Allied troops entered the Netherlands on September 12, 1944. Airborne operations established a bridgehead at Nijmegen later that month and coastal areas and harbors were cleared and secured in the following months, but it was not until the German-initiated offensive in the Ardennes was repulsed that the advance to Germany could begin. Most of the casualties buried in GROESBEEK CANADIAN WAR CEMETERY were Canadians, many of whom died in the Battle of the Rhineland, when the 2nd and 3rd Canadian Infantry Divisions and the 4th Canadian Armored Division took part in the drive south from Nijmegen to explore the area between the Meuse and the Rhine in February and March 1945. Others buried here died earlier or later in the south of the Netherlands and in the Rhineland. The cemetery contains 2,610 Commonwealth war graves from World War II and nine war graves of other nationalities. The cemetery contains the GROESBEEK MEMORIAL, which by name commemorates more than 1,000 members of the Commonwealth Land Forces who were killed in the campaign in North West Europe between the time of the crossing of the Seine towards the end of August 1944 and the end of the war in Europe, and whose graves are unknown. The cemetery and memorial were designed by P.D. Hepworth.