Operation MARKET GARDEN

Operation MARKET GARDEN began on 17 September 1944 but, despite the dogged heroism of the British, Polish and US Airborne soldiers, it did not go according to plan.

The Allies achieved major successes against the Germans in the weeks following Allied landings in Normandy on D-Day, 6 June 1944.   In some places, the fighting was bitter and hard; in others, the German forces pulled out and spared further suffering.   On 15 August 1944, Allied troops landed in southern France as part of Operation DRAGOON.   By 25 August 1944, when Paris fell to the Allies, large parts of France had been liberated.

There was a general feeling of elation among the Allies about the campaign in western Europe.   On 1 September 1944, General Eisenhower assumed direct command of the Allied armies in western Europe, and he was very optimistic about an early end to the war.

There is no doubt whatsoever, in my mind, that we should concentrate all our energies and resources on a rapid thrust to Berlin. 
General Dwight D Eisenhower, Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Force, 15 September 1944 1

On the left flank of the Allies as they pushed forward was Field Marshal Montgomery’s 21st Army Group, advancing parallel to the Channel coast.   Montgomery had recently been promoted to Field Marshal – at the time, the most senior British Army rank – and he was brimming with self-confidence.   His spearhead units were now rushing through Belgium, the Guards Armoured Division liberating Brussels on 4 September 1944 and the 11th Armoured Division capturing intact the docks at Antwerp on 5 September.   To his right, Lieutenant General Hodges had led the US First Army across the River Seine and to the edges of the Ardennes.   To his south was the US Third Army under Lieutenant General Patton, at the edge of Metz, gateway to the province of Lorraine.   From southern France, along the Rhône Valley, General Devers’ Sixth US Army Group was advancing northwards.   By mid-September 1944, Devers had linked up with Patton, thus creating an unbroken Allied line from the Channel to the Swiss frontier. It all looked very rosy.

• 1

  Quoted in Bernard Law Montgomery, The Memoirs of Field Marshal Montgomery, Kindle Edition (Barnsley, 2005), location 5206.

Montgomery’s plan was designed to capture ground along the Dutch/German border, which would then be used by Montgomery’s forces as a springboard for their advance into Germany.   The plan consisted of coordinated Airborne and ground assaults, and was given the overall name Operation MARKET GARDEN; its launch date was set for 17 September 1944.

The Airborne assault was called Operation MARKET and would involve surprise attacks by British, American and Polish Airborne troops of the First Allied Airborne Army, which was being held in reserve in England.   It included the US 82nd Airborne Division, US 101st Airborne Division and British 1st Airborne Division, which had the 1st Polish Independent Parachute Brigade attached to it.   They were to seize and hold several vital river and canal crossings along a 100km (60 mile) corridor stretching northwards from the British front line in Belgium to the Dutch town of Arnhem.   The captured crossings would then be used by Allied ground forces to advance northwards through the ‘Airborne corridor’ to Arnhem within 48 hours.   
  
The assault by ground forces in support of the Airborne landings was called Operation GARDEN.   It would involve three Corps of the British Second Army, with XXX Corps in the centre, advancing northwards through the ‘Airborne corridor’, reaching Arnhem four days later at the latest.  It comprised one armoured and two infantry Divisions, one armoured brigade and the Royal Netherlands Brigade.

British 1st Airborne Division

The British 1st Airborne Division was commanded by Major General Robert ‘Roy’ Urquhart.  Its primary combat formations were the 1st Parachute Brigade, 4th Parachute Brigade, 1st Airlanding Brigade and, for this operation, the 1st Polish Independent Parachute Brigade.  The Division was tasked with capturing three bridges over the Nederrijn (Lower Rhine) river at Arnhem: the road bridge, the railway bridge and a pontoon bridge constructed close to the road bridge. 

US 101st Airborne Division

Major General Maxwell Taylor commanded the 101st Airborne Division.  Its combat formations were the 501st, 502nd and 506th PIRs and the 327th GIR.   The Division was tasked with securing the southernmost section of the road along which Operation GARDEN would move, channelled by the landscape into using the road from the Belgian border to Nijmegen, then nicknamed 'Hell's Highway' but nowadays known as the N69 and N265.

