Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe of "Général d'Armée" Alphonse Juin, French Army. "Holdfast" was a major allied air-ground exercise involving 150,000 British Army of the Rhine, Dutch, Belgian and Canadian troops of NATO's Northern Army Group in coordination with the Allied Air Forces Central Europe. They maneuvered east of the Rhine River in the British Zone under the overall command of Lt. General Sir Richard Nelson Gale, British Army. Finally, "Rosebud" involved ground maneuvers by the U.S. Seventh Army in the American Zone of Occupation of Allied-occupied Germany. The initial plans saw the defence of Western Europe from a Soviet invasion resting heavily on nuclear
Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe the bulk of NATO's forces, proved to be much more complicated. General Eisenhower considered naming an overall Commander-in-Chief (C-in-C) there as well but soon realized it would be difficult to find an arrangement that would satisfy all three major powers with forces in the Center—the United States, United Kingdom and France—as they had strongly differing views on the proper relationship of air and ground power. Drawing upon his World War II experience, General Eisenhower decided to retain overall control himself and did not appoint a C-in-C for the Central Region. Instead there would be three separate C-in-C's (air, land, and