WWII: Allied's use
As the Allies push back the German forces in 1944, their respective air forces have to keep up with the ground troops advancing since Normandy to provide the necessary air support. Dozens of new airfields are constructed as close to the front lines as possible. After the failed Operation Market Garden, the Allied Commanders decide to concentrate their efforts on trying to cross the river Rhine to the east. It is decided that the 12th and 30th British Corps will cross at Wesel. The American forces will cross at Remagen. To support Operation Plunder; the crossing at Wesel, a temporary airfield must be constructed close to the frontline.
December 1944, the 16th Airfield Construction Group, Royal Engineers (GB) starts the construction of a temporary airfield on a predetermined location outside the village of 'Petit-Broghel' (Kleine-Brogel). Its infrastructure should include a landing strip, taxi tracks and aircraft revetments, fully constructed with PSP (Pierced Steel Planking). This airfield is given the codename B90 (B for British, American airfields get the prefix A). The runway lies on exactly the same position as today’s but is half as long, about 1500 meters.
March 1, 1945 the 127th Wing (83rd Group, 2th TAF) touch down. Four Canadian squadrons: 403, 416, 421 and 443 SQN, equipped with Spitfire XVIE. The Wing Commander is the famous ace Johnnie Johnson. March 7, 1945, they are joined by the Canadian 39th Recce Wing with 2 squadrons Spitfire FR.XIV: 414 and 430 SQN and 1 squadron equipped with Spitfire PR.XI: 400 SQN. In total 7 squadrons with almost 200 Spitfires. Their most important achievement during their stay at Kleine-Brogel happens March 23, 24 and 25 1945 when they deliver air support to the troops as they cross the Rhine river at Wezel during Operation Plunder.
April 1945, the Spitfires leave Kleine-Brogel for Germany. The base stays in Canadian hands until October 1945.
Second Army spent the rest of 1944 exploiting the salient in the German line that it had created during Operation Market Garden, to advance on the Rhine and Meuse rivers in the Netherlands. The final part of this advance took place in mid-January 1945, with the clearing of the Roermond Triangle (codename Operation Blackcock) by XII and VIII Corps. This enabled the completion of the advance on the River Roer.
During February, 1945, Second Army entered a holding phase. Whilst it pinned down the German forces facing it, the Canadian First Army and US Ninth Army made a pincer movement from north and south (Operations Veritable and Grenade) which pierced the Siegfried Line in that area and cleared the remaining German forces west of the Rhine in conjunction with further American offensives in the south of the Rhineland.
Germany, 1945
Second Army crossed the Rhine on 23 March in an attack codenamed Operation Plunder. It then headed across the North German Plain towards Osnabrück, with the First Canadian Army on its left wheeling to clear the north of the Netherlands and the area of Lower Saxony west of Oldenburg. The US Ninth Army on its right turned south-east towards Lippstadt to trap the German Army Group B, under General Walther Model, in an enormous pocket in the Ruhr. With Army Group B trapped, the last major German formation in the west had been neutralized.