Operation Eclipse was an Allied military operation fought in the German capital of Berlin during the closing days of the Second World War in Europe. It's objective was to create a breakthrough for Allied troops in the ongoing Siege of Berlin by using airborne forces to drop directly into the city itself, breaking the defense perimeter and causing havoc behind German lines. The operation was undertaken by the First Allied Airborne Army, which had previously been primarily a US/UK formation, but was expanded to include Soviet units after a request by Zhukov. It was the largest air assault in history up until that point, involving nearly 50,000 airborne infantry.
Allied planners had been working on an air assault directly into Berlin as early as fall 1944, revising the plan periodically as the western advance progressed into Germany. However, the situation in late June 1945 was much different than what earlier planners had anticipated. Instead of a lightly defended capital held mostly by garrison troops, Berlin was now defended by a combination of common soldiers, fanatical Nazis eager to experience Götterdämmerung, and desperate civilians impressed into service in Volkssturm levies. Nearly two weeks of direct assaults had tightened the encirclement of the city, but only at the cost of heavy Allied casualties.
In the hopes of finally breaking the German lines, the Allies were once again betting on their elite airborne units to lead the way. Their most experienced units, the American 82nd and 101st Airborne and the British 6th Airborne Divisions would jump alongside the relatively green British 52nd (Lowland) and US 17th Airborne. The Soviet contribution would come in the form of the 13th Guards Airborne Division, which in reality was an augmented brigade made up of veterans from Battle of Dnieper who had largely been fighting as leg infantry since 1944.
The assault plan was a bold one. The drop zone would be relatively wide, consisting of a rough oval between the Tiergarten and Tempelhof Airport. The Br 6th Airborne along with the 82nd and 101st would drop first, securing the airport and the surrounding neighborhoods to establish a perimeter. The second wave of the 13th Guards, 17th Airborne and the 52nd (Lowland) would follow 90 minutes later to bolster the airhead. If either of its runways were found to be intact enough to receive aircraft, a third wave would land reinforcements from the Glider Infantry regiments directly into Tempelhof itself.
The first step would involve an intricate deception plan. The Allies would halt in their current positions and pause the relentless close air support missions hammering the city. In its place would be a continuous stream of C-46, C-47 and Li-2 transports overflying the city for several days, dropping tens of million of leaflets offering good treatment in exchange for surrender. The hope was that the Germans would use the pause to move troops away from the city center to reinforce the front lines and that what little air defense still existed in the city would not be wasted on unarmed transports not considered a immediate threat.
Just after midnight on July 3rd, 6 C-47s, having turned off their engines 10 miles out to make a completely silent approach, successfully drop nearly 200 elite pathfinders onto the grounds of Tempelhof. They would be met by a small unit of OSS/SAS commandos that had infiltrated their way through German lines several hours prior and had eliminated most of the small garrison defending the airport. They moved quickly to setup their normal array of navigational aids (radio beacons, colored panels/smoke and Eureka radar sets) to guide the first wave into the airport, due right after 0400. These would be later be described as the most crucial hours of the operation as the failure of any aspect of this phase would have likely doomed the jump from the start.
The first wave of nearly 15,000 American, Commonwealth and Polish paratroopers made a nearly flawless jump, with most dropped within a few hundred yards of their assigned LZs. The notable exception was the majority of the 506th PIR from the 101st Airborne was scattered well north of the airport, landing mostly within the grounds of the Tiergarten. The 506th, having fought in similar fashion during Overlord, Market-Garden and Bastonge, quickly reorganized and secured defensive positions inside the Kroll Opera House and the ruined Reichstag building. They spent most of the next 36 hours defending the buildings from several waves of German attackers until they were relieved by Soviet troops pushing westward in to the city center. Once dawn broke over the city, a detachment from the US Army Corps of Engineers attached to the 82nd was able to ok the southern runway at Tempelhof for C-47 and Li-2 transports to land the third wave. The Allies deception efforts had paid off, as only this third wave of glider troops was the only one to see any significant concentrations of flak on approach to the airport.
Once the bulk of the second wave had jumped and was on the ground, the Allies moved to switch from a defensive to an offensive posture. Flying columns began moving outward from the airport and moving aggressively toward the lines of contact. The first attacks were made against the southern defensive line in Mariendorf by XVIII Airborne Corps, followed almost immediately by I Airborne Corps attacking east into Karlshorst. The German defenders in those areas, caught completely by surprise by enemy troops appearing suddenly in the rear and unable to fallback to new defensive lines, were nearly obliterated. Most of the southern and eastern districts of the city were in Allied hands by nightfall.
Steiner, from his command post on the grounds of the hollowed out Stadtschloss, remained defiant to the end. The morning of July 4th, he was on one of the last working phone lines detailing to a near-delirious Hitler in the Führerbunker plans to organize an a retreat into the city center to defend the government district, he was shot point-blank by aged Volkssturm militiaman. Any attempts at organized resistance soon collapsed, as individual units either began surrendering en masse to the first Allied soldier they saw or launched suicidal charges into Allied lines. By the evening of the 5th, the city was largely secure, although snipers and lone wolf attacks against Allied checkpoints would recur for several months.
Rumors that Hitler had managed to flee, either to the long feared (by SHAEF) National Redoubt in the Alps or that he had been spirited away by U-Boat to Japan or South America spread wildly for the next several days. These would come to an end on the morning of 7th, when a small detachment of Soviet tankers from the 8th Guards army were bivouacking in the garden of the Reich Chancellery, only to be startled by the sudden appearance of several young secretaries from Hitler's personal staff attempting to flee the Führerbunker. The Soviet troops, under the command of a Major M.S Filitov, moved quickly into the bunker complex and amazingly secured it largely without firing a shot. The War in Europe was over.
