Operation Market Garden

Axis Forces

• II SS-Panzer-Corps
  • 9. SS-Panzerdivision “Hohenstaufen”
  • 10. SS-Panzerdivision “Frundsberg”
• 6. Fallschirmjäger Regiment
  • Bataillon I, Hauptmann Emil Priekschat
  • Bataillon II, Hauptmann Rolf Mager
  • Bataillon III, Hauptmann Horst Trebes
  • Pionier Kompanie
  • Panzerjäger Kompanie
  • Fusilier Kompanie
• Kampfgruppe von Tettau
  • Feldkommandantur 642
  • SS-Unterführerschule Arnheim
    • Bataillon I
    • Bataillon II
    • Bataillon III
  • SS-Polizei Schule
  • SS-Ausbildungs und Ersatz Bataillon 4
    • Bataillon I
    • Bataillon II
  • SS-Wach Battalion 3
  • Schiffsturm Abteilung 10
  • Schiffsturm Abteilung 6/14
  • Fliegerhorst Battalion 2
  • Fliegerhorst Battalion 3
  • Artillerie Regiment 184
  • Sicherheit Regiment 42
• Kampfgruppe Knoche
  • Sicherheit Regiment 26
    • Bataillon I
    • Bataillon II
  • MG Bataillon 30
  • FlaK Abteilung 688
    • Bataillon I
    • Bataillon II
  • Hermann Göering Schule Regiment
    • Hermann Göering Schule Regiment
      • Bataillon I
    • Panzer Abteilung 224
    • SS Ersatz Abteilung 4
    • Deelen Airfield FlaK Kompanie
    • Wach Kompanie
    • Reichs AD
• Kampfgruppe Kraft
  • SS-Panzer Grenadier Ausbildungs und Ersatz Bataillon 16
• Schwerepanzer Abteilung 506
• Schwerepanzer Kompanie Hummel
• StuG Abteilung 280
• Artillerie Regiment 191
  • Bataillon I
  • Bataillon II
  • Bataillon III
• SS-Werfer Abteilung 102, Hauptsturmfürer Nickmann
• Kampfgruppe Brinkmann
• Kampfgruppe Bruhn
• Kampfgruppe Harder
• Sperrverband Harzer
  • MG Bataillon 47
  • Marine Kampfgruppe 642
  • Kampfgruppe Schörken
  • Kampfgruppe Kauer
  • SS-Abteilung “Landstrum Nederland”
• Kampfgruppe Knaust
  • Ersatz Abteilung Bocholt
  • Panzer Kompanie Mielke
• Kampfgruppe Spindler
• FlaK Abteilung Swoboda
• Kampfgruppe von Allworden
• Kampfgruppe Weber

Logistics

In August 1944, following the successful Allied breakout from Normandy and the encirclement of German forces in the Falaise Pocket, the Allied armies aggressively pursue the retreating German forces, driving them out of most of France and Belgium.

Unknown to the Germans, by late August, the Allied advance is hampered by a severe shortage of gasoline, forcing several divisions to pause and resupply. Eisenhower faces the daunting task of managing the logistical demands of the various Allied armies. While fuel supplies are available in the improvised ports of Normandy, the challenge lies in transporting them across the long distances to the front lines in Belgium and northern France. This fuel is transported in five-gallon jerry cans, hauled by trucks from Normandy in an operation known as the Red Ball Express. The solution to these logistical difficulties appears to be the capture of a major port closer to the advancing armies.

On September 4^th, 1944, Field Marshal Montgomery’s forces successfully capture the port of Antwerp in Belgium almost intact, but the Scheldt Estuary, leading to the port, remains under German control. Despite the strategic importance of Antwerp, neither Eisenhower nor Montgomery initially prioritises opening the port, delaying its use by Allied supply ships until November 28^th, 1944, after the Battle of the Scheldt.

Strategies

General Eisenhower advocates for a “broad front strategy,” wherein Montgomery’s forces in Belgium and general Bradley’s forces in France advance simultaneously along a wide front into Germany. Montgomery and General George S. Patton, Bradley’s aggressive subordinate, both favor a concentrated “single thrust” into Germany, but each wants to lead it. Montgomery argues that a focused and powerful drive across the Rhine into Germany’s heart, supported by all available Allied resources, is the best strategy. This would, however, reduce Bradley’s American forces to a more static role. Patton, on the other hand, asserts that with enough gasoline, he could be in Germany within days. However, war planners find both proposals tactically and logistically unrealistic.

Although Eisenhower agrees that Montgomery’s advance towards the Ruhr should take precedence, he insists that it is also important to keep Patton advancing. Montgomery counters that with the deteriorating supply situation, he cannot reach the Ruhr unless all resources are concentrated on one thrust, preferably towards Berlin. Initially, Montgomery proposes Operation Comet, a limited airborne operation aimed at capturing bridges on the way to the Rhine, but poor weather and increased German resistance force him to cancel the plan by September 10^th, 1944. Operation Comet is in the line of many planned airborne operations before. Between June 1944 and Market Garden at least 15 airborne operations were planned.

1. Operation Comet
2. Operation Tuxedo
3. Operation Wastage
4. Reinforcement of the U.S. 82^nd Airborne Division June 7^th, 1944 to June 10^th, 1944
5. Operation Wild Oats
6. Operation Beneficiary
7. Operation Swordhilt
8. Operation Hands-Up
9. Operation Transfigure
10. Operation Boxer
11. Operation Axehead
12. Operation Linnet
13. Operation Linnet II
14. Operation Infatuate
15. Operation Comet

Most of them became unnecessary simply because the fast Allied advance had already passed the traget area for the planned airborne operation.

Dolle Dinsdag

In the days before Dolle Dinsdag (Mad Tuesday), the Allied advance towards the Netherlands looks unstoppable. The German front seems to collapse. Brussels is liberated on September 3^rd, 1944. A day later, Antwerp is recaptured from the Germans. Optimists project the momentum forward. At this pace, they reckon, Rotterdam could fall on September 5^th, and Amsterdam and Utrecht on September 6^th. The rest of the country would surely follow within days. In the south, people can already hear the guns.

Rumour feeds on rumour. Soon many insist that several southern towns are already free. In Rotterdam, word has it the Allies stand at Moerdijk. In Amsterdam, they are said to have reached Rotterdam and Den Haag. A British radio bulletin hardens the belief, reporting that Breda has been liberated.

On September 4^th, 1944, Radio Oranje carries a speech by minister-presidentPieter Sjoerds Gerbrandy. He tells listeners that Allied forces have crossed the Dutch frontier and are pressing north. Tellingly, he had altered the draft himself. Where it first said the armies were approaching, he changed the words to say they had already crossed.

In the broadcast, Gerbrandy urges his countrymen to give the liberators the warm and dignified welcome they deserve. The hour of liberation has struck, he declares. Soon the beloved Queen will return. He gives heartfelt thanks to God for deliverance from great and bitter hardship. There will be joy, he says, yet grief too for the fallen. He remembers the compatriots still suffering under the enemy in the Dutch East Indies. Much sorrow remains; many have died and many more will. A final effort is needed, above all from public officials, to forestall the crimes the Germans may commit in their last moments. All resistance groups now form a single organisation under international law. These are historic days, he tells them, and posterity will judge every man and woman by their conduct. He calls for order, discipline, and obedience to the appointed leaders. The Netherlands is rising again, he ends, and may it rise in full greatness.

The following day, Tuesday, September 5^th, 1944, the underground paper Het dagelijks nieuws draws on the broadcast and puts out a liberation edition.

