Narrative of the Operation:
Intention and Plan

The airborne operation was planned and undertaken to implement the intentions of the Supreme Commander for the drive into Germany. He had given first priority to the advance of the Northern Group of Armies across the Rhine. The First Allied Airborne Army was to act in cooperation with the Northern Group of Armies until a bridgehead was secured across the lower Rhine.

The supply situation required that operations be held to a minimum on the fronts of the First, Third, and Seventh American Armies while the Northern Group of Armies, aided by the FAAA, struck northward.

As has been pointed out, the intention was to place airborne troops in a position to seize vital bridges across the three principal Dutch rivers in the line of advance of the British Second Army from its bridgehead across the Escaut Canal. The Guards Armoured Division was to spearhead the attack of the British XXX Corps and was to be passed northward through a corridor established by the airborne landings.

At the time, the enemy was withdrawing his forces across the Scheldt estuary while still holding both its banks, was bringing troops around north  of the Escaut Canal to positions in the line farther east, and was maintaining his positions in the Dutch ports to prevent improvement of the Allied supply situation. However, his forces had been badly depleted and broken up in the battle of the Normandy pocket and in the retreat across the Seine, so that enemy troops in the line of the British Second Army's advance were not thought to constitute a formidable military force.

The airborne task force was commanded by Lt. Gen. Frederick A. M. Browning, GOC British Airborne Troops, with General Brereton commanding the air phase of the operation. Once the airborne troops were on the ground, General Browning came under the command of XXX Corps, part of General Dempsey's British Second Army.

The principal missions of the several units of the task force follow: the United States 101st Airborne Division to capture bridges and roads along the route between Eindhoven and Grave; the United States 82d Airborne Division to seize the bridges over the Maas at Grave and over the Waal at Nijmegen; the British 1st Airborne Division, together with the Polish Parachute Brigade, to capture the bridges at Arnhem. In each case the surrounding area was to be held until the Guards Armoured Division could effect a junction, upon the accomplishment of which the airborne troops were to protect the sides of the corridor. The British 52d Light Division (Air-portable) was to come into the Arnhem vicinity as soon as an air strip could be prepared by the airborne engineers.

It is axiomatic that surprise is an essential element in the success of an airborne attack. To make the enemy believe that the Allied supply situation was too acute to enable an advance by the Northern Group of Armies, the cavalry patrols of the XXX Corps were withdrawn as much as 10 miles in some instances. At the same time the American First and Third Armies made attacks into Germany and across the Moselle in order to mislead the enemy as to Allied intentions. Meanwhile troops and supplies were being concentrated in the large bridgehead which the British Second Army held on the north bank of the Albert Canal ready for the thrust to the north.