The first troops to land were members of the 21st Independent Parachute Company, the Pathfinders, who dropped at 12.40pm to mark out the DZs and LZs for the main body, which began to arrive at 1.15pm.  This first lift brought the 1st Parachute Brigade, 1st Airborne Reconnaissance Squadron, the Divisional Staff and most of the 1st Airlanding Brigade.  The landings were virtually unopposed and losses on route had been minimal.  The troops organized themselves remarkably quickly and the Reconnaissance Squadron was ordered to make a dash in its jeeps for the road bridge by way of a track just north of the railway line.  However, the Squadron was stopped in its tracks east of Wolfheze by an SS training battalion under Sturmbannführer (Major) Sepp Krafft.

Meanwhile, as troops of the 3rd Parachute Battalion were making their way along the Utrechtseweg towards Arnhem, the staff car of the German Town Commandant, General Kussin, came into view.  Despite being warned about the landings, the General had still taken a dangerous route; there was a short burst of fire and both he and his driver were killed.  As the Battalion approached the Bilderberg Hotel, they were pinned down by Krafft's troops and remained so until nightfall, when they moved up to the Hartenstein Hotel.

By this stage, the Division and Brigade commanders had discovered that they were unable to communicate by radio and had therefore taken to racing around the battlefield in jeeps, trying desperately to keep abreast of events and remain in control.  

The 1st Parachute Battalion had started along the Amsterdamseweg towards the northern approaches to Arnhem, which it was meant to secure, and soon ran into elements of the 9th SS Panzer Division.   When the 1st Battalion heard on a radio, which was briefly working, that the 2nd Parachute Battalion had reached the bridge, it decided instead to go direct to the bridge to assist the 2nd Battalion.

It was now dusk and we were told to go hell for leather for the main bridge, so we raced along the last stretch with shots coming in from everywhere. We turned left up a long avenue and suddenly we were at the main bridge. After a short pause, Colonel Frost said we go over to the other side, and we climbed a steep grassy slope on the road approach and made our way slowly across.  When we were about a third of the way and just going under the steel span, shell fire came at us from the German side of the bridge. 4
Private Jack Beeston, Anti-Tank Platoon, Support Company, 2nd Battalion, 1st Parachute Brigade

• 4

  Quoted in Grant R Newell, Airborne to Arnhem, Volume 1 (Warwick, 2023), 223.

US 82nd Airborne Division

About five minutes out, we started running into flak.  Since our altitude was only five hundred feet and we were slowing to one hundred miles per hour, preparing for the jump, we were pretty easy targets.  As jumpmaster, I could see every burst, I could hear the fragments as they zinged through the skin of the plane, and I sure wanted that green light to come on telling me it was time to jump. 5
Lieutenant William R Hays, Company F, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division

The 504th and 505th Parachute Infantry Regiments (PIR) assaulted and captured the bridges at Grave and the Maas-Waal Canal bridge at Heumen.  The 508th PIR had been dropped near Groesbeek with the tasks of not only defending against any German counterattack along the northern edge of the Groesbeek Heights, but also moving west to help attack the objectives of the 504th and 505th PIRs.   It had a further task of assaulting the Nijmegen bridge if the chance arose, but possible command misunderstandings delayed a move towards the bridge.   An advance was made as night fell but elements of the 9th SS Panzer Division had already arrived from the north and successfully held off the Americans from the bridge.

• 5

  Quoted in Phil Nordyke, All American, All the Way: The Combat History of the 82nd Airborne Division in World War II (St. Paul, Mn, 2005), 434-435.

18 September 1944

British 1st Airborne Division

At daybreak, there were some 740 British troops around the northern end of the Arnhem road bridge, where wrecked German vehicles from the night’s fighting littered the northern ramp.   At around 9.30am, the Reconnaissance Battalion of the 9th SS Panzer Division attempted to force a passage across the bridge from the southern end.  The Battalion had been despatched from Arnhem on the previous day to scout towards Nijmegen to assess the strength of the enemy.   Despite vigorous efforts by the Germans, they were unable to beat a way through and they left a mass of burning vehicles and dead bodies on the northern ramp.