Many Dutch people greet the news with celebration. Out come the flags and the orange banners of the House of Orange. Workplaces empty as staff pour into the streets to await the liberators. The mood terrifies the occupier. German soldiers and members of the Nationaal-Socialistische Beweging (National Socialist Movement) panic. Fearing reprisal, they burn their records, gather their belongings, and set out for the supposed safety of Germany. Around forty trains are pressed into service to move the movement’s families eastward. Most of its members make first for the Lüneburger Heide (Lüneburg Heath).

Many Amsterdam members travel by night train to Lemmer. From there they are sent on to Kamp Westerbork (Camp Westerbork). Only two days earlier, the camp’s final transport to Auschwitz had left. The plan is a short stay before onward transfer to Germany by rail.

The movement’s leader, Anton Mussert, chooses the Bellinckhof, a country house near Almelo. From there he too can slip quickly across the German border if he must.

For some, the flight ends in tragedy. On September 6^th, a train of women and children of party members leaves Amsterdam for Germany. They are running from the news of the Allied advance. Near Diemen, Allied fighter aircraft strafe the carriages. Around thirty people are killed and many gravely hurt.

What the Dutch cannot know is how thin the Allied spearhead really is. The force at the front is far too small to free the whole country. The main body still lies in France. The troops who reached Antwerp have cleared only a narrow corridor through Belgium. Supply is the deeper trouble. The lines have stretched too far, and they hang on a single artificial harbour, because the Germans hold the fortified French ports. In truth, the Allies have not even reached the Dutch border. Occupied ground lies on either flank, and the leading units risk being cut off. There are signs that the Germans are regrouping. So the Allied command will not gamble on a further thrust north. Its main prize, Antwerp, is already in hand. The false report from Breda reflects a deeper confusion. The advance has been so swift that headquarters barely knows where its own men are. Only some days later do Allied reconnaissance patrols cross the frontier. Maastricht falls on September 14th, 1944, the first major Dutch city to be freed.

Germans Back in Control

On September 4^th, 1944, Hitler relieves Field Marshal Walter Model of his temporary command in the west, replacing him with Gerd von Rundstedt. However, Model remains the commander of Army Group B. Despite his experience, Model is dissatisfied with his dual role, preferring to be at the front with his troops rather than dealing with the administrative burdens of overall command.

Model faces a dire strategic situation, as his forces have been split in two by the advancing Allies. The 15. Armee, under General Gustav-Adolf von Zangen, is trapped south of the Westerschelde after retreating from the coast and is attempting to escape to North Brabant via Walcheren and Zuid-Beveland. Meanwhile, the 7. Armee has been pushed back by American forces to Aachen and Maastricht. A 120-kilometres gap now exists between these two armies, with no functioning combat units remaining, only scattered groups of German soldiers fleeing north and east. Model fears that the British 2^nd Army, positioned at the Dutch border, will exploit this gap. On September 4^th, 1944, nothing could have prevented the British from occupying the entire area up to the Maas. Known for his ability to improvise defences on the Eastern Front, Model now faces the daunting task of halting this chaotic retreat. He issues an order to stop the withdrawal, but it reaches only a few.

Lieutenant General Kurt Chill receives Model’s order. Having lost almost the entire 85. Infantrie Division in the fighting, Chill is ordered to regroup the remnants and retreat to Germany. However, upon witnessing the chaotic retreat and reading Model’s directive, Chill decides to ignore his original orders. After gathering his troops, he orders them to dig in along the Albert Canal and places officers at the bridges to stop the fleeing soldiers. Troops ranging from artillerymen to cooks are now repurposed to defend the Albert Canal. Chill’s actions help stabilize the situation in this area, and similar measures are taken across the entire western front. By the second and third weeks of September, over 150,000 German soldiers who had fled are recaptured and reintegrated into the military structure.

Also on September 4^th, 1944, Hitler orders General Kurt Student to form the 1. Fallschirm-Armee to close the gap between Antwerp and Maastricht. Student is given 4,000 trained Fallschirmjäger but must also rely on older, inexperienced men, unemployed Luftwaffe personnel, sailors, and anti-aircraft gunners. He also receives twenty-five pieces of mechanised artillery. Student immediately sends his paratroopers ahead, and within twenty-four hours, they reach the Albert Canal. Upon surveying the area, Student realises that Chill has performed a near-miracle in stabilising the front. Student establishes his headquarters in Vught, Noord Brabant, commanding not only the 85. Infantrie Division but also the 7. Fallschirmjäger Division, the 719. Infantrie Division, and the 176. Infantrie Division.

Student’s army receives unexpected reinforcement when Von Zangen successfully leads the 15. Armee across the Westerschelde using various vessels, advancing through Zuid-Beveland into North Brabant. The gap between Model’s two armies begins to close, resolving one of his most pressing problems. Despite these efforts, the defence of the Albert Canal remains weak.

Lining up for Operation Garden.

Responsible for capturing the Albert Canal bridges is the Guards Armoured Division who keeps up its drive north. Its tanks are over the Albert Canal at Beeringen by September 7^th, 1944. The three villages beyond, Bourg Leopold, Heppen and Hechtel, take five more days to clear. They lie roughly 11 kilometres short of the Meuse-Escaut Canal, the next water barrier. Hechtel is still contested when the Grenadier Guards Group pushes on northward on Saturday, September 9^th, 1944. Stubborn German defence exacts a price. One who falls is Lieutenant Sir Howard Frederick Frank, Second Baronet of Withyham, aged twenty-one, struck down when a hit knocks out his tank.

The Irish Guards Group is drawn in too. The 3^rd Irish Guards pass the Beeringen bridgehead to the 11^th Armoured Division at 17:30 on Friday, September 8^th, 1944. They then shift at dusk to Helchteren. The night is spent short of the town, beside tanks of the Regiment’s 2^nd Battalion. That pause lays bare a lesson. Pairing a tank unit and an infantry one by cap badge does not make them fight as one. The Division, for all its Normandy record, has not mastered the difference. A 3^rd Irish Guards company lies out ahead of the 2^nd Irish Guards tanks. The crews keep to habit regardless, hosing .30 machine-gun fire into every noise or stir in the black ahead. One company headquarters ends up trapped in its farmhouse. To bring tank support against a German probe, one of its platoon commanders must sprint through his own side’s fire. The two days, September 8^th and 9^th, 1944, cost the 3rd Irish Guards nine dead and eighteen wounded. The three officers among the dead fall that morning at Beeringen. Whether the tanks account for any of the others cannot be said.

The training gap shows itself once more the day after. Orders at 14:00 send the 3^rd Irish Guards to Exel, three to five kilometres north-east of Hechtel. This time the men perch on the 2nd Battalion’s tanks rather than their own troop-carriers. Lieutenant Brian Wilson, who leads a platoon in the 3^rd Battalion’s 2^nd Company, sets down the scene afterwards. Most of the men have never stood beside a tank before. It strikes him as odd that home training never once paired infantry of an armoured division with armour. Someone has to explain, there and then, how to reach a crew. A man wanting a word must use the telephone on the tank’s rear, the engine being too loud for speech. As Wilson notes, the din defeats the telephone as well.

