Clan USMC "BIA Squad" -- semper fidelis

Brothers In Arms 2 has come to an end, and soon the men of Fox Company shall be returning to England, this time, combat experienced and knowledgable on the subject of loss and gain itself. Clan USMC follows the story and discovers the places and the acts that unfolded there, never overlooking a single point of a story or physical and geographical feature where it enacts.

"Brothers In Arms Hell's Highway drops you into Operation Market-Garden, the largest airborne operation of World War II. Lead Matt Baker, Joe Hartsock and the rest of the 101st Airborne Division as they fight to open "Hell's Highway" in a daring bid for a quick end to the war."

"In September, 1944 the 101st jumped into Holland to conduct Operation Market Garden. The mission was to jump behind enemy lines to seize the highway running north to the Rhine river so allied tanks could advance into Germany. This highway was known as "hell's highway," and paved the way for the allied advance. 600 gliders landed in Holland, bringing in half the division. This jump was much more organized than the previous jump into Normandy. The 101st mission was to secure the southern end of the highway. It completed this mission in 2 days. The division was responsible for 60 miles of road and 16 miles of highway. 101st was next sent to the front lines near Arnhem."

The U.S. airborne troops, who had participated in the D-Day operations, had been resting and absorbing replacements in England since mid-July. For Market-Garden, it was hoped that the Americans, along with the British 1st Airborne Division, would launch a bold strike across the Maas, Waal and Neder Rijn (Rhine) rivers in Holland that would pave the way for ground troops to advance swiftly into Germany and end the war by Christmas of 1944.

Key to the success of Montgomery's plan would be the seizure of bridges across rivers and adjacent canals by the airborne troops and swift movement of ground forces up a single highway, spanning roughly 60 miles from the Allied lines in Belgium to the Dutch town of Arnhem. The troops would hold the bridges until relief appeared in the form of the British XXX Corps charging down the single road, crossing the bridges successively and arriving at Arnhem as the vanguard of a larger force pushing southeast into Germany.

The 101st would secure the southernmost bridges, including one over the Wilhelmina Canal at the town of Son, a pair spanning the Dommel River at St. Oedenrode and then four more over the Aar River near the town of Veghel. Eindhoven was also to be captured while the men of the 101st held open 15 miles of the road toward Arnhem for the XXX Corps' use. By the end of their service in Market-Garden, the men of the 101st would refer to this stretch of road as "Hell's Highway." Farther north, the 82nd Airborne was ordered to capture the bridge at Grave, the longest in Europe. The 82nd would also take one or more of the four bridges across the Maas-Waal Canal, another bridge over the Waal at Nijmegen and the area around the town of Groesbeek. The final leg of the XXX Corps' drive involved a dash from Nijmegen to Arnhem, where the British 1st Airborne was to capture and hold three bridges across the Rhine.

Had Market-Garden succeeded, the war might indeed have been shortened. As it turned out, elements of two SS panzer divisions, the 9th and 10th, had been ordered to the vicinity of the Allied thrust to rest and refit in the days immediately prior to the start of the operation. Also, by coincidence, while Market-Garden was getting underway, the German 59th and 245th Infantry divisions were in transit from the area of the German Fifteenth Army to that of the First Parachute Army—right in the operation's path.

Intelligence that indicated strong concentrations of German forces in the proposed area of operations appears to have been ignored by planners. Due to stiff resistance, Operation Market-Garden was doomed to failure. The 1st Airborne fought an epic battle for 10 days in and around Arnhem, but of the nearly 10,000 British paratroopers who participated, just over 2,000 escaped death or captivity.

On the afternoon of September 17, the 101st executed a nearly flawless airdrop. All but two of its battalions were delivered to their correct drop zones. Unlike what had happened in the D-Day drops, the transport pilots held their planes steady and on course through anti-aircraft fire rather than taking evasive action that could have scattered the troops. Most units assembled and moved toward their objectives shortly after landing.

Dropping near Son, the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, under the command of Colonel Robert F. Sink, was to capture a bridge over the Wilhelmina Canal and then advance south to Eindhoven. The 502nd, commanded by Colonel John H. Michaelis, would establish a perimeter around its drop zone just north of the 506th so that it could later be used as a glider landing zone. It was then to capture a bridge over the Dommel and take bridges over the Wilhelmina Canal near the town of Best. The 501st, under Colonel Howard R. Johnson, was still farther north, where the regiment was instructed to take both road and rail bridges on the Willems Canal and the Aar River near the town of Veghel.

