In the summer of 1944, General Bernard Montgomery came up with a plan to cross the River Rhine and advance deep into northern Germany to shorten World War II. The Germans were quick to organise against the airborne troops. The German 719th Infantry Division, part of LXXXVIII Corps, was dispatched south to the Albert Canal and Model requested reinforcements from Germany, stating that he would require 25 infantry divisions and six armoured divisions to hold; he envisioned a line stretching from Antwerp via Maastricht to Metz and from there to follow the line of the Albert Canal to the Meuse and the Siegfried Line. "[205] Eisenhower was isolated in the SHAEF HQ at Granville, which did not even have radio or telephone links, so his staff were largely ignorant of the details of the operation. [112] At 14:15 hours[113] 300 guns of the Corps artillery opened fire, firing a rolling barrage in front of XXX Corps start line[112][114] that was 1 mile (1.6km) wide and 5 miles (8.0km) in depth. However, transport columns were jammed in the packed streets of the town, and they were subjected to German aerial bombardment during the night. It would be several more months of gruelling, winter warfare for troops in Europe before the Thirs Reich eventually fell. Allies slaughtered by Germans in Arnhem - History In his diary he wrote, "It looks very rough. "[202], CBS war correspondent Bill Downs, who was assigned to Montgomery's campaign since the Normandy invasion, famously said of Nijmegen that it was "a single, isolated battle that ranks in magnificence and courage with Guam, Tarawa, Omaha Beacha story that should be told to the blowing of bugles and the beating of drums for the men whose bravery made the capture of this crossing over the Waal River possible."[203]. Both Churchill and Montgomery claimed that the operation was nearly or 90% successful, although in Montgomery's equivocal acceptance of responsibility for failure he blames lack of support, and also refers to the Battle of the Scheldt which was undertaken by Canadian troops not involved in Market Garden. After a brief delay caused by four 88mm guns and a machine gun post, the bridge at Son was blown up by the Germans on approach. Working with the SAS, Dutch Resistance and British intelligence operatives, some fugitive 1st Airborne Division officers organised a mass escape over the Rhine in late 1944. John Greenacre's study points out that radio communications failures were experienced by the division before, were warned about prior to the operation and provided for by bringing extra field telephone wire. The 82nd Airborne Division, under Brigadier General James M. Gavin, would drop northeast of them to take the bridges at Grave and Nijmegen and the British 1st Airborne Division, under Major-General Roy Urquhart, with the Polish 1st Independent Parachute Brigade, under Brigadier General Stanisaw Sosabowski, attached would drop at the extreme north end of the route, capturing the road bridge at Arnhem and the rail bridge at Oosterbeek. The unit set off to the bridge late and having traveled only a short distance the vanguard was halted by a strong German defensive position; the squadron could make no further progress. [114][116][117] The fighting soon died down and the advance resumed. General Gavin's orders to Colonel Lindquist of the 508th were to "move without delay" onto the Nijmegen road bridge. Bittrich led II SS Panzer Korps in the counter offensive with the aim of retaking Nijmegen and its bridges. According to Rick Atkinson, this was "the only large, long-range air strike by German bombers during the fall of 1944". He allegedly told Montgomery why a "single thrust" toward Berlin was not going to be accepted. The largest airborne operation ever mounted, Market-Garden cost the Allies between 15,130 and 17,200 killed, wounded, and captured. A hole, a par five, on the south course (Hylands Golf Course Uplands) in Ottawa, Ontario was named "Arnhem, in honour of the Royal Canadian Artillery squadrons that took part in Second World War allied airborne Operation MARKET GARDEN from 17 to 26 September 1944. Their tops lack the know-how, never do they get down into the dirt and learn the hard way. It would not be until April 1945 that Arnhem was eventually liberated by British troops, who were met by an understandably jubilant Dutch population. Arnhem was the last time the Germans inflicted a major defeat on the Allies in the west. At Arnhem, and also during the subsequent Ardennes offensive of December 1944, the Germans expended their last military capital in the west. On the third day they reached Nijmegen, where the Americans