Nothing disturbs the ride, and the column is in Exel by about 18:00. The enemy’s recent presence is written across the place: wrecked vehicles, prisoners in the charge of Grenadier Guardsmen, German road signs, and broad pits scooped out to hide tanks and other heavy machines. Barely have the infantry begun digging in for the night when new orders arrive. Lieutenant J. N. Creswell, leading a 2^nd Household Cavalry patrol, has come upon an undamaged bridge over the Meuse-Escaut Canal some 11 kilometres north. The Irish Guards Group must take it without delay. Their route runs along a trail of Household Cavalry vehicles posted on the side roads.

The hour at which the Group comes up to the de Groot Bridge, immediately west of Neerpelt, is not recorded. Captain J. A. H. Hendry’s Number 2 Company carries it in a snatched assault, with a Sherman troop under Lieutenant D. Lampard in support. So swift is the British approach that the garrison is caught flat-footed. They had taken the Irish Guards’ tanks, they say, for their own side’s. With the crossing in hand, Captain Hutton of the Royal Engineers sets about lifting and disarming its demolition charges. Wilson, meeting him close by, notes four Irish Guardsmen at his side, pressed into service by their Regimental Sergeant Major. True or not, Hutton earns the Military Cross for the work. The bridge costs the Irish Guards one man dead and five hurt, though that death and two of the wounded may belong to an earlier moment.

At first the Germans stay quiet. Their real answer comes near 09:00 the next morning. An infantry thrust comes in, stiffened by a lone armoured vehicle, a self-propelled gun by some accounts, a Tiger by others. The attackers are turned back. The vehicle first grinds to within 100 metres of the 3^rd Irish Guards’ headquarters. No one is sure it is ever knocked out. Captain Edward Rawlence, the Battalion’s Motor Transport officer, dies hunting it with a PIAT. The Regimental Sergeant Major, caught in the same event, appears to take blast and burn wounds to the face and eyes. Three more men are killed and ten wounded before the day is out. German mortars and guns account for some of them, and smash a number of vehicles besides. Among them is the staff car of the Battalion commander, Lieutenant-Colonel John O. E. Vandeleur. Next day the prize is named Joe’s Bridge, a small consolation.

Behind the lines the Germans are assembling a fresh formation to wall off the British lodgement beyond the Meuse-Escaut Canal and throw it back. The order creating Kampfgruppe (battlegroup) Walther, named for the Fallschirmjäger (parachute) Oberst at its head, is given on September 12^th, 1944. Its first components are a scattering of Luftwaffe (air force) units. There is Oberstleutnant Friedrich von der Heydte’s Fallschirmjäger Regiment 6, the replacement-training Fallschirmjäger Ausbildungs Regiment Hoffmann under Oberstleutnant Helmuth von Hoffmann, and Luftwaffe Strafbataillon 6, a penal battalion lately up from Italy and still dressed for the tropics. The parachute titles flatter the first two, which are thick with Luftwaffe ground crew of little or no training, nine in ten of them, it is said, in von Hoffmann’s regiment. The penal battalion is barely of use. Reinforcement duly comes from Sturmbannführer (Major) Heinke’s Kampfgruppe of 10 SS Panzer Division, in from Arnhem on September 12^th or 13^th, 1944. Walther reaches Valkenswaard, 11 kilometres north of Neerpelt, in the small hours of Wednesday, September 13^th, 1944. Taking the reins from Oberstleutnant von Hoffmann, he wastes no time in ordering a concerted assault on the Neerpelt bridgehead for the next day.

The overcast keeps German preparations hidden from the air, but not from British gunner-observers, who rain fire on whatever movement they spot. The headquarters of von Hoffmann’s I Bataillon, at Luyksgestel five kilometres north-west of the bridge, comes in for this treatment repeatedly. Leutnant Heinz Volz, the Bataillon adjutant, leaves a picture of it. On September 13^th, 1944, a shell lands squarely in Leutnant Hansbach’s trench and kills him. A splinter touches off the grenades a staff man is carrying, and the man is blown apart. A mortar bomb cuts down a Feldwebel at the command post door. One salvo comes in while Oberstleutnant von der Heydte is on hand; he clears the ground-floor window in a graceful bound. Volz, plastered in dust and with splinters singing past, burrows deeper beneath the table. Through it all a field telephone rings on, ignored. When the fire slackens and Volz answers, a Major Schacht at the headquarters of 1 Fallschirmjäger Armee scolds him. Leaving a senior officer holding the line, he is reminded, offends against protocol.

Over on the British side, the 5^th Coldstream Guards assume the very tip of the bridgehead on September 12^th, 1944, with the Dutch frontier scarcely 1.5 kilometres off. The 2^nd Irish Guards’ tanks pull back over the Albert Canal. The 3rd Irish Guards settle into a belt of pine forest on the perimeter’s left. Wilson’s 2^nd Company draws the job of guarding Battalion headquarters at close quarters. What looks a comfortable posting sours once the men find they must dig the headquarters staff’s slit trenches as well as their own. Intermittent German shells break the monotony, and so does a pestering night raid by some unidentified light aircraft.

The plan hands the western sector to Fallschirmjäger Regiment 6: take the hamlet of La Colonie, then cross Heunel Heath to reach the bridge. Off to distract the defenders, Fallschirmjäger Ausbildungs Regiment Hoffmann and Hauptsturmführer Dr Segler’s battalion of SS Panzergrenadier Regiment 19 are to strike astride and east of the Hasselt-Eindhoven highway. Jagdpanzer IVs of Hauptsturmführer Roestel’s SS Panzerjäger Abteilung 10 support them. Zero hour is 08:00 on September 14^th, 1944, under a light drizzle and cloud low enough to ground the Allied fighter-bombers. Some troops may creep forward before first light; one British unit at least reports infiltrators carrying machine-guns and Panzerfausts. Von der Heydte’s men sweep over a few forward posts short of La Colonie. Then British defensive fire, summoned at 08:30, stops them, and the push stalls amid the houses. The eastern diversions ease little of the strain. Off the roads the Jagdpanzers’ slender tracks flounder in the mire, and their arrival seems to invite a British armoured riposte. As many as three of Roestel’s machines may be destroyed across the day.

Beaten off or not, the assault bears down heavily on the 3rd Irish Guards, and hardest of all on Number 3 Company at the wood’s edge. In timber so dense, German infiltrators prove near impossible to keep out, and Lieutenant Humphrey Kennard’s platoon draws the weight of a resolute attack. It swells until Wilson’s platoon, still tied to Battalion headquarters, has to peel off a rifle section to help. That section, under a Sergeant Sullivan, walks into a German assault and is swallowed whole; one man at least is killed and the others taken. Only at dark does the pressure lift, the Germans slipping away behind a heavy curtain of shell and mortar fire while the Guards pull into a closer perimeter. The day leaves the 3rd Battalion with seven dead, Lieutenant Kennard among them, twenty-three wounded and five missing, the last of these plainly Sullivan’s lost section. Night grants no rest to all. Wilson is sent out to find whether the enemy still sits before Number 3 Company’s old ground, and in what force. He goes with two volunteers, loses his way at the start, then edges past two burning farms his briefing had said nothing of. Beyond them he settles the question: von der Heydte’s Fallschirmjäger hold the woods roughly 550 metres to the Battalion’s front. Some two hours on, the patrol slips back inside, coming in only a few metres from where it left.

