the U. 17th Airborne Division, all of which were assigned to U. XVIII Airborne Corps, commanded by Major General Matthew B. One of these airborne formations, the British 6th Airborne Division, commanded by Major-General Eric Bols, was a veteran division; it had taken part in Operation Overlord, the assault on Normandy in June the previous year. 17th Airborne Division, under Major General William Miley, had been activated only in April 1943 and had arrived in Britain in August 1944, too late to participate in Operation Overlord. The division did not participate in Operation Market Garden. It did, however, participate in the Ardennes campaign but had yet to take part in a combat drop. 13th Airborne Division, under Major General Eldridge Chapman, had been activated in August 1943 and was transferred to France in 1945; the formation itself had never seen action, although one of its regiments, the 517th Parachute Infantry, had fought briefly in Italy, and later in Southern France and the Ardennes campaign. Operation Varsity was planned with these three airborne divisions in mind, with all three to be dropped behind German lines in support of the 21st Army Group as it conducted its amphibious assaults to breach the Rhine. During the earliest planning stages, it became apparent that the 13th Airborne Division would be unable to participate in the operation, as there were only enough combat transport aircraft in the area to transport two divisions effectively. [17] The operation was then altered to accommodate the two remaining airborne divisions, the British 6th and U. The two airborne divisions would be dropped behind German lines, with their objective to land around Wesel and disrupt enemy defences in order to aid the advance of the British Second Army towards Wesel. O achieve this, both divisions would be dropped near the village of Hamminkeln, and were tasked with a number of objectives: they were to seize the Diersfordter Wald, a forest that overlooked the Rhine, including a road linking several towns together; several bridges over a smaller waterway, the River Issel, were to be seized to facilitate the advance; and the village of Hamminkeln was to be captured. [11] The Diersfordter Wald was chosen by Lieutenant-General Dempsey, the British Second Army commander, as the initial objective because its seizure would deny the Germans artillery positions from which they could disrupt Second Army’s bridging operations. [19] Once these objectives were taken, the airborne troops would consolidate their positions and await the arrival of Allied ground forces, defending the territory captured against the German forces known to be in the area. Operation Varsity would be the largest single-lift airborne operation conducted during the conflict; more significantly, it would contradict previous airborne strategy by having the airborne troops drop after the initial amphibious landings, in order to minimize the risks to the airborne troops learned from the experiences of Operation Market Garden, the attempt to capture the Rhine bridges in the Netherlands in 1944. [20] Unlike Market Garden, the airborne forces would be dropped only a relatively short distance behind German lines, thereby ensuring that reinforcements in the form of Allied ground forces would be able to link up with them within a short period: this avoided risking the same type of disaster that had befallen the British 1st Airborne Division when it had been isolated and practically annihilated by German infantry and armour at Arnhem. [21] It was also decided by the commander of the First Allied Airborne Army, General Lewis H. Brereton, who commanded all Allied airborne forces, including U. XVIII Airborne Corps, that the two airborne divisions participating in Operation Varsity would be dropped simultaneously in a single “lift”, instead of being dropped several hours apart, [22] addressing what had also been a problem during Operation Market Garden. Supply drops for the airborne forces would also be made as soon as possible to ensure adequate supplies were available to the airborne troops as they fought. By this period of the conflict, the number of German divisions remaining on the Western Front was rapidly declining, both in numbers and quality, a fact in the Allies’ favour. [24] By the night of 23 March, Montgomery had the equivalent of more than 30 divisions under his command, while the Germans fielded around 10 divisions, all weakened from constant fighting. [25] The best German formation the Allied airborne troops would face was the 1st Parachute Army, although even this formation had been weakened from the losses it had sustained in earlier fighting, particularly when it had engaged Allied forces in the Reichswald Forest in February. [26] First Parachute Army had three corps stationed along the river; the II Parachute Corps to the north, LXXXVI Army Corps in the centre, and LXIII Army Corps in the south. [27] Of these formations, the II Parachute Corps and LXXXVI Corps had a shared boundary that ran through the proposed landing zones for the Allied airborne divisions, meaning that the leading formation of each corps-these being the 7th Parachute and 84th Infantry Divisions-would face the airborne assault. [3] After their retreat to the Rhine both divisions were under-strength and did not number more than 4,000 men each, with 84th Infantry Division supported by only 50 or so medium artillery pieces. The seven divisions that formed the 1st Parachute Army were short of manpower and munitions, and although farms and villages were well prepared for defensive purposes, there were few mobile reserves, ensuring that the defenders had little way to concentrate their forces against the Allied bridgehead when the assault began. [28] The mobile reserves that the Germans did possess consisted of some 150 armoured fighting vehicles under the command of 1st Parachute Army, the majority of which belonged to XLVII Panzer Corps. [29] Allied intelligence believed that of the two divisions that formed XLVII Panzer Corps, the 116th Panzer Division had up to 70 tanks, and the 15th Panzergrenadier Division 15 tanks and between 20-30 assault guns. Intelligence also pointed to the possibility of a heavy anti-tank battalion being stationed in the area. [3] Also, the Germans possessed a great number of antiaircraft weapons; on 17 March Allied intelligence estimated that the Germans had 103 heavy and 153 light anti-aircraft guns, a number which was drastically revised a week later to 114 heavy and 712 light anti-aircraft guns. [29] The situation of the German defenders, and their ability to counter any assault effectively, was worsened when the Allies launched a large-scale air attack one week prior to Operation Varsity. The air attack involved more than 10,000 Allied sorties and concentrated primarily on Luftwaffe airfields and the German transportation system. [3] The German defenders were also hampered by the fact that they had no reliable intelligence as to where the actual assault would be launched; although German forces along the Rhine had been alerted as to the general possibility of an Allied airborne attack, it was only when British engineers began to set up smoke generators opposite Emmerich and began laying a 60-mile (97 km) long smokescreen that the Germans knew where the assault would come. FINISH READING IN WIKEPEDIA.