After the breakout from the Normandy beachheads during Operation Cobra in July-August 1944, the Allied forces had pushed back the German army hundreds of miles over a period of only a few weeks. By the end of August Allied forces were approaching the German border. In the north, the British 21st Army Group under Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery was advancing from the coast roughly in a line running from Antwerp to the US lines roughly along the northern border of Belgium. In the center, the US 12th Army Group under the command of General Omar N. Bradley, was closing up to the German border and had recently been ordered to orient on the Aachen gap with the US First Army. In the south, the Sixth Army Group under Gen. Alexander M. Patch was advancing towards Germany after their landings in Operation Dragoon.

At this point the offensive halted owing to logistical issues. Allied armies had far outrun their preinvasion planning goals, and the supply system had not yet caught up. The only supply source in Allied hands were the shallow docks built on the original invasion beaches, and the nearby deep-water port of Cherbourg at the tip of the Cotentin peninsula. Over-the-beach supply operations actually outperformed expectations and enough supplies were present on the continent to support Allied operations. The bottleneck was a shortage of transportation to move these supplies forward. The D-Day pre-invasion "softening up" air strikes had so effectively damaged railway transport in the region that rail supply was nonexistent. Train movement out of Normandy did not resume until August 30, and even then was very limited. The failure of 1,500 British 3-ton trucks in September meant that three US Infantry Divisions (the 26th, 95th, and 104th), newly arrived, were stripped of their trucks to supply forces in contact with the enemy. The heavy artillery units of the 12th Army Group were left west of the Seine so that their trucks could be used to move supplies for other units. The massive port of Antwerp lay intact in British hands, but the Scheldt estuary leading inland to this port in front of the Canadians was still in German control. Thus at the beginning of September, for example, the port of Cherbourg had 70,000 tons of supplies on hand that could not be brought forward. Organisation of the Red Ball Express did much to lessen the impact of the transportation problem, but this ad hoc operation could not solve the problem.

The dilemma facing the Allies was whether to clear the Scheldt with the Canadian First Army, thus solving the logistical problem, or to continue the pursuit of what appeared to be a shattered German Army. Most Allied commanders thought the German rout would continue; there were few signs of German recovery. Under these circumstances, the consensus was that the pursuit should continue. Both Bradley and Montgomery believed they could reach and cross the Rhine river, the last remaining natural obstacle prior to reaching the heart of Germany. Each consistently asked for all available supplies to be given to them for a rapid, decisive advance. Supply was insufficient to support more than one major offensive. Preinvasion planning had envisioned a strategy of broad attack across much of the front, with the advance into Germany aimed through the Aachen area. As the pace of the Allied advance slacked and halted in some places, Montgomery, Bradley, and Patton argued anew for thrusting attacks, and Eisenhower eventually asked them for their plans.

Bradley and Patton favoured an attack east from Patton's current positions to take the city of Metz, and then into the industrial area of the Saarland. However, this required passing the Siegfried Line of defenses at the German border, and left them in front of the equally heavily defended Rhine. Although this plan was feasible, it was weak in that no decisive terrain objective could be taken. If successful it would leave the Allies in only a slightly better position to assault Germany, and with long extended flanks vulnerable to counterattack.

Montgomery initially suggested a limited airborne assault, Operation Comet, consisting of an airborne assault in front of the British XXX Corps. Operation Comet was dropped in favor of a more ambitious plan, consisting of an attack north to Arnhem, deep inside the Netherlands, bypassing the Siegfried Line (which stopped about 20 km south of there), crossing the Rhine, and capturing the entire German 15th Army behind their lines between Arnhem and the shores of the IJsselmeer. This would also have the side effect of cutting off the V-2 launch sites, which were bombarding London and Antwerp at the time. Montgomery pointed out that his plan ringed the entire Antwerp area well behind Allied lines, allowing it to be easily opened once the attack was completed. Among the weaknesses of this plan were that it aimed the British Second Army northwards through an area with numerous water obstacles, a route that had been explcitly rejected by Overload planners due to the poor terrain. Too, it moved the British away from the US First Army. Finally, it entailed an armoured advance up a single narrow road with low-lying polder on both sides, limiting the ability of the Allies to apply their superior numerical strength and choking the supply of the offensive.

The decision to go ahead with Market/Garden was influenced by several secondary factors. After the D-Day invasion the airborne forces had been withdrawn to re-form in England, forming the First Allied Airborne Army, commanded by Lieutenant General Lewis H. Brereton. This consisted of three US and two British airborne divisions, and an additional Polish Brigade. Eisenhower had been under pressure from the US to use these forces as soon as possible, so in somewhat unlikely fashion this favoured Montgomery's plan. Eighteen airborne operations had been planned during the campaign, each cancelled at the last minute when ground forces overran the intended airborne drop zones. Bradley favored the use of the transport aircraft for supply missions instead, arguing that the lift required for airborne operations could have kept the ground advance supplied with enough fuel to keep moving. Bradley's opposition tended to create pressure for the Airborne Divisions to be used on Montgomery's front.