Relief reaches the Guards Armoured Division on September 15^th, 1944, when elements of the 50th (Northumbrian) Division come up. The 1^st Hampshires of 231^st Infantry Brigade take over the 3^rd Irish Guards’ line. Wilson sees their advance party arrive as he breakfasts, cold, on bully beef and looted German champagne, cold because a German shell had wrecked the 2^nd Company cook truck the day before. Around midday the changeover is done, and the Guards tramp back to their transport at a derelict factory just south of Joe’s Bridge, from where they ride to billets farther south. In the eleven days from the freeing of Brussels to their departure from the bridgehead, the Division loses 113 killed, 405 wounded and 80 missing. The weight of it is borne by the 1^st Welsh, 3^rd Irish and 5^th Coldstream Guards. The 3^rd Irish Guards perhaps fare worst; officer losses dating from September 8^th, 1944 force the Battalion to reorganise eight days later. Even so, the mood runs to impatience, and to bewilderment that the advance is not driven on harder. Wilson says as much. By September 15^th, 1944, Joe’s Bridge has been in hand four whole days. The delay unsettles everyone and defies explanation. Each wasted day, he thinks, only hardens the resistance waiting ahead. Later fighting proves him right, and hints that the risk of pressing straight on might well have paid.

With its losses of September 14^th, 1944 to nurse, Kampfgruppe Walther settles for hemming the British in, though Joe’s Bridge draws one last, unorthodox effort. On the afternoon of Friday, September 15^th, 1944, a party of Kriegsmarine combat swimmers turns up unheralded at the headquarters of SS Panzergrenadier Regiment 21, out on the perimeter’s eastern edge. Its first commander, Hauptsturmführer Krause, seems by now to have given way to Hauptsturmführer Friedrich Richter. Richter vets their papers from Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, grasps that they mean to blow the bridge with a 500-kilogram sea mine, and hands them on to the company beside the Meuse-Escaut Canal under his adjutant, Obersturmführer Heinz Damaske. A truck runs the swimmers and their load to a farm near the front once darkness falls, and there the plan comes apart. The only hands to spare are a few signallers from company headquarters, too few to work the mine quietly in the dark. A three-metre drop to the water makes it worse. What follows is no surprise. The scuffling, the hushed voices and the splashing all carry, and the British across the canal loose off machine-guns and mortars at the racket. Damaske had not cared to imagine a mortar round finding the mine, and the naval party, it turns out, imagines exactly that. Judging the thing impossible in such conditions, they abandon the soldiers to their package.

After this, the bridge is largely left undisturbed, while the German forces surrounding the lodgement restrict themselves to observing British activity. Richter’s men hear heavy vehicles moving along the Hechtel–Valkenswaard road to the south and occasionally see their lights. Other elements of Kampfgruppe Walther make similar reports.

During the night of September 15^th and 16^th, 1944, 719. Infanterie-Division records an almost continuous flow of traffic on the roads behind the Albert Canal. Kampfgruppe Chill also expects a major British attack once sufficient armour has been concentrated inside the bridgehead.

Operation Market Garden

Field Marshal Montgomery devises an enlarged plan to bypass the German West Wall and cross the Rhine towards the Ruhr. He proposes committing the whole First Allied Airborne Army. The scheme also answers a pressing need. V-2 rocket sites in the Netherlands are striking London, and the British government wants them silenced. The design enlarges the earlier Operation Comet to three airborne divisions. It aims to seize the crossings across some 100 kilometres from Eindhoven to Arnhem. The airborne insertion is codenamed Market; the ground relief is Garden. The overarching aim is a bridgehead across the Rhine at Arnhem.

Wretched communications form the backdrop to what follows. Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force had moved its forward headquarters from Portsmouth to Granville on August 7^th, 1944. The advance has since left it more than 640 kilometres from the front. No direct links reach its Army Groups. Eisenhower’s September 5^th signal on supply priority and command arrives in halves. The first part is transmitted at 09:00 on September 7th, the remainder at 10:15 on September 9th. The strain eases only at the end of September 1944, when headquarters moves to the Trianon Palace at Versailles.

On Sunday September 10^th, 1944, Montgomery pitches the plan to General Eisenhower in Brussels. Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder attends. The meeting takes place aboard Eisenhower’s aircraft, a knee injury having nearly immobilised him. No official record survives. It appears to open badly. Montgomery, still smarting at the loss of the ground command, vents at Eisenhower. Eisenhower reaches over, pats his knee, and reminds him who is his boss. Montgomery apologises, and the talk grows more amicable. Eisenhower approves the plan warmly. He calls it a design in exact concordance with all their understandings.

The two men leave with different understandings all the same. Tedder tells Air Chief Marshal Sir Charles Portal the meeting has cleared the air. Yet he notes Montgomery insisting that priority means absolute priority. The day after, Montgomery is already badgering Eisenhower. He claims the operation cannot launch before September 23^rd, and probably not before September 26^th. Delay, he warns, lets the Germans prepare. On September 12^th Eisenhower sends his chief of staff, Lieutenant-General Walter Bedell Smith, to Brussels. On September 13^th Eisenhower tells Montgomery that 1,000 tonnes a day by air is impossible without stripping Market. He agrees instead to 500 tonnes a day by American road transport until October 1^st. American units are immobilised to move it. In practice, Market Garden thus receives only limited priority within the wider strategy. Montgomery reads the compromise as total victory. He tells Lieutenant-General Sir Archibald Nye he has personally killed the Saar advance, and calls it a great victory. On September 14^th he even directs the British Second Army to plan a further drive on Hamm. Eisenhower has not authorised it.

While that argument runs on, the operational planning is already under way. Eisenhower has his own reasons to embrace the plan. Pressure from the United States to employ the First Allied Airborne Army weighs on him. The airborne forces have been pulled back from the front and sit idle. They comprise three British and three United States divisions, with the Polish 1^st Independent Parachute Brigade. From this pool, three divisions and the Polish brigade will be committed. A run of proposed operations has been cancelled by the speed of the Allied advance. Eisenhower judges that Market Garden could carry the Allies across the Rhine.

On September 10^th, 1944, he directs Lieutenant-General Lewis Brereton to plan the operation. Brereton commands the First Allied Airborne Army. He is to devise the airborne assault, Market, to run in concert with the ground offensive, Garden. The proposed date, weather permitting, is September 14^th. Brereton has little time. He adapts the framework of the cancelled Operation Linnet I and II to the new objectives. He restricts glider missions to single-tows, one glider to each tug aircraft. Linnet had envisaged the more complex double-tow. Poor weather, heavy resupply demands, and scant August training for the IX Troop Carrier Command all count against it. Brereton judges double-tows without practice too risky.

He also settles on a daylight operation. Extensive air support from the Royal Air Force and the United States Air Force makes this feasible. The choice is meant to avoid the dispersal that marred the Normandy landings in June. Weather and logistics push the start to September 17^th, 1944. Brereton times the final plan to the dark of the moon that night, to reduce the risk of detection. With daylight already shortening, he rules out two lifts per day. The shortage of troop carrier aircraft then dictates the pace. The airborne phase will need three consecutive days to land every formation in the Netherlands. The approach balances effect against the safety of his troops.

The finished plan rests on two linked operations. Market is the airborne effort. Brereton’s First Allied Airborne Army is to seize the key bridges and terrain. It operates under the tactical command of I Airborne Corps and Lieutenant-General Frederick Browning. Garden is the ground thrust, spearheaded by the British Second Army. Its XXX Corps, under Lieutenant-General Brian Horrocks, is to drive north and link up with the airborne troops. D-Day for Market Garden is set for Sunday September 17^th, 1944.

