'Eclipse' (iii) was the British overall plan for the capture of major German ports such as (from west to east) Emden, Wilhelmshaven, Bremerhaven, Hamburg, Kiel, Lübeck and Wismar by General H. D. G. Crerar’s Canadian 1^st Army and Lieutenant General Sir Miles Dempsey’s British 2^nd Army of Field Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery’s Allied 21^st Army Group in the last weeks of the war with Germany(April/May 1945).

Bremerhaven was taken on 26 April and Hamburg on 3 May, and the British advance to Lübeck and Wismar before the end of hostilities was of notable importance as it prevented Soviet forces from reaching Denmark and thereby establishing ice-free naval footholds on the south-eastern corner of the North Sea.