Operation Market Garden was an Allied military operation during the Second World War, fought in the German-occupied Netherlands from 17 to 25 September 1944. Its objective was to create a salient spanning 62 miles (100 km) into German territory with a bridgehead over the Nederrijn (Lower Rhine River), creating an Allied invasion route into northern Germany. This was to be achieved by two sub-operations: seizing nine bridges with combined American, British and Polish airborne forces ("Market") followed by British land forces swiftly following over the bridges ("Garden").
The airborne operation was undertaken by the First Allied Airborne Army with the land operation by the British Second Army, with XXX Corps moving up the centre supported by VIII and XII Corps on their flanks. The airborne soldiers, consisting of paratroops and glider-borne troops numbering around 35,000–40,000, were dropped at sites where they could capture key bridges and hold the terrain until the land forces arrived. The land forces consisted of ten armoured and motorised brigades with approximately 800 tanks and 50,000 soldiers. The land forces advanced from the south along a single road partly surrounded by flood plain on both sides. The plan anticipated that they would cover the 62 miles (100 km) from their start at the Belgian–Dutch border to the Arnhem bridge across the Lower Rhine in 48 hours. About 100,000 German soldiers were in the vicinity to oppose the allied offensive. It was the largest airborne operation of the war up to that point.
The operation succeeded in capturing the Dutch cities of Eindhoven and Nijmegen along with many towns, and a few V-2 rocket launching sites. It failed in its most important objective: securing the bridge over the Rhine at Arnhem. The British 1st Airborne Division was unable to secure the bridge and was withdrawn from the north side of the Rhine after suffering 8,000 dead, missing, and captured out of a complement of 10,000 men. When the retreat order came, there were not enough boats to get everyone back across the river. The Germans subsequently rounded up most of those left behind, but some of the British and Polish paratroopers managed to avoid capture by the Germans and were sheltered by the Dutch underground until they could be rescued in Operation Pegasus on 22 October 1944. Historians have been critical of the planning and execution of Operation Market Garden. Antony Beevor said that Market Garden "was a bad plan right from the start and right from the top".
The Germans counterattacked the Nijmegen salient but failed to retake any of the Allied gains. Arnhem was finally captured by the Allies in April 1945, towards the end of the war.
Geography
Highway 69 (later nicknamed "Hell's Highway") leading through the planned route was two narrow lanes, partly raised above a surrounding flat terrain of polder or floodplain. The ground on either side of the highway was in places too soft to support tactical vehicle movement and there were numerous dikes and drainage ditches. Dikes tended to be topped by trees or large bushes, and roads and paths were lined with trees. In early autumn this meant that observation would be seriously restricted.
There were six major water obstacles between the XXX Corps' start point and the objective of the north bank of the Lower Rhine River: the Wilhelmina Canal at Son en Breugel 100 feet (30 m) wide; the Zuid-Willems Canal at Veghel 80 feet (20 m); the Maas River at Grave 800 feet (240 m); the Maas-Waal Canal 200 feet (60 m); the Waal River at Nijmegen 850 feet (260 m); and the Rhine at Arnhem 300 feet (90 m). The plan was for airborne forces to seize bridges across all these obstacles nearly simultaneously – any failure to do so would result in delay or defeat. In case bridges were demolished by the Germans, XXX Corps had plans to rebuild them. To this end, a vast quantity of bridging material was collected, along with 2,300 vehicles to carry it and 9,000 engineers to assemble it.
Although the area is generally flat with less than 30 feet (9 m) of variation in altitude, Lieutenant-General Brian Horrocks, commander of XXX Corps, recalled that "The country was wooded and rather marshy, which made any outflanking operation impossible." Two important hill areas, 300 feet (90 m) high, were some of the highest ground in the Netherlands: one northwest of Arnhem and one in the 82nd Airborne Division's zone, the Groesbeek ridge. Seizure and defence of this elevated terrain was considered vital to holding the highway bridges.