Operation Market

Meanwhile Operation Comet is cancelled on September 10^th, 1944. The airborne troops assigned to Operation Market are recovering from the cancellation. The 1^st Parachute Battalion, at Grimsthorpe Castle and Bourne in Lincolnshire, stays on instant standby until September 14^th, 1944, when all ranks receive thirty-six hours’ leave. Some 22 kilometres east at Spalding, the 3^rd Parachute Battalion is granted the same leave on the very day the cancellation is announced. It then spends September 12^th to 15th, 1944 helping local farmers, presumably with the harvest. The 11^th Parachute Battalion, 64 kilometres north-west at Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire, is let out of camp on Tuesday, September 12^th, 1944, and sent off on forty-eight hours’ leave the next day. Whether its running mate, 156^th Parachute Battalion, also billeted at Melton Mowbray, receives leave after standing down from Comet is unclear. The American formations follow much the same pattern. Sergeant George Kosimaki, a radio operator at the 101^st Airborne Division’s headquarters, records that twenty-four-hour passes are cancelled on September 11^th, 1944, the men aware that something is afoot once the divisional War Room is placed under strict guard.

The airborne division commanders, with key staff, reconvene at Browning’s 1^st British Airborne Corps headquarters at Moor Park on the morning of Thursday, September 14^th, 1944. Each has spent the days since the conferences of September 10^th and 11^th, 1944 drawing up his detailed plan and conferring with staff and subordinates, and now presents that work to Browning and to his fellow commanders. Major-General Maxwell D. Taylor of the 101^st Airborne Division opens the briefback. The division’s most northerly objectives, the four road and rail bridges over the Willems Canal and the River Aa at Veghel, go to Colonel Howard R. Johnson’s 501^st Parachute Infantry Regiment, using two drop zones. The larger, Drop Zone A, lies just over three kilometres south-west of Veghel and is meant at first to take the whole regiment. That changes after Lieutenant-Colonel Harry W. O. Kinnard proposes putting part of the force nearer the Aa bridges, to sidestep likely resistance on the western edge of Veghel. Kinnard’s 1st Battalion therefore gets its own Drop Zone A-1, between the Aa and the Willems Canal, beside the railway roughly 1.5 kilometres north of the town. The regiment’s 3^rd Battalion, under Lieutenant-Colonel Julian Ewell, is to take Eerde just west of Drop Zone A and block the Veghel–Sint Oedenrode road just to the east. Lieutenant-Colonel Robert A. Ballard’s 2^nd Battalion, meanwhile, is to drive straight for the two Willems Canal bridges in Veghel’s western outskirts.

The rest of the 101^st Airborne Division is to come down on a large combined drop and landing zone some 11 kilometres south-west of Veghel. The southern third, Drop Zone C, falls to Colonel Robert F. Sink’s 506^th Parachute Infantry Regiment, tasked to secure the three bridges over the Wilhelmina Canal just south of Son and then push on to Eindhoven. To that end Major James L. La Prade’s 1^st Battalion is to move fast through the Zonsche Forest along the canal’s north bank and seize the three bridges. Lieutenant-Colonel Robert L. Strayer’s 2^nd Battalion is to advance through Son and approach the bridges from the north, while Lieutenant-Colonel Oliver M. Horton’s 3^rd Battalion follows as regimental reserve. The northern third, Drop Zone B, goes to Colonel John H. Michaelis’s 502^nd Parachute Infantry Regiment. His 1^st Battalion, under Lieutenant-Colonel Patrick C. Cassidy, is to move north-east and secure the four bridges over the River Dommel at Sint Oedenrode. The 2^nd and 3^rd Battalions, under Lieutenant-Colonels Steve A. Chappuis and Robert G. Cole, are to protect the landing area and act as division reserve. The exception is Captain Robert E. Jones’s Company H of the 3^rd Battalion, sent south-west to secure the road and rail bridges over the Wilhelmina Canal just south of Best. It is reinforced with a platoon from Company C and a detachment of the 326^th Airborne Engineer Battalion. Taylor adds the Best bridges to the objective list despite British indifference, and whether the move figures in the briefback, or reaches XXX Corps at all, is unclear. The central third, Landing Zone W, is reserved for seventy Waco CG4 gliders carrying elements of Lieutenant-Colonel Harry W. Elkins’s 377^th Parachute Field Artillery Battalion, due to arrive an hour after the parachute drop.

Brigadier-General James Gavin’s plan for the 82^nd Airborne Division proves rather more intricate. The division’s most westerly objective, the nine-span bridge of some 549 metres over the River Maas at Grave, appears to go to the 2^nd and 3^rd Battalions of Colonel Reuben H. Tucker’s 504^th Parachute Infantry Regiment, under Majors Edward M. Wellems and Julian A. Cook. To seize both ends at once, the 2^nd Battalion’s Company E is to be dropped on a small drop zone on the west bank of the Maas, while the rest of the two battalions use the large regimental Drop Zone O between the Maas and the Maas-Waal Canal, north-east of Grave. Tucker’s 1st Battalion, under Major Willard E. Harrison, is to secure the Maas-Waal Canal crossings just east of Drop Zone O, lying south to north near Molenhoek, Malden and Hatert. A fourth crossing farther north at Honinghutie, a substantial combined road and rail structure, is left off the objective list. Gavin logs it as a provisional extra, to be dealt with jointly by the 504th and Colonel Roy E. Lindquist’s 508^th Parachute Infantry Regiment, as the fight develops after the landings. His caution presumably reflects a wish not to stretch his units too thinly, and rests on the Market orders requiring seizure of only “at least one” of the four crossings. The division’s other primary task is the great road and rail bridges over the River Waal in northern Nijmegen.

That task is complicated by Browning inserting himself directly into Gavin’s planning. In his Operation Instruction Number 1 of Wednesday, September 13^th, 1944, Browning rules that securing the Groesbeek Heights, a wooded plateau south and east of Nijmegen, matters as much as securing the Nijmegen and Grave bridges. He goes further at the briefing. Once Gavin has finished, Browning expressly forbids any move on the Nijmegen bridges until the whole of the Heights is in hand. His worry is that the western end of the Heights overlooks the roads into Nijmegen and the city itself, and offers a route for German counter-attacks from the nearby Reichswald Forest, just across the German border.

Gavin, shares the concern about the ridge overlooking Nijmegen and its approaches, rather than the Heights as a whole. It forces Gavin to string three lightly armed regiments around a perimeter of some 40 kilometres, spread wide and thin across key terrain and road and track junctions. The order is arguably needless as well, for the Nijmegen bridges are not in fact visible from the Heights as claimed, and a much tighter perimeter through the more defensible urban ground on the city’s edge would have served. In short, the Nijmegen bridges are indispensable to Market Garden and the Groesbeek Heights are not, so the bridges should have come first.

Gavin must in any case rework his plan to Browning’s wishes, and his two remaining regiments therefore use two separate drop zones chosen for a rapid grab at the Heights. Colonel William E. Ekman’s 505^th Parachute Infantry Regiment is to drop on Drop Zone N, some 8 kilometres east of the 504^th‘s main landing area, at the southern edge of the Heights. This zone, shared by Gavin’s division headquarters and Lieutenant-Colonel Wilbur Griffiths’s 376^th Parachute Artillery Battalion, sits midway between the Reichswald to the south-east and the village of Groesbeek to the north-east. Ekman is to take Groesbeek village, hold a perimeter along the southern edge of the Heights, and link up with the 504^th Parachute Infantry Regiment to the west across the Maas-Waal Canal. Lindquist and the 508^th Parachute Infantry Regiment draw Drop Zone T, roughly 3 kilometres to the north-east, between Groesbeek and the village of Wyler just inside the German border. Lindquist is to secure the Heights, hold a perimeter along their eastern and northern edges, and protect the landing ground for Colonel George Billingslea’s 325^th Glider Infantry Regiment, due with the second lift on September 18^th, 1944; two adjacent glider landing zones lie just east of Groesbeek, between the parachute drop zones. Holding the whole of the Heights makes a perimeter of about 40 kilometres, a tall order even for a formation as seasoned and professional as Gavin’s, and he must spread his men thinly to man it. As Powell notes, a smaller perimeter reaching some 5 kilometres out from the centre of Nijmegen would have denied the Germans both access and observation over the city and its approaches; it would simply not have satisfied Browning’s demand for the entire Groesbeek Heights.