A little further on, near a road junction, we came under attack from infantry positioned on open ground to our left and a fierce fight took place. I ran into machine gun fire and was knocked over backwards.  It felt as though I had been hit over the head but in actual fact a bullet had gone straight through my helmet.  It wasn’t until I tried to stand up that I realised that I had been shot through the knee.  A bullet had also passed through my pack containing phosphorous bombs. 
Private Bill Collard, 5 Platoon, B Company, 3rd Parachute Battalion, 1st Parachute Brigade 7

Early in the morning, the 3rd Parachute Battalion attempted to push through to the road bridge from the Hartenstein Hotel, via the riverside road, Onderlangs.  Its mortars, artillery and machine-guns had become separated from the main body of the Battalion so that, by the time it had reached the Pavilion on the riverbank (immediately behind the modern Rijnhotel), vital support was missing.  The Battalion was pinned down by a German self-propelled gun and by German artillery firing from the brickworks on the other side of the river.  At 4pm, the Battalion decided to move north into the area around St Elisabeth's Hospital.  Urquhart, Brigadier Lathbury (commanding 1st Parachute Brigade) and two junior officers were trying to liaise with the 3rd Parachute Battalion at this time, but they became separated from it.  Lathbury was wounded by German machine-gun firing south down Hendrickstraat and was dragged into 135 Alexanderstraat for first aid (he was later taken the short distance to the Hospital, where he was taken captive).  Urquhart and his companions escaped into the house at 14 Zwaarteweg, where they were trapped in the attic overnight by a German self-propelled gun standing outside the front door!  This meant that the Division commander and one of his Brigade commanders were unable to command their troops at a crucial point in the battle.

The 1st Parachute Battalion also attempted to join the 2nd Parachute Battalion at the bridge, but it came across heavy opposition while passing under the railway bridge on the lower road.  It managed to push on to the area around St Elizabeth’s Hospital but no further.  

Brigadier Hicks, commander of the 1st Airlanding Brigade, had assumed command of the whole Division in the absence of Urquhart and he decided to send immediately the 2nd South Staffordshire Battalion from his Brigade to help reinforce the bridge, and to send the 11th Parachute Battalion of the 4th Parachute Brigade as soon as it arrived in the second lift later that day.

I didn't know that we had been hit at first. We were all checking each other's kit, getting ready to jump; the crew chief should have been helping but he seemed to be asleep. I was angry and shouted at him and was going to kick him, but then I saw the pool of blood under his seat and realized he was dead. 8
Captain Frank King, 11th Parachute Battalion, 4th Parachute Brigade, 1st Airborne Division

• 7

  Quoted in Grant R Newell, Airborne to Arnhem, Volume 1 (Warwick, 2023), 127.

• 8

  Quoted in Martin Middlebrook, Arnhem 1944 (London, 1994), 229.

US 82nd Airborne Division

General Gavin received warning from the Dutch Resistance that the Germans were planning to counterattack the LZs just before the glider lift landed, and so he recalled the 508th PIR from Nijmegen to protect them.  Mook was taken by the 505th PIR but the Honinghutje Bridge over the Maas-Waal Canal, which would have provided an alternative route into Nijmegen, was blown up while the 504th and 508th PIRs were assaulting it.

19 SEPTEMBER 1944

British 1st Airborne Division

The final element of the Division - the 1st Polish Independent Parachute Brigade - had been scheduled to drop the south of the bridge on 19 September, and help in its capture, if necessary, before crossing and moving to hold ground to the north-east of the town.  However, the anti-tank support for the Brigade, largely 6-pounder guns, was to be landed on LZ 'L' to the north-west of Arnhem, some considerable distance from the Polish parachute drop.  Now that the enemy held the southern part of the bridge and could not be taken by surprise, Urquhart realized that the parachute drop would probably be carnage.  He therefore requested that the DZ be re-located, suggesting a site near the village of Driel on the southern side of the river, nearly opposite Oosterbeek.  The suggestion was accepted.  

Unfortunately, the weather intervened to prevent events going according to plan.  Fog around the airfields where the Poles were waiting to take off was so bad that the parachute drop was postponed for 24 hours, and the already-emplaned Poles had to disembark from their aircraft.  As the weather was  better in the south of England, the Polish glider fleet was launched from the airfields of Down Ampney and Tarrant Rushton.  At around 4pm, the gliders landed into heavy anti-aircraft fire but the troops moved swiftly south into Oosterbeek after unloading.

