| Omar Bradley: "Had the pious teetotaling Montgomery wobbled into SHAEF with a hangover, I could not have been more astonished than I was by the daring adventure he proposed. For in contrast to the conservative tactics Montgomery ordinarily chose, the Arnhem attack was to be made over a 60-mile carpet of airborne troops. Although I never reconciled myself to this venture, I nevertheless freely concede that Monty's plan for Arnhem was one of the most imaginative of the war".
In my view it failed because:
1. Troops weren't landed on either side of the bridge. Failure fully to realise the role of airborne troops? Lee-Mallory said it would be too highly defended. Yet the Poles were scheduled to be landed there.
2. In the anxiety to get airborne forces into action little account was taken of intelligence sources. Arrogance? Dutch officers for instance tried in vain to point out that before the war they had tried to advance up the road on an exercise and that it had failed - for precisely the reasons that were experienced in 1944. The road had to be used because tanks couldn't get off it.
3. Lack of a sense of urgency.
4. Weather
5. Equipment failure, particularly radio. People in the UK simply didn't know what the true position was.
But the Press - particularly Stanley Maxted of the BBC - were able to get their reports through. What I've never understood is why - with the radios out - some effort wasn't made to utilise these facilities? Maybe they didn't know that Maxted was able to get through?
I've also never understood Monty's claim that Market Garden was 90 per cent successful. The whole aim was to take the bridge - and that was 100 per cent unsuccessful.
Bradley's right - it was a gamble. Had it paid off the war might have been shortened. But the war might also have been shortened had we shown some urgency in taking the banks of the Scheldt. After all, taking and using the deep sea port at Antwerp had been identified very early on as a priority, but it wasn't working until November. Even Monty acknowledged later that he'd made a mistake. As things turned out, opting for Market Garden rather than Antwerp possibly lengthened the war.
John |