The third and final contributor to the briefback is Major-General Robert Urquhart of the 1^st Airborne Division. His plan is essentially Comet without the glider coup-de-main to seize the Arnhem road bridge. As already seen, the Royal Air Force planners have chosen to land the division on heath and farmland some 11 kilometres west of Arnhem. The first lift uses two landing areas: a combined drop and landing area south-west of Wolfheze, and a smaller landing area just north of the town. The former runs north from Heelsum to the Arnhem–Ede railway line just west of Wolfheze, split almost down the middle by a convenient belt of trees. The western half, Drop Zone X, goes to Brigadier Gerald Lathbury’s 1^st Parachute Brigade, the 1st Parachute Squadron, Royal Engineers, and the 16^th Parachute Field Ambulance. The neighbouring Landing Zone Z is given to Lathbury’s glider-borne elements, to Major C. F. H. “Freddie” Gough’s 1st Airborne Reconnaissance Squadron, and to the 1st Airlanding Anti-Tank Battery, Royal Artillery, the 1^st Airlanding Light Regiment, Royal Artillery, the 9^th Field Company, Royal Engineers, and the 181^st Airlanding Field Ambulance. Urquhart’s tactical headquarters and Brigadier Philip Hicks’s 1^st Airlanding Brigade take Landing Zone S, the smaller area north of the railway. A further parachute area some 3 kilometres west of Wolfheze, Drop Zone Y, is set aside for the 4th Parachute Brigade on the second lift of Monday, September 18^th, 1944, with the rest of the 1^st Airlanding Brigade coming down on Landing Zone S and a redesignated Landing Zone X. The third lift, planned for Tuesday, September 19th, 1944, is to put the 1^st Polish Independent Parachute Brigade onto Drop Zone K, on the polder just south of the Arnhem road bridge, while the Poles’ transport and heavy equipment land on Landing Zone L, some 3 kilometres east of Wolfheze, alongside the 878th United States Airborne Engineer Battalion.

Once on the ground, Urquhart’s scheme is relatively simple. Hicks’s 1st Airlanding Brigade is to protect the landing area for the second lift, together with Urquhart’s tactical headquarters and all the divisional units brought in first. Gough’s 1^st Airborne Reconnaissance Squadron is to race off in its armed Jeeps, trailed by Lathbury’s 1st Parachute Brigade. Gough’s men are to seize the division’s chief objective, the Arnhem road bridge, and hold it until Lathbury arrives to build a proper perimeter. Once the second lift is down on the second day, the 4^th Parachute Brigade and the 1^st Airlanding Brigade are to extend the perimeter northwards through Arnhem, gathering the Polish and other glider elements from Landing Zone L on the way. The arrival of the 1^st Polish Independent Parachute Brigade near the bridge on the third lift is therefore somewhat redundant, and the Poles are set to cross the bridge and dig in on Arnhem’s eastern outskirts. The intent may be to use them in a later push to the Zuider Zee, or east across the River Ijssel to Deventer or Zutphen; one man of the 44^th Royal Tank Regiment recalls his unit being briefed to support a Polish drop near the Zuider Zee.

Urquhart is soon to share Gavin’s experience of Browning’s meddling. On Friday, September 15^th, 1944, amid the Market preparations, he somehow finds time for a round of golf on the course beside Moor Park. While he plays, his operations officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Mackenzie, tells him that a few gliders are being trimmed from the division’s first lift. Urquhart agrees without protest, asking only that the cut not touch the guns of the 1^st Airlanding Anti-Tank Battery, Royal Artillery. His calm is surprising, since the division is already short of airlift. The few gliders in fact number thirty-eight, thirty-two of them Horsas, enough to carry two-thirds of an airlanding infantry battalion, the other six being Waco CG4’s of unknown origin. More surprising still, given how thin his first lift already is on infantry, the cut falls on the 2^nd South Staffords. They are left with only twenty-two of the fifty-six machines needed to lift the whole battalion in the first wave, the remaining thirty-four Horsa loads pushed to the second lift.

The thirty-eight machines have been earmarked to carry Browning and his advanced 1^st Airborne Corps headquarters into the 505^th Parachute Infantry Regiment’s landing area south of Groesbeek. This is how Browning has chosen to make good his total want of airborne operational experience, and so to shore up his claim to the senior Allied airborne post. There is no practical or operational case for putting Browning in the first lift, or indeed for his being in Holland at all, since nothing he can do there could not be done from Moor Park.

Urquhart’s plan does not sit well with the more experienced airborne officers present on September 14^th, 1944. US. Airborne General Gavin admits to disbelieving his ears when the plan is unveiled, remarking to his operations officer, Colonel John Norton, that Urquhart cannot mean it; Norton replies that he does, and means to try. Gavin astutely notes that the trouble lies beyond Urquhart’s control, and his first complaint is the 11-kilometre gap between the landing area and the primary objective, though it should be said that the nearest of the 82^nd‘s own drop zones lies 8 kilometres from the Nijmegen bridges, and on the wrong side of the Groesbeek Heights at that. Gavin’s misgivings run deeper still, as his later comment that the plan seemed more a peacetime exercise than war makes plain. The options for Urquhart’s first lift are dictated from outside and thus arguably defensible, a point to be returned to; the plan for the second lift is not. Assuming the 1^st Airborne Reconnaissance Squadron and the 1^st Parachute Brigade could push through to the bridge is reasonable enough, given surprise and speed. To expect the 1^st Airlanding and 4^th Parachute Brigades to repeat the feat after handing the Germans up to twenty-four hours’ warning is not, especially with the added burden of shepherding the divisional units too. This is likely what moves Major-General Sosabowski to revive his loud objection to the Comet plan, rising from his seat behind Gavin to call out and ask what about the Germans.

Hard experience has taught both Gavin and Taylor to start with the greatest possible number of fighting men, and so the first lift of each American division carries all three of its parachute infantry regiments, each the equal of a British brigade, plus a little engineer and artillery support. Urquhart, by contrast, fills roughly a third of his first lift with divisional troops, including a whole light artillery regiment and two full field ambulances, and lets one of his two infantry brigades be trimmed of nearly a third of its strength when Browning appropriates the thirty-four Horsas from the divisional glider allocation. Part of this stems from the structure of British airborne divisions, in which two-thirds of the infantry are parachute troops, even though the Air Ministry never means to provide aircraft enough to deliver more than a fraction of them at once. So, Browning’s interference aside, Urquhart as things stand must fill almost a third of his glider lift with divisional troops, because the only infantry to hand come from the 4^th Parachute Brigade. Since paratroopers tend to regard gliders as a short step from suicide, turning them into makeshift airlanding infantry would have been awkward, though not impossible.