The plan

Terrain

There were eight major water obstacles between the XXX Corps jumping-off point and the ultimate objective on the north bank of the Rhine, including several major rivers and three canals. Plans were made to seize bridges across all these obstacles nearly simultaneously. Although the smaller canals and rivers could be temporarily bridged by engineers of XXX Corps if the existing permanent bridges could not be seized, the larger rivers (the Waal at Nijmegen and the Rhine at Arnhem) could not be bridged by XXX Corps.

The highway leading through the planned route was two lanes wide, generally raised above the surrounding flat terrain of polder. The ground alongside the highway was too soft to support tactical vehicle movement.

A single 100-meter high hill, the Groesbeek ridge, lay in the 82nd Airborne's zone. Seizure and defense of this hill was considered vital to holding the highway bridges.

Market

Market would be the largest airborne operation in history, delivering over 34,876 men of the 101st, 82nd, 1st and the Polish Brigade. The lack of sufficient aircraft meant that the drops had to be be scheduled over several days. The Deputy Commander of the 1st Airborne Army, "Boy" Browning, added his own HQ to the first lift so that he could command from the front. 13,781 troops were transported by gliders, 20,190 by parachute, and 905 by aeroplane on a prepared landing strip. Gliders also brought in 1,689 vehicles, 290 howitzers and 1,259 tons of ammunition and other supplies.

Garden

Garden consisted primarily of XXX Corps, the core of the 2nd Army. They were expected to arrive at the south end of the 101st's area on the launch day, the 82nd by the second day, and the 1st by the third or fourth day at the latest. They would also deliver several additional infantry divisions to take over the defensive operations from the airborne, freeing them for other operations as soon as possible.

Four days was, and is, a long time for an airborne force to fight unsupplied. In addition, the Allied paratroopers lacked adequate anti-tank weapons. Even so, it seemed to the Allied high command the German resistance at this point had broken. Most of the German 15th Army in the area appeared to be fleeing the field from in front of the Canadians, and they were known to have no Panzer-gruppen. XXX Corps would therefore be facing very limited resistance on their route up highway 69, and little armour. Meanwhile, the German defenders would be spread out over 100 km trying to contain the pockets of airborne forces, from the British 2nd Army in the south to Arnhem in the north.

German Forces

The rout of the German forces in July and August led to a belief that the German army in the west was a spent force, unable to reconstitute its shattered units. But all was not what it seemed. The failure of the 21st Army Group to clear the Scheldt, or at least cut it off from the mainland, allowed the German 15th Army to move 86,000 men, with 600 artillery pieces, back into mainland Holland, directly in the path of the planned attack. The arrival of Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt as Wehrmacht Commander-in-Chief West in early September also helped stabilise the German front. Rundstedt, who replaced Field Marshal Walter Model, was generally detested by Hitler, but well respected by his troops, whom he had back in fighting condition within the week. Rundstedt immediately began to plan a defense against what Wehrmacht intelligence said was 60 Allied divisions at full strength. (Eisenhower, at that time, actually had only 49 divisions.)

Additionally, Colonel General Kurt Student, the Wehrmacht's own airborne pioneer, was ordered to take up positions with what was euphemistically called the 'First Parachute Army' along the Albert Canal. Student's 3,000 paratroopers, scattered across the Reich, were probably the only combat-ready reserve forces in Germany at the time. Furthermore, Lieutenant General Kurt Chill, commanding the shattered 85th Division, established 'reception stations' at key bridge crossings in the Netherlands. Chill's actions gathered together a miscellany of service troops into a semblance of military units, which allowed Student to organize a defensive line. Finally, the German 719th Infantry Division was added to this force.

What would have alarmed Allied planners of the operation was an unrelated event taking place nearby. When discussing the Allied plan of attack, Rundstedt and his generals agreed that Eisenhower would favour Patton. In one of his final orders as Commander-in-Chief West, Model had ordered the troops of the II. SS-Panzerkorps, made up of the 9th SS and 10th SS Panzer divisions under the command of Lieutenant General Wilhelm Bittrich, to rest and refit in the rear. A suitable quiet spot was selected, which happened to be Arnhem. This meant another 9,000 experienced, well-led troops with armour in the attack zone.

