Operation Market Garden
Operation Market Garden was Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery's audacious plan to end the war in Europe by Christmas 1944. Following the rapid Allied advance from Normandy in late August and September 1944, Montgomery proposed an airborne operation to seize a series of river bridges in the Netherlands and create a 100-km corridor through which British armour (XXX Corps) could advance into Germany, flanking the Siegfried Line. The 'Market' element involved three airborne divisions dropped across three days: the US 101st Airborne at Eindhoven, the US 82nd Airborne at Nijmegen, and the British 1st Airborne Division at Arnhem — the deepest penetration, tasked with holding the road bridge over the Rhine until XXX Corps arrived, estimated at 48 hours. The operation had a fatal intelligence failure at its heart. Dutch resistance agents and aerial reconnaissance had identified the presence of the II SS Panzer Corps (9th and 10th SS Panzer Divisions) resting and refitting near Arnhem. The intelligence was passed to the planning staff and to the highest levels — but dismissed as unreliable. When the British 1st Airborne began landing on 17 September 1944, they found themselves fighting not unprepared German garrison troops but experienced Waffen-SS veterans with tanks. Further problems compounded the intelligence failure: the British were dropped 8 km from the Arnhem bridge (because the terrain closer to the bridge was deemed unsuitable for gliders); radios failed in the wooded terrain; the planned second and third lifts were delayed by weather. Only a battalion under Lt. Col. John Frost — approximately 700 men — reached the north end of the Arnhem bridge on the first night and held it for four days against increasingly overwhelming German forces. XXX Corps' advance up the single road (called 'Hell's Highway') was repeatedly halted by German counterattacks cutting the corridor. Frost's force at the bridge was overwhelmed on 21 September. The attempted Polish airborne reinforcement (24 September) arrived too late. On 25 September, the remaining 1st Airborne troops — some 2,163 of 10,000 — were evacuated across the Rhine under fire. 6,450 were killed or captured; the bridge had been 'a bridge too far.'
- Year: 1944 CE
- Category: Military