Yet there is a solution, one that seems never to occur to Urquhart or anyone else, which would have let him match his American counterparts and deliver most, if not all, of his infantry in the first lift. The Royal Air Force contribution to the first lift consists of two formations, Numbers 38 and 46 Groups. The former holds six squadrons of Short Stirlings, two of Handley Page Halifaxes and one of Armstrong Whitworth Albemarles, all rigged as glider tugs, with the Stirlings and Albemarles able to drop parachutists as well. Number 46 Group has five Royal Air Force and one Royal Canadian Air Force squadrons of C-47s and Dakotas, all seemingly rigged for parachuting too, since most of their Market sorties are parachute supply runs. Number 46 Group thus has aircraft enough to deliver most or all of the 4th Parachute Brigade alongside the United States Army Air Forces aircraft dropping the 1^st Parachute Brigade, while Number 38 Group tows in the 1^st Airlanding Brigade’s gliders and those of vital support units. That would have let Urquhart send two infantry brigades to seize his primary objective while keeping the third back to guard the landing area. The cost would have been bumping most divisional units to the second or even third lifts, but of these arguably only the guns of the 1^st Airlanding Light Regiment, Royal Artillery, prove useful.

Lieutenant-Colonel John Frost of the 2^nd Parachute Battalion warns of the danger of putting non-airborne commanders over airborne units. However good such men are, Frost observes, they are apt to treat airborne warfare as just another way into battle, when the physical, mental and even spiritual demands of fighting without the normal army’s support are in fact very different. How well this fits Urquhart is clear from his plan, and especially from his treating the assembly of the whole division as no less important than seizing and holding its primary objective. As will be seen, his decisions and conduct once on the ground confirm Frost’s judgement further. These misconceptions should have been corrected by Urquhart’s senior subordinates, but in practice they are little if any more experienced than he is. The point is sharpest with his senior brigade commander, Brigadier Gerald Lathbury, who led the 1^st Parachute Brigade in its bid for the Primasole Bridge on Sicily in July 1943, a venture that offered little beyond a lesson in how not to run an airborne operation. Lathbury goes on to repeat the same mistakes in Holland, his plan for the Arnhem bridges resembling a peacetime exercise even more than Urquhart’s. To his credit, Urquhart has noticed, on taking command, a tendency to unwarranted overconfidence in the division, one remarked on by some of his own officers. Sosabowski notes it too during a Market briefing at Moor Park at 17:00 on September 12^th, 1944. When Urquhart asks at the end for questions, not one brigadier or unit commander speaks; Sosabowski looks round to find most sitting nonchalantly, legs crossed, bored and waiting for the meeting to end. Questions crowd his own mind, but he senses that raising them would only delay matters and make him unpopular, to no purpose.

In fairness, the officers’ silence may owe something to Browning’s presence at the briefing, and to the weariness bred by the string of cancelled missions before Market. This is certainly Urquhart’s view, and it is shared by others, even the most reluctant, men who had already seen so much fighting at Dunkirk and in North Africa, were sick of the cancellations and keen to go. That many nonetheless harbour doubts is plain from later, lower-level briefings. Lathbury appears to warn Frost that the coming battle will be some bloodbath, a phrase Frost duly passes to his 2^nd Parachute Battalion officers. Having briefed the 4^th Parachute Brigade as a whole, Brigadier Hackett tells his battalion commanders and a few key officers, with grim foresight, to forget all that, for their hardest fighting and worst losses will come not in defending the northern sector of the Arnhem perimeter but in trying to reach it.

Operation Garden

Operation Garden, the ground component, is led by XXX Corps, under the command of Lieutenant General Brian Horrocks, is positioned near Leopoldsburg. The Corps is spearheaded by the Guards Armoured Division, with the 43^rd Wessex Infantry Division and the 50^th Northumbrian Infantry Division held in reserve. The British 8^th Armoured Brigade and the Dutch Prinses Irene Brigade are integral to the ongoing operation. As of September 16^th, 1944, the Guards Armoured Division commands a formidable tank force, consisting of 276 tanks. This includes 175 Shermans, with thirty-seven equipped as “Fireflys,” forty Stuarts, fifty-eight Cromwells, and three Challengers.

The operation requires the corps to break out from the bridgehead over the Maas-Scheldt Canal, advancing through Joe’s Bridge at Lommel. Their route follows the path cleared by airborne forces, moving through key locations including Eindhoven, Sint-Oedenrode, Veghel, Uden, Grave, Nijmegen, and finally Arnhem. The timeline for this advance is precise: by 17:00 on the first day, they are expected to reach Eindhoven, followed by Veghel at midnight. On the second day, the objective is to reach Grave by 12:00 and Nijmegen by 18:00. By 15:00 on the third day, they aim to arrive in Arnhem. So, the plan expects XXX Corps to reach the 101^st Airborne Division’s area by the end of the first day, the 82^nd Airborne Division’s area by the second day, and the 1^st Airborne Division’s area by the fourth day at the latest. Once achieved, the airborne divisions would join XXX Corps in breaking out from the Arnhem bridgehead.

Upon securing Arnhem, the corps must push forward towards the IJsselmeer, specifically targeting the area around Nunspeet. The strategic goal is to cut off German forces in the Western Netherlands. Following this, the 43^rd Infantry Division is tasked with establishing bridgeheads over the IJssel River at Doesburg, Zutphen, and Deventer, enabling a direct advance into the Ruhr area, a crucial objective within Germany.

XXX Corps faces six major water obstacles along the route from their jumping-off point to the objective on the north bank of the Lower Rhine River. These obstacles include the Wilhelmina Canal at Son en Breugel, the Zuid-Willems Canal at Veghel, the Maas River at Grave, the Maas-Waal Canal, the Waal River at Nijmegen, and finally, the Rhine at Arnhem. The plan hinges on the airborne forces capturing the bridges over these obstacles almost simultaneously. Any failure to secure these bridges would result in significant delays or potentially catastrophic defeat. Anticipating the possibility of the Germans demolishing the bridges, XXX Corps prepares extensive contingency plans. This includes amassing a vast quantity of bridging materials, 2,300 vehicles to transport them, and deploying 9,000 engineers ready to reconstruct the bridges if necessary.

Highway 69, later known as “Hell’s Highway,” serves as the critical route for the planned advance during Operation Market Garden. This road is a narrow two-lane highway, partially elevated above the flat polder and floodplain terrain surrounding it. The soft ground on either side makes it difficult, if not impossible, for tactical vehicles to maneuvre off the road. The landscape is dotted with dikes and drainage ditches, while dikes themselves are often lined with trees or large bushes, and the roads and paths are similarly bordered by trees. In early autumn, these natural features severely restrict visibility, posing significant challenges for the advancing forces.

Although the area is predominantly flat, with less than 9 metres of variation in elevation, Lieutenant-General Brian Horrocks, commander of XXX Corps, notes the challenges presented by the terrain. He describes the country as “wooded and rather marshy,” making any attempts at outflanking maneuvers virtually impossible. Two key high ground areas, both reaching heights of 90 metres, are strategically crucial. One is located northwest of Arnhem, and the other is the Groesbeek ridge in the 82^nd Airborne Division’s sector. Securing these elevated positions is essential for holding the highway bridges, which are vital to the success of the entire operation.

The operation assumes that German resistance has largely collapsed, with the German Fifteenth Army in retreat from Canadian forces and believed to have no significant armored units available. The Allied command expects XXX Corps to encounter limited resistance along Highway 69, with the German defenders spread thin over a 100-kilometres front as they attempt to contain the scattered airborne landings from the Second Army in the south to Arnhem in the north.