Problems

Several reports from the Dutch resistance reported by September 10th on the German movements, with accurate identification of German armour units. Although planning was in late stages, SHAEF Chief of Staff General Walter Bedell Smith flew to 21st Army Group headquarters to suggest several possible changes in the plan. Montgomery declined to alter his plan. When a reconnaissance flight was sent in on behalf of the 1st Airborne Army, it returned with pictures clearly showing tanks deployed just to the northeast of Arnhem, only 15 km from the British drop zones. These were dismissed out of hand, with the (unfounded) assumption that they probably could not run and were broken down.

The U.S. IX Troop Carrier Command provided air transportation for Market with 1,545 transport aircraft and 478 gliders. This represented enough capacity for approximately half of each Division. Although every Division commander requested two drops the first day to ensure adequate forces would be available on the first day of the operation, the air forces preferred to schedule a single drop on each of several days to allow for maintenance and aircrew rest. The inexperienced commander of 1st Allied Airborne Army, Brereton, agreed to one drop on each day. This left the 101st Airborne Division with no artillery the first two days, and the 82nd Airborne with no artillery the first day and no glider infantry regiment until the third day. The British 1st Airborne would be short a full Brigade until the third day. Any losses or bad weather would upset this timetable.

Drop Zone selection was poor in places, particularly at Arnhem. Again, command inexperience led to poor decisionmaking. Air commanders refused to drop the British to the north of their target bridge because it would put them in range of flak guns just to the north at Deelen (mun. Ede). Another suitable drop zone just to the south of the bridge was also rejected because it was thought to be marshy, and thus unsuitable for dropping the gliders containing the force's heavier equipment. Instead, they demanded a drop zone 15 km away from the bridge, which would have to be taken and held overnight until the 3rd lift; the force would have to be split in half for over a day.

Realizing the seriousness of the problem, the plan was then hastily changed to task the small force of machine-gun equipped jeeps in the reconnaissance squadron with seizing the bridge in a coup de main, and holding it until the infantry could arrive. Three battalions would follow on foot, with the fourth and all the glider pilots holding the drop zones while they waited for the next two lifts.

The battle

Day 1, Sunday, September 17, 1944

Operation Market-Garden opened with successes all around. The first lift was in daylight for accuracy, and almost all of the troops arrived on top of their target drop zones without incident. This contrasted strongly with previous operations where night drops had resulted in units being scattered by up to 20 km. Losses to enemy aircraft and flak were light.

In the south the 101st met little resistance and easily captured the small bridge at Veghel and four other small bridges. However, the similar bridge at Son was blown up as they approached it, after being delayed by a short engagement with two German anti-tank guns. Later that day several small attacks by the German 59th Infantry Division (a 15th Army unit that had escaped South Beveland due to the failure to cut off Antwerp) were beaten off, while small units of the 101st had moved south of Son.

To their north, the 82nd arrived and the small group dropped near Grave took the bridge intact in a rush. They also succeeded in taking one of the vitally important bridges over the Maas-Waal canal, the lockbridge at Heumen. The main effort of the 82nd was to seize the Groesbeek Heights and set up a blocking position there, to prevent a German armour attack out of the nearby Reichswald and to deny the height to German artillery observers. Both Gavin and Browning felt this must be the Division's top priority. The 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment was tasked with taking the 600-meter-long Nijmegen highway bridge if possible, but due to miscommunication they did not start until late in the day. Had they attacked earlier, they would have faced only a dozen Germans. By the time the attack was finally mounted, they were stopped by just-arriving troops of the 9th SS Reconnaissance battalion. This left the Nijmegen bridge in German hands.

Meanwhile the 1st Airborne landed almost without a hitch, but problems began almost immediately. The reconnaissance squadron, tasked with making a quick assault on the bridge, lost most of its jeeps when 38 gliders failed to arrive due to various noncombat problems. The multi-day lift meant that the first units to arrive had to deploy into defensive positions to hold the airhead for followup units. Thus over four hours passed before any unit even attempted an attack on the bridge.

This, too, proved very difficult. Two of the three battalions found themselves slowed down by small German units of a training battalion rushing to hem them in. Luckily, one of the three, led by Lieutenant Colonel John Frost, found their route largely undefended, and arrived at the bridge in the afternoon and set up defensive positions. Continued attempts by the other two battalions were meeting increased resistance, so eventually the decision was made to wait for the second lift and try again the next day.

This was of vital importance. Unlike some of the bridges to the south, which were over smaller rivers and canals and could be bridged by engineering units, the Nijmegen and Arnhem bridges crossed two arms of the Rhine, and there was no possibility of easily bridging either. The British Airborne were on the far (north) side of their bridge. If either Nijmegen or Arnhem bridges were not captured and held, there was absolutely no way for XXX Corps to reach them. Yet at the end of Day 1, only a single reinforced rifle company from Frost's battalion was deployed to hold the main objective of the entire operation. Nijmegen was still in German hands.

