Description
Description: Formation patch – 2nd Army – World War II
Condition: Very Good
Comments: Formation patch – 2nd Army – World War II
The crusader’s shield and sword, but with a blue cross. Second Army was formed in June 1943. It took part in the Normandy Landings and the Northwest European campaign under General Eisenhower’s SHAEF.
The army activated in the summer of 1943 as the United Kingdom component of the 21st Army Group, the Allied ground force for the invasion of Normandy. Gen. Sir Miles Dempsey came from the ltalian fighting to take command of the Second Army in January 1944; he led it in the invasion and throughout the remainder of the war in France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany. Following the Normandy landings, the Second Army was involved in the much-debated and argued-about fighting in the Caen sector, where, though its progress was slow, it drew onto itself the bulk of {he German detense farces, thus setting up the conditions tor a large-scale American advance. This was said to have heen the aim of Gen. Sir Bernard Montgomery, then the overall ground commander, but there were a numher of misunderstandings concerning the plan between the general and Allied headquarters. During this period the Second Army consisted of 121/2 divisions (in th is sense by critics of the Anglo-Americans, who pressed for the invasion of France June 6, 1944). With reference to the cry for a second front, General Eisenhower observed in Crusade in Europe that “the impatience of the public clearly demonstrated a complete lack of appreciation of the problems involved, particularly of the time that must elapse before any such operation could be launched.” Nevertheless, the Allied staffs did consider such operations as Sledgehammer, which proved to he unfeasible.