were still fighting in the streets in their efforts to reach the bridge across the might River Waal. Platinum 8. XXX Corps took along 5,000 vehicles loaded with bridging equipment and 9,000 sappers. While a collapse of the German military in the Netherlands was not a formal objective of the operation, MacDonald wrote that "few would deny that many Allied commanders had nurtured the hope" and the operation also failed to realize this. Initially ordered to take his command to the Rhineland for rest and reinforcements, Chill disregarded the order and moved his forces to the Albert Canal, linking up with the 719th; he also had "reception centers" set up at the bridges crossing the Albert Canal, where small groups of retreating troops were picked up and turned into ad hoc units. [170] A contemporary paper by the 21st Army Group claimed that 16,000 German prisoners were taken during the course of Operation Market Garden. While it was estimated that the 1st Airborne Division, 10,000 strong, would only need to hold the Arnhem bridge for two days, 740 had held it for twice as long against far heavier opposition than anticipated. During those two months the Wehrmacht had suffered a string of defeats with heavy losses. On 30 August, drastic steps were taken to suspend imports entirely; 21st Army Group would draw on its reserves in Normandy until the ports of Dieppe and Boulogne-sur-Mer could be opened. [169] In A Bridge Too Far, Cornelius Ryan estimated 7,500 to 10,000 additional casualties to those provided by Rundstedt, for a final total of 10,80013,300 losses. While 81 British soldiers died defending Arnhem bridge, German losses cannot be stated with any accuracy, though they were high; 11 units known to have participated in the fighting reported 50% casualties after the battle. The fate of post-war Europe might have been very different. [156], On 26 September the Germans then crossed the Rhine in battalion strength and managed to gain a small bridgehead at Randwijk. Unable to locate the anti-tank guns, the tanks stopped. Survivors of Arnhem Recall Heroism in the Face of Defeat The weather that day was beautiful, with a cloudless blue sky and a warming autumn sun. In awareness of SS criminal activity, Allied commanders subjected all SS personnel in occupied Germany to automatic arrest. The attack was enormously costly. Small engagements were fought along the whole length of the corridor. A perception that subsequent advances by XXX Corps were unreasonably slow has remained controversial. This limit was the reason for the decision to split the troop-lift schedule into successive days. Crown II. 655 of the 700 scheduled RAF sorties on the first two days towed gliders and the RAF only dropped 186 total troops by parachute. On May 20, Soviet troops captured Hitzinger and turned him over to the British, to whom Himmler confessed his identity. By September 1944, however, the overstretched Allies were approaching formidable German defenses along the Siegfried Line,which had held strong since World War II began. Tedder however recorded at the time that "the advance to Berlin was not discussed as a serious issue, nor do I think it was so intended". [71], The rout of the Wehrmacht during July and August led the Allies to believe that the German army was a spent force unable to reconstitute its shattered units. It would be another four months before the Allies crossed the Rhine again and captured the German industrial heartland. However, in . After the war it was found that the Royal Corps of Signals was either unaware or failed to tell divisional signals of the communication problems identified in November 1943 due to sun spots by the Scientific Advisor's Office to the 21st Army Group. Allied parachute jumper landing almost headfirst during a daylight drop in the Netherlands, part of Operation Market Garden. Attacks were limited, conducted against specific positions and even individual houses. The British managed to hold on and both sides suffered heavy losses. General Wilhelm Bittrich, commander of the two divisions, later said that he had almost no tanks left during the Battle of Arnhem as they had mostly been destroyed during the battle at Falaise. D M Smith/ Imperial War Museums/Getty Images, US Army/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images, Sgt. No sooner had some British soldiers survived the experience of being shot at by the Dutch SS near Arnhem than they were being embraced and kissed by overjoyed locals. [182], Model attempted to regain the Nijmegen bridgehead in an effort to contain the allied offensive and drive them off the Betuwe, also known as 'the Island.'