Final Preperations

With the briefback done, the division commanders are cleared to brief their own subordinates and set the final preparations for Market in motion, though in places the ball is already rolling. The 1^st Parachute Brigade holds an orders group at its headquarters at Syston on September 13^th, 1944, issuing an intelligence summary and Air Operation Order Number 1 the same day; its glider element is briefed by the intelligence officer at the airfields at Keevil and Tarrant Rushton on September 15^th, 1944. The pilots of the Glider Pilot Regiment appear to be briefed at the same time. The morning of Saturday, September 16th, 1944 goes on loading equipment, followed by more briefings, at which Miller learns he will also carry passengers. These include an unnamed colonel of the 1^st Airborne Division Signals, possibly Lieutenant-Colonel Tom Stephenson, a Major Oliver of the army’s public relations office with a photographer sergeant named Harvey, Stanley Maxted of the British Broadcasting Corporation and Alan Wood of the Daily Express. Miller’s feelings are mixed: excited at so interesting a load, yet uneasy that his passengers will be no help unloading the Horsa on the ground.

The men of the 1^st Parachute Battalion are given thirty-six hours’ leave from their billets at Grimsthorpe Castle and Bourne on September 14^th, 1944, followed by a battalion orders group at Lieutenant-Colonel David Dobie’s headquarters at 20:00 on Friday, September 15^th, 1944. Troop briefings come the next day, with the officers being unimpressed by the far-flung drop zone and volunteering en masse, without success, to jump on or beside the Arnhem road bridge. The 2^nd Parachute Battalion’s orders group at Stoke Rochford settles that Major Digby Tatham-Warter’s A Company will lead the advance from the landing area. Lieutenant Colonel Frost is packing the brass hunting horn he uses to rally his men into his combat kit and telling his batman to load his golf clubs and dinner jacket into the staff car for despatch to Holland with the battalion ground party. At Spalding a little to the south-east, Lieutenant-Colonel John Fitch’s 3^rd Parachute Battalion follows the same course after its spell with the farmers, if slightly later, Fitch holding his orders group on Friday, September 15^th, 1944, with troop briefings the day after.

As a rule the British units stay in their camps until D-Day, then move by road to the airfields, though there is at least one sanctioned exception. On the morning of Friday, September 15^th, 1944, the 2^nd Parachute Battalion is shuttled in sealed trucks under military police escort to a cinema in Grantham for a special screening of the 1941 comedy Hellzapoppin’, with the American comedians Chic Johnson and Ole Olsen; Private James Sims reckons it the funniest film he has ever seen. American practice, by contrast, is to move units from their sometimes-far-flung billets into quarters on the airfields and brief and prepare them there. Most of the accommodation is tented, though the 401^st Glider Infantry Regiment is housed in an aircraft hangar fitted with bunks at Aldermaston. Not every unit is billeted whole. The 3^rd Battalion of the 501^st Parachute Infantry Regiment flies from Chilbolton near Winchester, while the rest of the regiment flies from Aldermaston, some 32 kilometres to the north-east near Newbury. The units of the 82^nd and 101st Airborne Divisions are locked down by nightfall on Friday, September 15^th, 1944. Not all take kindly to it.

Much of Saturday, September 16^th, 1944 goes on troop briefings. The commander of the 508^th‘s 3^rd Battalion, Lieutenant-Colonel Louis G. Mendez, uses one to air his anger at the United States Army Air Forces’ performance in Normandy, where only eight of his battalion’s sticks came down on the right drop zone, the rest scattered up to 24 kilometres astray. To prevent a repeat, Mendez charges the aircrew before him that they had once given him the finest combat-ready force of its size, half of it lost by the time he gathered it in Normandy, and asks that this time they put the men down in Holland or in hell, but all together in one place.

Things run much the same some 160 kilometres to the south-west, where the 101st Airborne Division is settled on six airfields of the 53rd Troop Carrier Wing at Aldermaston, Chilbolton, Greenham Common, Membury, Ramsbury and Welford, lying west, south and east of Newbury in Berkshire. Sergeant George Kosimaki of the division headquarters notes in his diary being briefed on September 15th, 1944, and drawing ammunition and Dutch currency the next day at Greenham Common. At Ramsbury the barbed wire and armed guards give Corporal Hansford Vest of the 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment the same sense of imprisonment; since Ramsbury is given over wholly to glider serials, he is presumably part of the regiment’s glider-borne Jeep lift. If so, he travels with the regiment’s chaplain, Captain Raymond S. Hall, medically barred from jumping by Normandy wounds, much to his chagrin, and, like most paratroopers, convinced gliders are lethally unsafe. First Sergeant Daniel Zapalski of the 502nd’s 3rd Battalion at Greenham Common is likewise recovering from a Normandy leg wound, but fares better at outflanking authority. Barred from jumping by his battalion commander, Lieutenant-Colonel Robert G. Cole, Zapalski secures written proof of his fitness from the regimental surgeon. Cole calls him a fatheaded Polack, impractical, burdensome and unreasonable, but lets the medical verdict stand, and Zapalski jumps into Holland with his battalion. Like many of his comrades, Private Donald R. Burgett of the 1st Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, has grown jaded through sixteen false alarms and three dry runs. His mood lifts on being served a full fried chicken dinner with all the trimmings, and ice cream, soon after reaching a large tented camp at Chiseldon near Membury; he had drawn the same superior United States Army Air Forces rations just before Normandy. Private William J. Stone, of a forward observer team from Battery B, 321st Glider Field Artillery Battalion attached to the 3rd Battalion, 506th, makes the same link at Chilbolton on September 16th, 1944, over a steak dinner and fruit cocktail. Fruit cocktail is a rarity in the European theatre, he reflects, and its arrival with steak, which never reaches their menu, lends the air an ominous quality; the feeling only deepens as the C-47s land at the end of dinner, their pilots wanting a share of the steak and fruit cocktail. Burgett also notes that the briefing after the fried chicken is strikingly short beside those of May and June, a few maps only, with none of the detailed talk, aerial photographs or sand-table models used before the D-Day drop.

By the evening of Saturday, September 16^th, 1944 the briefings and preparations are largely done. At Ruskington near Sleaford, Major Gough of the 1^st Airborne Reconnaissance Squadron marks his forty-third birthday by visiting his parachute contingent in their billets. The squadron’s glider party, thirty-one armed Jeeps under the second-in-command, Captain David Allsop, waits with its gliders and Halifax tugs at Tarrant Rushton in Dorset. The mood there is quiet and a little sceptical, part of the squadron having been airborne when an earlier operation was cancelled. Some of the pathfinders of the 21^st Independent Parachute Company at nearby Newark are in better spirits; Corporal Alan Sharman is coated green by a smoke flare set off as a joke by one of his men, and spends much of the night scrubbing off the dye. A few slip the lockdown altogether: some of the 1^st Parachute Brigade’s signal section repair to the Plough Hotel in Syston village, and some of the 1^st Airlanding Anti-Tank Battery seem to visit a public house at Tarrant Rushton. Many share the reconnaissance squadron’s hunch that the operation will be cancelled at the last moment. They are wrong.

Brereton takes the decision to launch Market at 19:00 that evening, on the strength of a favourable long-range weather forecast. H-Hour, the moment the 1^st Allied Airborne Army is to begin landing on Dutch soil, is fixed at 13:00 on the afternoon of Sunday, September 17^th, 1944. The rank and file do not know it, but their superiors do, for Brereton makes his decision known at a final high-level meeting called by Browning in the early evening of September 16^th, 1944.

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