Background
In August 1944, following the Allied breakout from Normandy and the closure of the Falaise Pocket, the allied armies pursued the retreating German army, expelling it from nearly all of France and Belgium. On 1 September, the Supreme Allied Commander General Dwight D. Eisenhower took over command of ground forces, while continuing as Supreme Commander. Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery resented this change, although the US and UK had agreed to it before the Normandy invasion. He had been the commander of ground forces and the change resulted in his former subordinate, Omar Bradley, becoming his equal. Montgomery continued to command the 21st Army Group, consisting mainly of British and Canadian units.
Logistics
By late August the allied armies were running out of petroleum gasoline. Several allied divisions and corps were forced to halt their advance temporarily to replenish supplies. To Eisenhower fell the task of responding to competing demands for fuel and other supplies for the armies under his command. There was no shortage of fuel in the makeshift ports in Normandy; the difficulty lay in transporting sufficient quantities from Normandy to the armies in Belgium and northern France. Most arrived at the front in five gallon jerry cans after being transported hundreds of kilometres by trucks, known as the Red Ball Express, from makeshift ports in Normandy. A potential solution to the logistics problem was to capture a large port more accessible to the advancing allied armies. On 4 September, Montgomery's troops did just that, capturing the massive port of Antwerp in Belgium virtually intact. However, the Scheldt Estuary leading to it was still under German control preventing its use. Neither Eisenhower nor Montgomery initially made opening the port of Antwerp a top priority and Antwerp was not used by allied supply ships until 28 November after the Battle of the Scheldt. The allied failure to win access quickly to the port of Antwerp has been called "one of the greatest tactical mistakes of the war". Winston Churchill later acknowledged that "clearing the Scheldt Estuary and opening the port of Antwerp had been delayed for the sake of the Arnhem thrust. Thereafter it was given first priority."
Strategy
Eisenhower proposed a "broad front strategy" in which the allied armies of Montgomery in Belgium and Bradley further south in France advanced in parallel on a front several hundred miles wide into Germany. Montgomery – and Bradley's aggressive subordinate, George S. Patton – both desired a concentration of forces, a "single thrust" forward into Germany, but each man saw himself as the leader of a single thrust. Montgomery said the allied strategy should be "one powerful full-blooded thrust across the Rhine and into the heart of Germany backed by the whole of the resources of the Allied Armies". Such a policy would relegate Bradley's American armies to a "purely static role". On his part, Patton said that with 400,000 gallons of gasoline he could be in Germany in two days. War planners saw both men's proposals as tactically and logistically infeasible.
While agreeing that Montgomery's drive towards the industrial district of the Ruhr in Germany should have priority, Eisenhower still thought it was important to "get Patton moving again". This strategy was contested by Montgomery, who argued that with the supply situation deteriorating, he would not be able to reach the Ruhr, but "a relocation of our present resources of every description would be adequate to get one thrust to Berlin". Montgomery initially suggested Operation Comet, a limited airborne coup de main operation that was to be launched on 2 September 1944. Comet envisioned using British and Polish airborne forces to capture several bridges en route to the Rhine. However several days of poor weather and Montgomery's concerns over increasing levels of German resistance caused him to postpone the operation and then cancel it on 10 September.
Montgomery replaced Comet with Market Garden, a more ambitious plan to bypass the West Wall or Siegfried Line of German defenses by hooking around its northern end and securing a crossing of the Rhine River, thereby gaining a path to the Ruhr. Another factor was the existence of V-2 sites in the Netherlands which were launching rocket strikes on London. On 10 September Dempsey, the British Second Army commander, told Montgomery that he had doubts about this plan. Montgomery replied that he had just received an order from the British government that the V-2 launch sites around The Hague should be neutralised and that the plan must therefore proceed.
That same day, angered by Eisenhower's reluctance to give his plan the priority he desired, Montgomery met with him inside Eisenhower's plane shortly after it arrived at the Brussels airport. Montgomery tore a file of Eisenhower's messages to shreds in front of him, argued for a concentrated northern thrust, and demanded priority in supplies. So fierce and unrestrained was Montgomery's language that Eisenhower reached out, patted Montgomery's knee, and said, "Steady, Monty! You can't talk to me like that. I'm your boss."