In addition, the British radios malfunctioned. It has been alleged that their long-range VHF sets were delivered with the wrong crystals, thus operating on a frequency no one was listening to. However the shorter-range sets for use between the brigades did not work either, and the various battalions were completely cut off from each other. Modern tests using the same type of radios used at that time suggest that large deposits of iron in the soil could have been to blame.^[1]

XXX Corps did not start their advance until 2:35 p.m., as General Horrocks had been involved in several previous Airborne-related operations that had been aborted at the last minute and refused to risk his troops until he received confirmation that the airborne forces had landed. Soon after starting they ran into a force of infantry and anti-tank units dug in on the road, and it took several hours for them to be cleared, along with the loss of a number of the Guards Armoured division's leading tanks. This slowed the advance along the narrow road. By the time the light started giving out at 5 p.m. they were still 15 km south of Eindhoven and they camped in Valkenswaard. No attempt was made to continue the attack at night. The operation was already behind schedule.

On the German side, it was immediately clear at the start what was going on. Model, in direct command of the forces in the area, was completely confused by the British dropping in what appeared to be the middle of nowhere, and concluded they were commandos attempting to kidnap him. Meanwhile, Bittrich, commanding the 2nd SS Panzer Corps, had a clearer head, and immediately sent a reconnaissance company of the 9th SS Panzer Division to Nijmegen to reinforce the bridge defense there. Student, a longtime Airborne soldier, was a fortunate presence on the German side.

Day 2, Monday the 18th

Early in the day the reconnaissance battalion of the 9th SS, sent south the day before, concluded they were not needed in Nijmegen, and attempted to return to Arnhem. They were aware of the British troops at the bridge, but attempted to cross by force anyway and were beaten back with staggering losses. Meanwhile, newly arrived forces of the 10th SS beat off the attempt to move the other two British battalions to the bridge after heavy fighting. Lift two arrived late due to fog in England, but put down successfully in the afternoon.

To their south the 82nd was having troubles of its own. Grave was well protected, but German forces continued to press on the 82nd deployed to the east of Nijmegen on the heights. In the morning the Germans took one of the Allied landing zones, target for the second lift which was to arrive at 1:00 p.m. Troops from the entire area, even as far as the town itself, rushed to the drop zone and by 3:00 p.m. it was back in their control. Luckily, due to the delay in England the second lift did not arrive until 3:30 p.m.

The 101st, faced with the loss of the bridge at Son, attempted to take the similar bridge a few kilometers away at Best. However, they found their approach heavily blocked, and eventually gave up. Other units continued moving to the south and eventually reached the northern end of Eindhoven. At about noon they were met by recce units from XXX Corps. At 4:00 p.m., they made radio contact with the main force to the south and told them about the Son bridge, asking for a Bailey bridge to be brought forward.

XXX Corps soon arrived in Eindhoven, and by that night were camped out south of Son while they waited for the Royal Engineers to erect the new bridge. Thus ended Day 2, with the operation already 36 hours behind schedule and both primary bridges still in German hands.

Day 3, Tuesday the 19th

By this point most of the 1st Airborne was in place, and only the Polish brigade was yet to arrive in the 3rd lift later that day. Yet another attempt was made to reinforce Frost at the bridge, and this time resistance was even stronger. It appeared that there was no longer any hope of reaching the bridge, and the isolated units then retreated to Oosterbeek, to the west of Arnhem, in (mun. Renkum). Meanwhile, at the bridge German tanks were arriving to take up the fight, which was becoming desperate. Frost's peak stength at the bridge never exceeded 500 men.

At 5 p.m. a small part of the Polish units in the third lift finally arrived, but fell directly into the waiting guns of the Germans camped out around the area; with the radios not working they still had no way to tell the HQ that the landing zone was taken and many of the Polish troops were killed. At the same time several of the supply drop points were also in German hands, and the 1st retrieved only 10% of the supplies dropped to them.

Things were going somewhat better for the 82nd, who found advanced units of XXX Corps arriving that morning. With the support of tanks they were able to quickly beat off the Germans in the area, at which point they decided to make a combined effort to take the bridge; two companies from the Guards Armoured Division and the 2nd Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment (part of the 82nd) would attack from the south end of the bridge. Meanwhile, the 3rd Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment would cross the river in boats and take the north end. The boats were called for to make the attempt in the late afternoon, but due to huge traffic problems to the south, they never arrived. Once again XXX Corps was held up in front of a bridge.

