The Battle of Arnhem was fought during the Second World War, as part of the Allied Operation Market Garden. It took place around the Dutch city of Arnhem from 17 to 26 September 1944. The Allies had swept through France and Belgium in August 1944, after the Battle of Normandy. Market Garden was based upon the smaller Operation Comet that had been overtaken by events. Field Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery, who favoured a single push northwards over the branches of the Lower Rhine River, allowing the British Second Army to bypass the Siegfried Line and attack the important Ruhr industrial area.
The First Allied Airborne Army was to capture the bridges to secure a route for the Second Army with US, British and Polish airborne troops dropped in the Netherlands along the line of the ground advance, being relieved by the British XXX Corps. Farthest north, the British 1st Airborne Division landed at Arnhem to capture bridges across the Nederrijn (Lower Rhine), with the 1st Polish Parachute Brigade following on. XXX Corps was expected to reach Arnhem in two to three days.
The 1st Airborne Division landed some distance from its objectives and met unexpected resistance, especially from elements of the II SS Panzer Korps. Only a small force was able to reach the Arnhem road bridge while the main body of the division was stopped on the edge of town. The XXX Corps advance northwards from Nijmegen was delayed due to the failure, in the Battle of Nijmegen, to secure the bridge before the ground troops arrived and the British were not relieved in time. After four days, the small British force at the bridge was overwhelmed and the rest of the division was trapped in a small pocket north of the river.
The paratroops could not be sufficiently reinforced by the Poles or by XXX Corps when they arrived on the south bank, nor by Royal Air Force supply flights. After nine days of fighting, the remnants of the division were withdrawn in Operation Berlin. The Allies were unable to advance further and the front line stabilised south of Arnhem. The 1st Airborne Division lost nearly three quarters of its strength and did not see combat again.
Background
By September 1944, Allied forces had broken out of their Normandy beachhead and pursued the remnants of the German armies across northern France and Belgium. Although Allied commanders generally favoured a broad front policy to continue the advance into Germany and the Netherlands, Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery proposed a bold plan to head north through Dutch Gelderland, bypassing the German Siegfried Line defences and opening a route into the German industrial heartland of the Ruhr. Initially proposed as a British and Polish operation codenamed Operation Comet, the plan was soon expanded to involve most of the First Allied Airborne Army and a set-piece ground advance into the Netherlands, codenamed Market Garden.
Montgomery's plan involved dropping the US 101st Airborne Division to capture bridges around Eindhoven, the US 82nd Airborne Division to capture crossings around Nijmegen and the British 1st Airborne Division, with the Polish 1st Independent Parachute Brigade, to capture three bridges across the Nederrijn at Arnhem. Lieutenant General Lewis Brereton commanded the First Allied Airborne Army but his second-in-command Lieutenant-General Frederick Browning took command of the airborne operation. The British Second Army, led by XXX Corps, would advance up the "Airborne corridor", securing the airborne divisions' positions and crossing the Rhine within two days. If successful, the plan would open the door to Germany and hopefully force an end to the war in Europe by the end of the year.
British plan
With the British 6th Airborne Division still refitting after Operation Tonga and the fighting in Normandy, the task of securing the Rhine bridgehead fell to the 1st Airborne Division under the command of Major-General Roy Urquhart. The division was made up of three brigades of infantry (two parachute, one glider-borne), supporting artillery of the 1st Airlanding Light Regiment and anti-tank batteries and Royal Engineer units, as well as supporting elements such as the Royal Army Service Corps and Royal Army Medical Corps.
Most of the division had seen action in North Africa and Sicily, particularly the 1st Parachute Brigade and 1st Airlanding Brigade. This was the first time the division had fought as a complete formation. Urquhart also had the 1st Independent Polish Parachute Brigade under his command. His force was also substantially reinforced by some 1,200 men of the Glider Pilot Regiment, who would fly the glider-borne infantry and vehicles into Arnhem, providing the equivalent of two battalions of infantry for the operation. Smaller additions included a Dutch commando unit and American communications teams.
