Five Brothers and a War

Operation Market Garden—Sep. 17-25, 1944

After the success of the D-Day invasion of the Continent, there was a push to end the war. Two schools of thought dominated the planning process—one to engage in a slow but steady march toward the German heartland. This had substantial support among the command, including General Eisenhower. The other idea was to short-circuit the German defenses by skipping over the front lines with a massive aerial assault, using paratroopers as the main fighting force. By cutting off the Germans behind their own lines, their army would be starved of the support it required to continue, and would therefore be forced into capitulation. Approval was given to the second plan on the basis that the war could be over by the end of 1944. British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery was placed in charge of the operation, and true to form, Montgomery devised an overly complex and ambitious plan that had a great number of essential elements, any one of which could lead to disaster if not carried out on time. Operation Market Garden actually comprised two sections: the aerial assault would be Operation Market, and the ground assault would be Operation Garden. Of course, when the two were synchronized, the entire operation became Operation Market Garden. Market would be the largest airborne operation in history, delivering over 34,600 men of the U.S. 101 st , 82 nd and 1 st 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. The combined force had 1,438 C-47/Dakota transports 321 converted RAF bombers. The Allied glider force had 2,160 CG-4A Waco gliders, 916 Airspeed Horsas (812 RAF and 104 US Army) and 64 General Aircraft Hamilcars. The U.S. had only 2,060 glider pilots available, so that none of its gliders would have a co-pilot but would instead carry an extra passenger. Operation Garden required tanks and troops to move up from Northern Belgium and Southern Holland into the Nijmegen and Arnhem areas in the east central section of Holland. Aside from Montgomery’s poor plan, Germany had some pure luck on its side. By sheer coincidence, 9,000 elite heavy troops of the German 2 nd SS Panzer Corps had been sent to rest and regroup at Arnhem, and became a pivotal part of the failure of the Allied attack. Montgomery was warned of this by the Dutch underground, but Montgomery ignored the information and pressed ahead. On the morning of September 17, 1944, the operation commenced. Too many of the paratroops were too far away from their targets to gain the element of surprise, thereby allowing key bridges and roads to have their defenses reinforced by the Germans. The Allied plan required a quick victory in order to allow the ground-based supply lines to

the war

Five Brothers and a War

Page 478