After the failure of British General Bernard Montgomery’s 21st Army Group in September 1944 to capture key bridges at the Rhine River in Operation Market Garden — a single thrust airborne and infantry assault designed to pave the way to Berlin that was betrayed to the Germans by members of the Cambridge Five Soviet spy ring in London — Allied forces in Western Europe approached the Third Reich across a broad front.

MacDonald concluded that the “great hammerblow of GRENADE ... had effectively crushed the enemy."
In November, American troops attacked the Siegfried Line and fought a series of battles in and near small German towns (Siersdorf, Setterich, Bettendorf, Schleiden, Durboslar, Aldenhoven, Niedermerz and Bourheim) until in December 1944 they reached the Roer River. Poised to strike across the Roer and seize the German cities of Julich, Linnich, and Duren as part of Operation Grenade, U.S. forces stalled as Germany launched its winter Ardennes offensive known to history as the Battle of the Bulge. Operation Grenade would have to wait.
More than two months later, beginning on February 23, 1945 — 80 years ago today — Gen. William Simpson’s Ninth Army began Operation Grenade with an artillery bombardment from 2000 guns that, in the words of Charles B. MacDonald in his book The Last Offensive, “thundered Armageddon, illuminating the night.” Twenty-ninth Division historian Joseph Balkoski wrote that the artillery barrage “transformed a tranquil darkness into an infernal maelstrom.” Another 29th Division historian described “big guns leap[ing] into action ... the earth trembled ... the sky was red,” while “batteries of machine guns and mortars hammered the far bank” of the river. Joseph Ewing, who served in the 175th regiment, in the War Department’s official history of the 29th Division 29 Let’s Go, wrote that  the “sky was alive with great flashes of sheet lightning” from the big guns.
Gen. Simpson’s force consisted of 10 divisions — more than 350,000 troops — incl...