The division was required to secure the road, rail and pontoon bridges over the Nederrijn at Arnhem and hold them for two to three days until relieved by XXX Corps. From the beginning Urquhart was severely constrained in his planning for the operation. The US IX Troop Carrier Command (Major General Williams) could not land all the airborne troops in one go. Williams decided that it would only be possible to fly one air lift per day, meaning it would take three days to deliver the division and Polish Brigade. Few areas were suitable for glider landings and Williams was reluctant to send his aircraft too close to Arnhem and into the flak from Deelen airfield after the drop. Urquhart was forced to pick drop zones (DZ) and landing zones (LZ) up to 8 mi (13 km) from Arnhem, on the north side of the river. With the need to secure the bridges, towns and drop zones for subsequent supply drops, the 1st Airborne would need to defend a perimeter 18 mi (29 km) long whilst waiting for XXX Corps.
Urquhart decided to land the 1st Parachute Brigade (Brigadier Gerald Lathbury) and the 1st Airlanding Brigade (Brigadier Philip "Pip" Hicks') on the first day of the operation, along with Divisional HQ, the 1st Airlanding Light Regiment, Royal Artillery and attached Royal Engineer and medical units. The Airlanding Brigade would land on LZs 'S' and 'Z' and move to secure the drop zones and landing zones for the following days' drops, whilst the three battalions of the parachute brigade would arrive at DZ 'X' and follow separate routes to the Arnhem bridges. The 2nd Battalion (Lieutenant Colonel John Frost) would follow the riverside roads to the centre of Arnhem (Lion route) and secure the main road and railway bridges, as well as a pontoon bridge between them. The 3rd Battalion (Lieutenant Colonel Fitch) would head through Oosterbeek to Arnhem (Tiger route), assist in the capture of the road bridge and take up positions in the east of the town. The 1st Battalion (Lieutenant Colonel Dobie) would follow Leopard route north of the railway line to occupy high ground north and north west of Arnhem.
The advance into Arnhem would be led by a troop of jeeps from the 1st Airborne Reconnaissance Squadron (Major Frederick Gough) on Leopard route, who would attempt a coup de main on the road bridge. On the second day, the 4th Parachute Brigade (Brigadier John "Shan" Hackett) would arrive at DZ 'Y', accompanied by extra artillery units and the rest of the Airlanding Brigade on LZ 'X'. Hackett's three battalions would then reinforce the positions north and north west of Arnhem. On the third day, the 1st Independent Polish Parachute Brigade would be dropped south of the river at DZ 'K'. Using the road bridge, they would reinforce the perimeter east of Arnhem, linking with their artillery which would be flown in by glider to LZ 'L'. The 1st Airlanding Brigade would fall back to cover Oosterbeek on the western side of the perimeter and 1st Parachute Brigade would fall back to cover the southern side of the bridges. The remaining units of the division would follow XXX Corps on land in what was known as the sea tail. Once XXX Corps had arrived and advanced beyond the bridgehead, the 52nd (Lowland) Infantry Division would land at Deelen airfield to support the ground forces north of the Rhine. The operation would be supplied by daily flights by 38 Group and 46 Group RAF who would make the first drop on LZ 'L' on day 2 and subsequent drops on DZ 'V'.
Intelligence
The division was told to expect only limited resistance from German reserve forces. A serious challenge to their operation was not expected and many men believed that their work would lead to the ending of the war. Some – anticipating a period of occupation in Germany – packed leisure equipment in their kit or in the sea tail. Browning's intelligence officer – Major Brian Urquhart – obtained information from the 21st Army Group in Belgium and Dutch resistance that German armour was present around Arnhem. This was backed up with aerial reconnaissance that he ordered to be flown. Browning was dismissive and ordered his chief medical officer to have Urquhart sent on sick leave. SHAEF was aware that there were almost certainly two Panzer divisions at Arnhem but with the operation looming chose to ignore them. Such information would have been gleaned from Ultra intercepts that the First Allied Airborne Army was not privy to and therefore could not act upon.
