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Watch the Second. Now was the time to rain blows without mercy on Germany's bleeding western flank. The Remagen bridge led into rugged country without any close objective of strategic importance. To realize Remagen's fullest value, ten or even 20 more crossings of the Rhine were needed, crossings by every means possible: assault boats, amphibious armor and carriers, motor-driven rafts, pontoon bridges, pneumatic-float bridges, even perhaps by multiple-span Bailey bridges longer than any yet thrown together. In the north, the Rhine is wide.
But it is shallower and slower there—and last week it was falling. If the Germans can pull themselves together, the Allied crossings are likely to be bloodily contested, especially if made in a frontal attack on the Ruhr. The Germans seemed to fear landings north and south of the Ruhr, aimed at quick envelopment of that vital industrial basin. Particularly, they seemed to fear the British Second Army, which, D.N.B. screamed, was moving up to Emmerich under smoke screens with 80,000 to 120,000 men and lavish bridging equipment.
Hope and Pride. The British Second is now the most fully rested of Eisenhower's seasoned armies. Direct offspring of Britain's famed Eighth (which Monty rolled from El Alamein to Tunis, and which is now bogged down in Italy), the Second had the hard job of holding the anchor at Caen, in Normandy, while Bradley's men made their spectacular breakout. The Second now carries the main burden of British hope and British pride in western Europe. It has had no full-scale action since it pushed the Germans behind the Maas River last autumn.
The British ground armies as a whole have come a long way since Dunkirk. They were ill-trained and vitiated by appeasement when war came, not unlike the "Old Contemptibles" which the Kaiser scorned in 1914. But they have learned and grown in the hard school of battle.
Five years ago, when the British went in & out of Norway, they were short of overcoats and their other winter equipment was pathetic. Now they are among the best-clad and best-equipped armies in the world, surpassing in some respects (e.g., footgear) the U.S.
The New Style. Like the British armies, the Second's commander, Lieut. General Sir Miles Christopher Dempsey, has learned and grown in World War II. He was a Lieutenant colonel in 1939. In those days, the usual type of top-ranking British general was majestic, rugged, slow-moving and often slow-thinking. The current type is trim, compact, quick-moving, quick witted and willing to learn — like Montgomery, Alexander and Dempsey. Dempsey is the tallest of the three (six feet) but he is slender.
In many other ways, Monty and Dempsey are unlike. Monty is abstemious; Dempsey likes an occasional drink and a frequent smoke. Monty sometimes acts like a prima donna; Dempsey never does.
Monty is the subject of a hundred anecdotes ; nobody ever tells a story about Dempsey. He never tells one himself. He is modest and reticent, and enjoys being inconspicuous.
Despite these differences, despite the fact that Dempsey has never been known to seek favor, even despite the fact that he was not one of Monty's original men in the Homeric African-desert campaigns, Monty picked him for his present job —a true accolade for his military ability.