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
Lee Flemming Lee Flemming Lee Andrew Flemming (born May 11, 1968) is a retired United States Army Infantry Officer; he was the 27th commanding officer of the Installation and Base Support Group (BSG) of the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) from July 2014 - June 2017 and most notably is the first African American in the history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to command the installation since its inception in 1949 after the conclusion of World War II. SHAPE is the installation that houses Allied Command Operations (ACO) and the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR). COL Flemming was awarded