Allied Advance Slows Down
Paris was occupied by a French division on August 25 while the armies were pushing across the Seine, Aisne, and Somme rivers. Patton's Third Army reached the forts of Metz and Nancy on September 7 and four days later made contact with the southern invasion forces at Dijon. The First Army under General Courtney H. Hodges reached Belgium on September 2, took Liège, crossed Luxembourg, and entered Germany on September 11. Montgomery's armies took Brussels on September 3 and Antwerp on the following day and reached the Netherlands on September 11.
By this time, all the armies had outrun their supplies, despite a convoy system of motor trucks, called the Red Ball Express, that operated between Normandy and the front. The port of Antwerp was needed, but German forces on islands at the mouth of the Schelde River blocked it. Montgomery's forces were not able to clear these islands until November 9.
The scope of the supply problem is indicated by Eisenhower's report at this time that the armies were using 8,000,000 rounds of artillery and mortar ammunition a month. (During all of World War I the American Expeditionary Forces used only 10,000,000 rounds of artillery and mortar ammunition.) It was lack of gasoline, however, that had stopped Patton at Metz.
On September 17 and 18, in an effort to break through in the north, the First Allied Airborne Army under General Lewis H. Brereton launched Operation Market Garden, a massive airborne attack using 2,800 planes and 1,600 gliders. The American 82nd and 101st divisions seized crossings of the Meuse and Waal rivers near Eindhoven and were reached by ground troops. The British First Airborne Division, however, was isolated at Arnhem and lost two-thirds of its troops while being forced to withdraw.
Advances in other areas were slow. The First Army took Aachen on October 21 and the Third took Metz on November 20. The Ninth Army was brought into the line between them. Devers' armies entered Alsace and took Strasbourg on November 23. German defense of the Siegfried Line proved too strong to be easily shaken. Floods along the Roer and bad weather conditions added to the difficulties of the attackers.
