World War II: Operation Queen, the costly Allied thrust to the Rur, is launched.
Operation Queen was an American operation during World War II on the Western Front at the German Siegfried Line.
The operation was aimed against the Rur River, as a staging point for a subsequent thrust over the river to the Rhine into Germany. It was conducted by the First and Ninth U.S. Armies.
The offensive commenced on 16 November 1944 with one of the heaviest Allied tactical bombings of the war. However, the Allied advance was unexpectedly slow, against heavy German resistance, especially in the Hürtgen Forest through which the main thrust of the offensive was carried out. By mid-December, the Allies finally reached the Rur and tried to capture its important dams, when the Germans launched their own offensive, dubbed Wacht am Rhein. The ensuing Battle of the Bulge led to the immediate cessation of Allied offensive efforts into Germany until February 1945.