Urquhart had managed to escape back to his own forces earlier in the day.  He discovered that, in his absence, Brigadier Hicks had ordered the 1st and 3rd Parachute Battalions to advance along the riverside road towards the bridge, while the 2nd South Staffordshire Battalion would advance along the upper road past the Hospital with the 11th Parachute Battalion behind them.  The advances started at 4am but within hours they had stalled against a ferocious opposition.  It was clear that it was impossible to reinforce the bridge, and the surviving British troops fell back to Oosterbeek.  The Germans were slowly but relentlessly forcing the British back into a small thumb-shaped perimeter in Oosterbeek.

US 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions and XXX Corps

Dawn saw the Household Cavalry crossing the new Bailey bridge at Son but the German 59th Infantry Division at Best still threatened their advance.  The 506th PIR and the 327th GIR of the 101st Airborne Division, supported by British tanks, carried out a successful attack on the enemy.  The 101st Airborne also had to deal with a late afternoon attack from a German armoured brigade but, as the third lift of the Division had arrived with its artillery, the attack was repulsed.

The Guards Armoured Division reached Grave by mid-morning but had to detour via Heumen, so that it was afternoon before they could join the 505th PIR of the 82nd Airborne Division in an attack on the bridges at Nijmegen.  The German defences, aided by a medieval fortification close to the bridge, were simply too strong and the attack failed.  General Gavin suggested transporting his airborne troops across the River Waal in assault boats and attacking the bridge from the northern end.  Although the idea was accepted, the canvas assault boats were at the rear of the massive XXX Corps column and so it would take until the following morning to get them to the front — this would mean a murderous daylight attack.

According to the original plan, XXX Corps should have been in Arnhem on Tuesday 19 September; instead, they were desperately trying to arrange an assault by airborne troops across a river in broad daylight on the following day.  

Operation MARKET GARDEN was now disastrously behind schedule.

During the day, the main German effort was made by 9th SS Panzer Division, attacking along the riverside.  Holding actions were fought near the church on Benedendorpsweg, where gaggles of retreating troops from the differing units were taken under the control of Lieutenant Colonel Thompson, Royal Artillery, commanding the 75mm howitzers.

21 September 1944

British 1st Airborne Division

The Germans were able to concentrate all their efforts against the Oosterbeek enclave after the end of resistance at the bridge.  On the western side, the troops belonging to the Kampfgruppe von Tettau were of variable quality, but they did include a battalion of the Luftwaffe Hermann Goering NCO School, equipped with pre-war tanks.  This battalion attacked the heights at Westerbouwing, defended by B Company of the 1st Battalion, Border Regiment, and eventually captured them, though they lost all their tanks in the process.  Unfortunately, the loss of the heights meant that the Germans had an ideal position from which to pour fire into the enclave.

22 SEPTEMBER 1944

British 1st Airborne Division

The presence of the Poles relieved some pressure on the perimeter as the Germans diverted units to attack them.  However, as the Germans had no shortage of ammunition, they still managed to lay down heavy artillery and mortar fire into the Oosterbeek enclave, inflicting severe casualties on Urquhart's men.  On the south side of the river, the marshy terrain protected the Poles, who were able to inflict close-quarter kills on German tanks on exposed roads just like those faced by XXX Corps further south.  First physical contact with XXX Corps came when a handful of vehicles slipped around the German western flank to meet up with the Polish paratroopers.

During the night, an attempt was made to ferry some of the Poles across the river in rubber boats, but it failed as the current was too strong end only 52 Poles were successfully transferred to Oosterbeek before the operation was stopped.

XXX Corps

The Household Cavalry had moved west and north from Nijmegen in the morning, but their supporting infantry had come under heavy fire as they neared Oosterhout.  Heavy artillery and tank support was needed to suppress the opposition, but the fighting delayed the advance until 4.30pm.  Once the road was opened again, it took only 30 minutes for advance elements to reach the Poles at Driel.  However, there was still no way to cross the river safely, and the troops in Oosterbeek remained out of reach.

23 September 1944

British 1st Airborne Division

Throughout the battle, RAF transport aircraft had made valiant efforts to drop supplies to the besieged troops, losing many aircraft in the process.  The last resupply flights were made on 23 September and achieved no better results than on previous days.  Sadly, only 7% of the supplies dropped fell into British hands during the entire battle.