Oreste Pinto, a Dutch counterintelligence officer who Dwight Eisenhower said was "the greatest living authority on security" and head of the Netherlands Counter-Intelligence Mission at SHAEF, maintained that the Germans were forewarned by a traitor in the Dutch resistance named Christiaan Lindemans who supplied information to the Abwehr, as did Basil Liddell Hart.
German forces
The Allied liberation of Antwerp on 4 September had caused a rout of German reserve troops in the Netherlands, nicknamed "Mad Tuesday". The Allied pause at the Dutch border gave the Germans time to regroup although it would make subsequent attempts to clarify the exact German forces opposing the Allies extremely difficult. Generalfeldmarschall Walter Model – commander of Army Group B – had moved his headquarters to Arnhem and was re-establishing defences in the area and co-ordinating the reorganisation of the scattered units so that by the time the Allies launched Market Garden there would be several units opposing them.
To the west of Arnhem was Kampfgruppe Von Tettau, a force equivalent to seven battalions made up of all manner of German units (including Heer, Luftwaffe, Kriegsmarine, rear echelon and Waffen-SS troops) under the command of General Hans von Tettau at Grebbeberg. This included the SS Non-commissioned officer school SS Unteroffizierschule Arnheim and the 16th SS Panzergrenadier Training and Replacement Battalion under the command of SS Sturmbannführer Sepp Krafft, whose unit would play a crucial role in the opening phases of the battle. Within Arnhem itself, the town garrison was under the command of Major-General Friedrich Kussin.
The II SS Panzer Corps (Obergruppenführer Wilhelm Bittrich) – comprising the remains of the 9th SS Panzer Division Hohenstaufen (Walter Harzer) and the 10th SS Panzer Division Frundsberg (Heinz Harmel) – had moved into the area north of Arnhem to refit and reorganise. Although badly mauled in Normandy and during their escape from the Falaise pocket, the corps was made up of veterans and made available significantly more forces to the Germans than the Allies had been led to expect. The divisions were also specially trained in anti-airborne operations; during their formation both divisions had undergone month-long anti-airborne exercises whilst waiting for their heavy equipment, and had also spent the last 15 months studying the best reactions to a parachute attack in classroom and field exercises. The 9th SS had a Panzergrenadier brigade, a reconnaissance battalion, an artillery battalion, two batteries of self-propelled guns and a company of tanks. The number of men who were available after the withdrawal from Normandy is unclear. Some sources suggest that the 9th had up to 6,000 men, others suggest that the combined total of the 9th and 10th SS was only 6,000–7,000 men.
There were also Dutch units allied to the Germans present at Arnhem. These formations recruited from Dutch nationals (mainly criminals, men wishing to avoid national service or men affiliated with the Nationaal-Socialistische Beweging) and were incorporated into the German Army. At Arnhem, the partly Dutch SS Wachbattalion 3 was attached to Kampfgruppe Von Tettau and the 3rd Battalion of the SS Grenadier Regiment Landstorm Nederland training at nearby Hoogeveen was quickly attached to the 9th SS Panzer Division when they arrived on 20 September.
As the battle progressed, more and more forces would become available to the Germans. Adolf Hitler, stunned by the attack, agreed that the defence of the Netherlands should receive priority, and reinforcements streamed in from Wehrkreis VI, the Wesel area and Armed Forces Command Netherlands (General Friedrich Christiansen). Model arranged for units to be sent straight to the units in action and rushed in specialist urban warfare and machine gun battalions. Each day of the battle, the German military strength increased whilst the British supplies diminished. By 21 September, the fifth day of the battle, German forces outnumbered the British by 3:1 and continued to increase.
Battle
Day 1 – Sunday 17 September
The first lift was preceded by intense bombing and strafing by the British Second Tactical Air Force and the American 8th and 9th Air Forces. These targeted the known flak guns and German garrisons and barracks in the area. The first lift suffered only light losses as the aircraft and gliders flew from British bases to the target area. The first arrivals were the 21st Independent Parachute Company, who landed at 12:40 to mark the landing zones for the gliders and parachutists of the main force. The landings were largely unopposed and the battalions were formed up in good order and ready to carry out their tasks by 14:45.