THE ASSAULT ON EUROPE 

MARKET-GARDEN 

Following the retreat of German units into Holland and southern Germany, the Allied commanders pondered their next moves. Field Marshal Sir Bernard L. Montgomery argued for a bold push to outflank German forces along the northern battle line by airlifting three airborne divisions for attacks deep behind the enemy’s main position. By this time, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower had assumed command of all Allied ground forces on the European continent, and Montgomery had to win Eisenhower’s support for this daring operation. Montgomery’s gambit required the airborne units to open and hold a corridor sixty-five miles long, running from Holland’s southern border to the city of Arnhem on the Rhine River. With this narrow passage cleared of German troops, Montgomery pro-posed to launch the British Second Army on a headlong rush up the corridor, across the Rhine, and into the heartland of Germany. But to cross the Rhine, the airborne units had to make sure they took the Arnhem bridge intact, as well as several others along the corridor at Eindhoven and Nijmegen. Therefore, it was essential to put the Allied units down close to their assigned bridgeheads and to keep them supplied by air until relieved by the British Second Army as it advanced. Given the success of the Al-lied advance to date, the mounting logistical assets from the Channel inland, and control of the air, Montgomery eventually secured Eisenhower’s agreement. If successful, the action could end the war in Europe within weeks. Operation MARKET-GARDEN was set for September 1944. 

Mission planners envisioned a three-day operation to airlift a total of thirty-five thousand troops plus support equipment from England; more than twenty thousand men were to be inserted the first day alone, along with five hundred vehicles, 330 artillery pieces, and 590 tons of other equipment. On the day of the offensive, some two thousand troop air-planes and six hundred gliders would take to the air, along with two thou-sand more airplanes—fighters and bombers—to fly top cover and to hit German positions in the attack area. 

The architects of MARKET-GARDEN knew it held high risks. Experience showed that the effectiveness of airborne troops slipped rapidly the longer they had to hold their isolated objectives. Moreover, their firepower invariably amounted to less than that of their adversaries, especially if the defenders could introduce heavy armor into the battle. Inserting paratroops and glider forces sixty-five miles into German territory seemed al-most foolhardy. But Eisenhower and Montgomery accepted intelligence reports that most German forces in the landing zones were inexperienced garrison troops and other units pulled out of action elsewhere because they had been decimated. 

The components of the First Allied Airborne Army, commanded by U.S. Lt. Gen. Lewis Brereton, were battle-hardened troops who were superbly equipped, rested, at full strength, and eager to tangle with the enemy. Units of the U.S. 82d and 101st Airborne Divisions had fought at Normandy; the British 1 Airborne Division had fought through Sicily and Italy. The 101st, under Brig. Gen. Maxwell Taylor, had the task of landing near Eindhoven to take the city and its key bridges. Brig. Gen. James Gavin’s 82d had similar objectives at Grave and Nijmegen. The most distant target, the bridge over the Lower Rhine and Arnhem, went to British forces under Major General Robert Urquhart, including the British 1 Air-borne and a Polish brigade. The overall tactical commander, the British general, Frederick Browning, recognized the risks, particularly for the British 1 Airborne. Browning, the husband of novelist Daphne du Maurier, also made a prophetic remark. Told that he needed to hold out at Arnhem for at least two days, Browning said that the contingent there could probably control its position for four. “But,” he observed, “I think we might be going a bridge too far” (Sears, 1991, pp. 215–16). 

On September 17, 1944, Operation MARKET-GARDEN got under way. The first reports looked encouraging, as early airdrops put the U.S. units into their assigned target areas. But the timetable began to unravel at the British end, as airborne artillery and equipment often went down wide of their marks. Bad weather and quickly mobilized German defenders took a heavy toll, especially on the British. Parachutists and glider troops went into action without the margins of fire support and supplies planned for them. Several critical bridges remained in German hands. When the sun set three days later, Montgomery’s Second Army had failed to advance and tenacious Allied airborne forces held only a narrow strip of territory that ran thirty-five miles between Eindhoven and Nijmegen. Strong German resistance elsewhere had brought the Second Army to a standstill in its attempt to relieve British airborne forces at Arnhem. Although Montgomery felt encouraged that the Arnhem bridge remained in British hands, the battalion of British troops at one end of it had been cut off and encircled by much stronger German forces. Two more days of aerial re-supply efforts around Arnhem led to the loss of twenty-three transports, and only a fraction of several hundred tons of supplies had fallen into Allied positions. Another operation, an attempt to drop fifteen hundred troop reinforcements from a Polish parachute brigade, was frustrated by strong gusts that prevented one-third of the Poles from jumping and carried most of the rest onto the wrong bank of the Rhine, where they suffered heavy losses. Airdrops of more than three thousand reinforcements and supplies to American forces were marginally better because the two U.S. airborne divisions had gained control of a larger area. 

At the end of a week of agonizing debate and failed relief efforts, Montgomery ordered withdrawal of all units south of the Rhine and closed the gate on Operation MARKET-GARDEN. Overall, a postaction analysis left little to feel good about. Of 35,000 troops committed by the Allies, 11,583 became casualties and, of those, 9,333 were listed as killed or missing. Of the huge flotilla of transports, air commanders reported 1,265 damaged aircraft and another 153 destroyed. In addition, Allied air forces wrote off eighty-seven fighters and bombers. The nine days of operational effort had been bedeviled by bad weather, a major factor in the disappointing efforts at reinforcement and resupply. 

Allied air operations had accomplished little interdiction of enemy transport and communications. Military intelligence had clearly underestimated German military capabilities and even failed to locate and identify major threats, like a Panzer division in the area. Allied efforts to coordinate communications and supply revealed significant gaps. MARKET-GARDEN was a promising and audacious concept, launched with commendable expertise in marshaling a large force of transports, gliders, and troops. Loading, transporting, and delivering so many airplanes and troops onto enemy territory was no mean logistical feat. But contingency planning to cope with the vagaries of weather and unanticipated enemy resistance proved fallible, and a heroic effort was, in the end, undone.