Allied planners had been working on an air assault directly into Berlin as early as fall 1944, revising the plan periodically as the western advance progressed into Germany. However, the situation in late June 1945 was much different than what earlier planners had anticipated. Instead of a lightly defended capital held mostly by garrison troops, Berlin was now defended by a combination of common soldiers, fanatical Nazis eager to experience Götterdämmerung, and desperate civilians impressed into service in Volkssturm levies. Nearly two weeks of direct assaults had tightened the encirclement of the city, but only at the cost of heavy Allied casualties.
In the hopes of finally breaking the German lines, the Allies were once again betting on their elite airborne units to lead the way. Their most experienced units, the American 82nd and 101st Airborne and the British 6th Airborne Divisions would jump alongside the relatively green British 52nd (Lowland) and US 17th Airborne. The Soviet contribution would come in the form of the 13th Guards Airborne Division, which in reality was an augmented brigade made up of veterans from Battle of Dnieper who had largely been fighting as leg infantry since 1944.
The assault plan was a bold one. The drop zone would be relatively wide, consisting of a rough oval between the Tiergarten and Tempelhof Airport. The Br 6th Airborne along with the 82nd and 101st would drop first, securing the airport and the surrounding neighborhoods to establish a perimeter. The second wave of the 13th Guards, 17th Airborne and the 52nd (Lowland) would follow 90 minutes later to bolster the airhead. If either of its runways were found to be intact enough to receive aircraft, a third wave would land reinforcements from the Glider Infantry regiments directly into Tempelhof itself.
The first step would involve an intricate deception plan. The Allies would halt in their current positions and pause the relentless close air support missions hammering the city. In its place would be a continuous stream of C-46, C-47 and Li-2 transports overflying the city for several days, dropping tens of million of leaflets offering good treatment in exchange for surrender. The hope was that the Germans would use the pause to move troops away from the city center to reinforce the front lines and that what little air defense still existed in the city would not be wasted on unarmed transports not considered a immediate threat.
Just after midnight on July 3rd, 6 C-47s, having turned off their engines 10 miles out to make a completely silent approach, successfully drop nearly 200 elite pathfinders onto the grounds of Tempelhof. They would be met by a small unit of OSS/SAS commandos that had infiltrated their way through German lines several hours prior and had eliminated most of the small garrison defending the airport. They moved quickly to setup their normal array of navigational aids (radio beacons, colored panels/smoke and Eureka radar sets) to guide the first wave into the airport, due right after 0400. These would be later be described as the most crucial hours of the operation as the failure of any aspect of this phase would have likely doomed the jump from the start.
The first wave of nearly 15,000 American, Commonwealth and Polish paratroopers made a nearly flawless jump, with most dropped within a few hundred yards of their assigned LZs. The notable exception was the majority of the 506th PIR from the 101st Airborne was scattered well north of the airport, landing mostly within the grounds of the Tiergarten. The 506th, having fought in similar fashion during Overlord, Market-Garden and Bastonge, quickly reorganized and secured defensive positions inside the Kroll Opera House and the ruined Reichstag building. They spent most of the next 36 hours defending the buildings from several waves of German attackers until they were relieved by Soviet troops pushing westward in to the city center. Once dawn broke over the city, a detachment from the US Army Corps of Engineers attached to the 82nd was able to ok the southern runway at Tempelhof for C-47 and Li-2 transports to land the third wave. The Allies deception efforts had paid off, as only this third wave of glider troops was the only one to see any significant concentrations of flak on approach to the airport.
Once the bulk of the second wave had jumped and was on the ground, the Allies moved to switch from a defensive to an offensive posture. Flying columns began moving outward from the airport and moving aggressively toward the lines of contact. The first attacks were made against the southern defensive line in Mariendorf by XVIII Airborne Corps, followed almost immediately by I Airborne Corps attacking east into Karlshorst. The German defenders in those areas, caught completely by surprise by enemy troops appearing suddenly in the rear and unable to fallback to new defensive lines, were nearly obliterated. Most of the southern and eastern districts of the city were in Allied hands by nightfall.
Steiner, from his command post on the grounds of the hollowed out Stadtschloss, remained defiant to the end. The morning of July 4th, he was on one of the last working phone lines detailing to a near-delirious Hitler in the Führerbunker plans to organize an a retreat into the city center to defend the government district, he was shot point-blank by aged Volkssturm militiaman. Any attempts at organized resistance soon collapsed, as individual units either began surrendering en masse to the first Allied soldier they saw or launched suicidal charges into Allied lines. By the evening of the 5th, the city was largely secure, although snipers and lone wolf attacks against Allied checkpoints would recur for several months.
Rumors that Hitler had managed to flee, either to the long feared (by SHAEF) National Redoubt in the Alps or that he had been spirited away by U-Boat to Japan or South America spread wildly for the next several days. These would come to an end on the morning of 7th, when a small detachment of Soviet tankers from the 8th Guards army were bivouacking in the garden of the Reich Chancellery, only to be startled by the sudden appearance of several young secretaries from Hitler's personal staff attempting to flee the Führerbunker. The Soviet troops, under the command of a Major M.S Filitov, moved quickly into the bunker complex and amazingly secured it largely without firing a shot. The War in Europe was over.