During the night a further attempt was made to ferry Polish troops across the river.  Heavy fire and the late arrival of the small boats combined to make the effort a  failure, with only 153 Polish paratroops crossing before the operation was cancelled.

24 September 1944

British 1st Airborne Division and XXX Corps

In the centre of the eastern side of the enclave was a gap in the defended line at a crossroads on the Utrechtseweg.  Here the Schoonoord and Vreewijk Hotels were being used by British medics as Main Dressing Stations (MDS).  By 24 September, the situation in these MDS was critical and the Senior Medical Officer, Colonel Warrack, obtained Urquhart's permission to seek a truce to have the wounded evacuated.  Warrack, together with the Division's Dutch liaison officer, had a personal meeting with SS General Wilhelm Bittrich, commander of the II SS Panzer Corps.  Bittrich agreed to the truce and some 450 wounded were transported into German care - and captivity.

The commander of XXX Corps, Lieutenant General Horrocks, was considering the withdrawal of the 1st Airborne Division south across the Neder Rijn river.  He held a meeting with Major General Stanislaw Sosabowski, commander of the 1st Polish Independent Parachute Brigade, and Major General Ivor Thomas, commander of the 43rd Division.  He decided the 1st Airborne Division needed reinforcing so it could hold the perimeter long enough for its troops to be withdrawn successfully across the river.  Horrocks decided two battalions of infantry needed to be sent across the river into the perimeter that night.  These would be the 4th Battalion, Dorset Regiment, and the 1st Polish Parachute Battalion, and both would cross beneath the Westerbouwing heights.  Sosabowski was furious with the decision, believing that any attempt would be suicidal; his protests were over-ruled, and the crossing was set for 10pm.  However, the assault boats arrived later than planned and were too few in number to carry the planned numbers of troops.

General Thomas started giving his more detailed orders and, turning to me, said: ‘Your 1st Battalion will go with the Dorsets.’ 
‘Excuse me, General,’ I retorted, ‘but one of my Battalions selected by me will go there.’ Thomas flushed red and, if it had not been for some soothing words from Horrocks, there might have been a real row. Thomas was most displeased and he very soon showed that he was not going to forget it.  15
Major General Stanislaw Sosabowski, commander of the 1st Polish Independent Parachute Brigade

• 15

  Quoted in George Koskimaki, Hell’s Highway (Havertown, 2003), 279.

Although the British Airborne troops in Arnhem had held on at great cost far longer than the maximum four days planned, Operation MARKET GARDEN failed to achieve its overall aim of capturing ground along the Dutch/German border for use by Montgomery’s forces as a springboard for an advance into Germany.

The Dutch jubilation in Arnhem at the Allied landings was short-lived and the war continued for them after the fighting had ended.  On 23 September 1944, the German military gave the order for civilians to evacuate Arnhem; two days later, approximately 100,000 people left the city. 19   Civilians in surrounding villages were also forced to evacuate.  Many houses in the area were looted and the spoils were taken to Germany.

In retaliation, the Dutch government in Britain called for a railway strike throughout the Netherlands.  The strike followed and the  Germans responded by banning all inland freight movement.  This had very severe repercussions for those who lived in the west of the Netherlands because food production was concentrated in the north and east of the country and could not now be transported to the west.  Many Dutch civilians had to survive on a diet of potatoes, sugar-beet and tulip bulbs.  As the winter progressed, the daily ration was reduced from 800 calories a day to 400, and then to 230. 20   Many did not survive the so-called ‘Hunger Winter’: an estimated 16,000-20,000 people died of starvation, but many more died from disease caused by severe malnutrition. 21

Although the Dutch had much to forgive in the wake of Operation Market Garden, their instinctive generosity to Allied troops at the time and ever since towards the veterans has been one of the most moving legacies of the Second World War. 22
Antony Beevor, historian and author

• 19

  Elio, ‘Dagboek van de Arnhemse Evacuatie in 1944 - Gelders Archief’, Geldersarchief.nl (2019) <https://www.geldersarchief.nl/over-ons/actueel/weblog/428-dagboek-van-de-arnhemse-evacuatie-in-1944> [accessed 3 January 2025].

• 20

  Beevor, Antony, Arnhem - the Battle for the Bridges, 1944 (London, 2019), 373, Kindle Edition.

• 21

  Ibid, 379.

• 22

  Ibid, 379.