To their south the units of the 101st sent to take Best the day before found themselves facing a renewed attack that morning and gave ground. However, as more British tanks arrived the Germans were beaten off by late afternoon. Later a small force of Panthers arrived at Son, seemingly out of nowhere, and started firing on the Bailey bridge. These, too, were beaten back by anti-tank guns that had recently landed, and the bridge was secured.

Day 4, Wednesday the 20th

Frost's force at the bridge continued to hold out. Around noon the radios started working and they learned that the rest of the division had no hopes of relieving them, and that XXX Corps was stuck to their south in front of Nijmegen bridge. By the afternoon the Germans had complete control of the Arnhem bridge and started setting fire to the houses the British were defending. The rest of the division had now set up defensive positions in Oosterbeek to the west of Arnhem, waiting for the arrival of XXX Corps.

In Nijmegen the boats did not arrive as scheduled during the night, so the troops continued to wait. The boats finally arrived in the afternoon, but time was so short they decided to make the crossing in daylight. None of the U.S. soldiers had ever before seen the canvas-and-plywood British assault boats, and no time was available for rehearsal. In what is generally considered to be one of the bravest small unit actions in military history, the 3/504th made the crossing in 26 rowing boats into well-defended positions. Many of the troopers paddled with their rifle butts, since there were not enough paddles. About half the boats made it across. On the far shore, about 200 meters of open ground had to be crossed. The 3/504th took the banks and pressed to the bridge, which caused the Germans to pull back from their positions on the southern side. That freed the Guards tanks and 2/505th, who rushed across the bridge and met the Airborne troops. Nijmegen bridge was now in Allied hands after four long days.

Meanwhile the Germans organized another attack on the heights on the east side of town, this time making significant progress. Eventually the only remaining bridge suitable for tanks fell to the Germans, but was retaken by forces of the 82nd and 4th Battalion, the Coldstream Guards.

To the south the running battles between the 101st and various German units continued, eventually with several Panthers once again rushing in and cutting off the roads, only leaving when they ran low on ammunition.

When General Dempsey of the 2nd Army met General Gavin, commander of the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division, he is reported to have said (in reference to the Nijmegen attack), "I am proud to meet the commander of the greatest Division in the world today."

Day 5, Thursday the 21st

Although hard pressed, things were looking up for Market Garden this morning. XXX Corps was across the Nijmegen bridge and less than an hour's drive from the ongoing battle at the foot on Arnhem bridge. But it was too late. Frost's force was down to two houses, a handful of men, and had used up every bullet they had. With a last radio message "out of ammo, God save the King", heard only by German radio intercept operators, his remaining force surrendered. In memory of the defense at the bridge by Frost, the bridge has been renamed to the "John Frost bridge".

At the same time the rest of the Polish 1st Independent Parachute Brigade, now two days late due to weather, arrived. The situation north of the river was obviously too hostile to land, so a new drop zone on the south side across from the 1st was selected near the village of Driel. The landings went well, but the ferry they planned to use to reach the British had been sunk. Their force was largely wasted as a result.

Meanwhile the lead elements of Guards Armoured sat still. Their commander refused to move them forward while Nijmegen to their south was still under constant threat, and radioed back along to the line for the 43rd Infantry Division to move up to take over the town. However, by this point there was a 30-mile-long traffic jam behind them, and the 43rd didn't arrive until the next day. But a unit of British field artillery was close enough by this point that they were in radio contact with the units in Oosterbeek, and starting shelling any German units who attempted to approach them.

German attacks continued all along the route, but by this point the Allied forces had clearly started to gain the upper hand. Not only were the Germans attacks stalled, the British and 101st continued to take more and more area.

Day 6, Friday the 22nd (Black Friday)

The Poles were forced to sit and watch the battle from the sidelines not having the proper means to cross the river, with British artillery flying overhead from Nijmegen. That afternoon two British airborne soldiers swam the Rhine and informed them of the desperate situation, asking for any help they could give. The Poles were hastily equipped with flimsy inflatable rubber rafts, but promised to try a crossing that night. This operation was opposed, and only 52 soldiers of the 8th Polish Parachute Company made it across.

By this point much of the battle area was now in allied hands, and it appeared all of the problem was at the north end of the line with XXX Corps. As soon as the 43rd arrived things would be in better shape, and the Guards Armoured could attempt to retake the Arnhem bridge.

However, the Germans had other ideas, and during the previous night had organized two mixed armored formations on either side of highway 69 at about the middle of the line between Veghel and Grave. They attacked and only one side was stopped, while the other made it to the highway and cut the line. Any advance on Arnhem was now impossible.