Eisenhower allegedly told Montgomery why a "single thrust" toward Berlin was not feasible:
What you're proposing is this – if I give you all the supplies you want, you could go straight to Berlin – right straight (500 miles) to Berlin? Monty, you're nuts. You can't do it... If you try a long column like that in a single thrust you'd have to throw off division after division to protect your flanks from attack.
Nevertheless, Eisenhower consented to Operation Market Garden, giving it "limited priority" in terms of supplies – but only as part of an advance on a broad front. Eisenhower promised that aircraft and trucks would deliver an additional 1,000 tons of supplies daily to Montgomery for Market Garden.
Eisenhower was also under pressure from the United States to use the First Allied Airborne Army as soon as possible. After Normandy, most of the airborne forces had been withdrawn to England, re-forming into the First Allied Airborne Army of two British and three US airborne divisions, the Polish 1st Independent Parachute Brigade, and the air-portable 52nd Infantry Division. Eighteen airborne operations had been proposed, then cancelled, when the rapidly moving Allied ground forces overran the intended drop zones. Eisenhower believed that the use of the airborne forces might provide the push needed for the allies to cross the Rhine.
The plan
The plan of action consisted of two operations:
Market
Market would employ four of the six divisions of the First Allied Airborne Army. The U.S. 101st Airborne Division, under Major General Maxwell D. Taylor, would drop in two locations just north of XXX Corps to take the bridges north of Eindhoven at Son and Veghel. The 82nd Airborne Division, under Brigadier General James M. Gavin, would drop northeast of them to take the bridges at Grave and Nijmegen. The British 1st Airborne Division, under Major-General Roy Urquhart, with the Polish 1st Independent Parachute Brigade, under Major General Stanisław Sosabowski, attached, would drop at the extreme north end of the route, capturing the road bridge at Arnhem and the rail bridge at Oosterbeek. To permit unrestricted bombing between Nijmegen and Arnhem, 1st Airborne Division would not send forces south to link up with 82nd Airborne Division. The 52nd (Lowland) Infantry Division would be flown to the captured Deelen Airfield north of Arnhem on D+5. (In the event, Deelen was not captured and 52nd Division never flew in.) On D+1, Brereton told Ridgway that once 52nd Division had landed, XVIII Airborne Corps headquarters would fly in to assume command of the two US divisions. I Airborne Corps would then command only 1st Airborne Division, 52nd Division, and the Polish Brigade. No one told Browning about this change.
The First Allied Airborne Army had been created on 16 August as the result of British requests for a coordinated headquarters for airborne operations, a concept approved by General Eisenhower on 20 June. The British had strongly hinted that a British officer – Browning in particular – be appointed its commander. Browning for his part decided to bring his entire staff with him on the operation to establish his field HQ using the much-needed 32 Airspeed Horsa gliders for administrative personnel, and six Waco CG-4A gliders for U.S. Signals' personnel. Since the bulk of both troops and aircraft were American, Brereton, a U.S. Army Air Forces officer, was named by Eisenhower on 16 July and appointed by SHAEF on 2 August. Brereton had no experience in airborne operations but had extensive command experience at the air force level in several theaters, most recently as commander of Ninth Air Force, which gave him a working knowledge of the operations of IX Troop Carrier Command.
Market would be the largest airborne operation in history, delivering over 34,600 men of the 101st, 82nd and 1st Airborne Divisions and the Polish Brigade. 14,589 troops were landed by glider and 20,011 by parachute. Gliders also brought in 1,736 vehicles and 263 artillery pieces. 3,342 tons of ammunition and other supplies were brought by glider and parachute drop.
To deliver its 36 battalions of airborne infantry and their support troops to the continent, the First Allied Airborne Army had under its operational control the 14 groups of IX Troop Carrier Command, and after 11 September the 16 squadrons of 38 Group RAF (an organization of converted bombers providing support to resistance groups) and a transport formation, 46 Group.