page_title: Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine
section_title: Channel ports
hierarchical_section_title: Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine / Northern Group of Armies (21st Army Group) / Channel ports
caption_attribution_description: English: The British Army in Normandy 1944 Infantry of the Hampshire Regiment crossing the Seine at Vernon, 28 August 1944.
context_page_description: The Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine, also known as the Siegfried Line campaign, was a phase in the Western European campaign of World War II.
  This phase spans from the end of the Battle of Normandy, or Operation Overlord, incorporating the German winter counter-offensive through the Ardennes and Operation Nordwind up to the Allies preparing to cross the Rhine in the early months of 1945. This roughly corresponds with the official United States military European Theater of Operations Rhineland and Ardennes-Alsace campaigns.
context_section_description: The Channel ports were urgently needed to maintain the Allied armies. By the time that Brussels was liberated, it had become difficult to supply the 21st Army Group adequately. Indeed, one corps—VIII Corps—was withdrawn from active service to free its transport for general use. The Canadian First Army was tasked with liberating the ports during its advance along the French coast. The ports involved were Le Havre, Dieppe, Boulogne, Calais, and Dunkirk in France, as well as Ostend in Belgium. Adolf Hitler had appreciated their strategic value. He issued a Führer Order declaring them to be "fortresses" that must receive adequate materiel for a siege and be held to the last man.
  Dieppe was evacuated by the Germans before Hitler's order had been received and, consequently, the Canadians took it with little trouble and with the port installations largely intact. Ostend had been omitted from the Führer Order and was also undefended, although demolitions delayed its use. The other ports were defended to varying degrees, however, and they required substantial work to bring them into use, except for Dunkirk which was sealed off to the rear of the Allied advance.
caption: British infantry of the 1st Battalion, Hampshire Regiment crossing the Seine at Vernon, 28 August 1944.
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