Day 7, Saturday the 23rd

The Germans had figured out what the Poles were attempting to do, and spent the rest of the day trying to cut the British off from the riverside. The British managed to hold on, and both sides suffered heavy losses. The Germans also attacked the Poles on the south side in order to tie them down, but several tanks arrived from XXX Corps and they were beaten off. Boats and engineers from the Canadian army arrived that day, and another river crossing that night landed another 150 troops of the Polish 3rd Parachute Battalion.

To the south several more German attacks from their road crossing were stopped, but the road was still cut. XXX Corps then sent a unit of the Guards Armoured south the 20 km and re-took the road. The rest of the force to the north continued to wait for infantry to move up, still only a few kilometers from Arnhem.

Day 8, Sunday the 24th

Yet another German force attacked the road, this time to the south of Veghel. Several units were in the area, but were unable to stop them, and the Germans quickly set up defensive positions for the night.

It was not clear to the Allies at this point how much of a danger these actions represented. But it was on this day that the operation was essentially stopped and the decision made to go over to the defense. The 1st Airborne, or what remained of them, would be withdrawn that night. The lines would then be solidified where they were, with the new front line in Nijmegen.

Day 9, Monday the 25th

At 10 p.m. the withdrawal of the remains of the 1st began, as British and Canadian engineer units ferried the troops across the Rhine, covered by the Polish 3rd Parachute Battalion on the north bank. By early the next morning they had withdrawn about 2,000 of them, but another 300 were still on the north at first light when German fire stopped the effort. They surrendered. Of the 10,000 troops of the 1st Airborne Division, only 2,163 escaped. Over 6,000 prisoners were taken by the Germans.

To the south, the newly arrived 50th Infantry attacked the Germans holding the highway. By the next day they had been surrounded and their resistance ended. The corridor was now secure, but with nowhere to go.

Conclusions

Casualties	KIA (Market + Garden = Total)	WIA	MIA	POW	Total	Grand Total
German	4 000 to 8 000	unknown	unknown		13 000	13 000
British	1 130 + 5 354 = 6 484		851	6 450	13 785
American	3 542				4 000
Polish	102	309			411	18 196

In addition to Allied and German losses, a number of Dutch were also killed, including several soldiers and officers in British service as well as resistance fighters and civilians. A green area near the bridge, Jacob Groenewoud plantsoen, was named after one Dutch officer.

It is easy to second-guess a battle, and Operation Market Garden is one of the most debated 'what ifs' of the war.

Eisenhower believed until his death that Market Garden was a campaign that was worth waging. Even so, Cornelius Ryan quotes Eisenhower as saying, "...I don't know what you heard in Britain, but the British have never understood the American system of command... I never heard from the British any golden paeans of praise. And you're not going to hear it now, particularly from people like Montgomery." But Eisenhower kept these views to himself, not revealing them until long after hostilities had ended.

Among the problems with the plan was that the entire operation depended on all the major bridges being taken. If any one major bridge was not taken and held, the plan would fall apart. Had the Nijmegen bridge been destroyed or remained in German hands, the British 1st Airborne would be cut off kilometers to the north with no hope whatsoever. Even with Nijmegen successfully taken, things would be little better if Arnhem bridge fell. This would require a forced crossing of the Rhine to relieve the Airborne, and there was no planning to allow for this very possible eventuality. Little thought seemed to have gone into the terrain along which the armoured relief column was supposed to advance; for much of its length the road was a single-track raised ditch, liable to ambush and ensuing congestion. Traffic movement was no faster than walking pace during much of the operation.

Given this, it is surprising in retrospect that the plans placed so little emphasis on capturing the important bridges immediately with forces dropped directly on them. In the case of Veghel and Grave, where this was done, the bridges were captured with only a few shots being fired. There seems little reason to suspect the same would not have been true of Arnhem and Nijmegen, but with the troops over an hour's march away, or given other missions,there was little hope of their success. The decision to drop the US 82nd Airborne Division on the Groesbeek Heights, several kilometres from the Nijmegen Bridge, has been questioned. It resulted in critical delay in the capture of the bridge and allowed the Germans to rush effective forces into position. Brereton had ordered that the bridges along XXX Corps' route should be captured with "thunderclap surprise". Gavin cited British Intelligence information of substantial German armoured forces to the west in the Reichswald: this turned out to be false and supporting evidence for Gavin's assertion has not been found. Indeed, British Airborne Corps reports at the time estimated only 50 to 100 German tanks in all of the Netherlands.

Just as baffling are the actions on the part of XXX Corps during the entire operation. The advance was characterized by what was widely perceived at the time as a lack of drive. For example, XXX Corps did not jump off until midafternoon of the first day, and made halts along the way. Nonetheless, they were close to their schedule when they arrived at Nijmegen. After the delay caused by the spectacular and bloody success at Nijmegen, the Guards did not immediately resume their attack; in the words of LTC Reuben Tucker (commander of the 2/505th) the Guards "...stopped for tea."

Arnhem bridge was not the only available Rhine crossing. In fact, had the Market Garden planners realized that a ferry was available at Driel, Frost's paratroops might well have secured that instead of the Arnhem bridge, making a profound difference in the campaign. At a minimum, had XXX Corps pushed north, they would have arrived at the south end and secured it, leaving the way open for another crossing to the north at some other point. There was the smaller possibility of arriving with Frost's force intact. This perceived "lack of guts" caused some bitterness at the time.

The commander of XXX Corps asked for another course of action. About 25 km to the west of the action was another bridge similar to Arnhem, at Rhenen, which he predicted was undefended due to all efforts being directed on Oosterbeek. This was in fact the case, but the Corps were never authorised to take the bridge; if they had, it is almost certain they would have crossed unopposed, into the rear of the German lines. By this time it appears that Montgomery was more concerned with the ongoing German assaults on Market Garden's lengthy 'tail'.

The Allied forces faced some formidable German commanders in the persons of Model, Bittrich, and Student. Prodigies of valour were performed on both sides, but ultimately the sacrifices were for nought. The Allies were further delayed in their race to Berlin; Germany's European reserves were essentially wiped out; and the Dutch civilians along the briefly liberated corridor found themselves under German rule again. The destruction, the forced evacuation of Arnhem and the bitter winter of 1944 ensured that the people of the Netherlands suffered most.

Despite the heroism, bad choices were made throughout, and opportunities ignored. The commander of the Glider Pilot Regiment had asked for a small force with gliders to land on the southern side of the bridge at Arnhem, to quickly capture it, but he was denied. This was surprising in light of the fact that in Normandy, the British 6th Airborne Division had used such coup-de-main tactics successfully to take smaller bridges. In Britain, the commander of the British 52nd (Lowland) Infantry Division, whose troops were slated to fly into a captured airfield, pleaded with his superiors to allow a force to fly in with gliders to assist Gen. Urquhart's trapped forces; this was also denied. Polish 1st Parachute Brigade commander, Gen. Stanis³aw Sosabowski was prepared to be dropped dangerously through the fog which held up his drop, but again was refused.

The Dutch resistance was ignored by the British forces at Arnhem, although they did work with the U.S. Airborne Divisions. There was a very good reason for this, in that Britain's spy network in the Netherlands had been thoroughly and famously compromised — the so-called England game, which had only been discovered in April 1944. Perhaps assuming that the Dutch resistance would be similarly penetrated, British intelligence took pains to minimise all civilian contact. U.S. units, without this bad experience, made active use of Dutch help. As things turned out, the simple knowledge of the Driel ferry, or of the Underground's secret telephone network could have changed the outcome of the operation, much the more as the Allied radio equipment was malfunctioning, having to rely on messengers. The latter was very important: it would have given the XXX Corps and Airborne High Command knowledge about the dire situation that had enveloped Col. Frost and Gen. Urquhart at Arnhem.

Market-Garden was a very high-risk plan that required a willingness to take risks at the tactical, small-unit level. Unfortunately, the detailed planning and leadership required at the small unit level was not always present. The least experienced unit, 1st Airborne Division, was given the most difficult, distant objective. The 82nd Airborne was somewhat overtasked, having to take several bridges as well as holding a vital blocking position. The XXX Corps was not led with the vigour the situation demanded.

The opportunity cost of Market-Garden must also be considered. Because resources were committed to this operation, they were not available for other tasks. The Scheldt was not cleared; U.S. 12th Army Group operations were significantly slowed; the German 15th Army escaped to fight another day.

The city of Arnhem was finally liberated by I Canadian Corps on 14 April 1945 after two days of fighting. The prized Arnhem bridge did not survive the war. It was replaced with a bridge similar in appearance, named for Colonel Frost.

On a memorial near Arnhem: "To the People of Gelderland; 50 years ago British and Polish Airborne soldiers fought here against overwhelming odds to open the way into Germany and bring the war to an early end. Instead we brought death and destruction for which you have never blamed us. This stone marks our admiration for your great courage remembering especially the women who tended our wounded. In the long winter that followed your famillies risked death by hiding Allied soldiers and Airmen while members of the resistance led many to safety"

The operation is also memorialized at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, home of the 82nd Airborne Division. Each of the major drop zones on the post is named for a major WW2 jump; the Holland Drop Zone commemorates Operation Market-Garden.