Market Garden

[Dpalme01]

Can I get your feed back on operation MARKET GARDEN? Was it worth the risk? What went wrong?

[DirtyDick]

I think one could ask, what went right?

Landing 35,000 men in waves, by air, quite far behind enemy lines and ultimately dependent upon the success of ground troops to battle towards them, is always risky.

Add to that faulty communications equipment, hubris amongst the planners for dismissing concerns about the level of opposition they could meet, the loss of necessary equipment such as jeeps, and the inability to be landed at opportune sites, are the basic ingredients for its failings.

Had it been better prepared, it had all the possibilities of shortening the war in the West, that is why it was so seductive to the planners.

Richard

[JoeRoman]

If the 9th and 10th SS Panzers Divisions hadn't of been there, I think that it would be considered one of the most brilliant plans of WW2 and would have shortened the war by many months and thousands of lives. And all this from Monty. "After all it was 90% successful".

Joe

[angie999]

In his book Arnhem (Penguin Book edition, 1995), Martin Middlebrook gave 10 reasons in chronological order:

1. Over-optimism about German powers of recovery after the defeat in Normandy.

2. Failure to warn 1st Airborne about Panzer divisions, thus denying them the opportunity to include more AT weapons in their loads.

3. Decision of Lt. Gen. Browning to take a corps HQ to Holland, thus reducing the gliders available to 1st Airborne in 1st lift by 38.

4. Failure of 1st Airborne's air plan, in particular limiting them to one lift on the first day and also failure to land at least a coup de main force close to the Arnhem bridge and covering both ends. (In my opinion, not making two drops on the first day, which was possible, also reduced the Air Landing Brigade - or that part of it which had landed - to the passive role of protecting drop and landing zones for too long and prevented the brigades from linking up to fight as a division)

5. Failure of 1st Airborne commanders to sufficiently impress 1st Parachute Brigade with the urgency of pressing on to the Arnhem bridge on the first day.

6. Failure to employ available help from Dutch civilians.

7. Failure to use 2 TAF in the "cab rank" ground support role.

8. Browning's failure to give US 82nd Airborne greater priority in capturing Nijmegen bridge. (Middlebrook rates this as second in importance after the air plan)

9. Lack of push in 2nd Army and XXX Corps. (And I would single out in particular 2nd (Armoured) Battalion Grenadier Guards after Nijmegen, who did not seem to be prepared to accept losses to break through what was a very thin front)

10. Failure of Urquart to appreciate the importance of the Westerbouwing height and the Rhine ferry below and the failure to accept the advice of Sosabowski that there was a better crossing downstream of where it was attempted by 4th Dorsets.

I think I generally accept all of these.

In my view, the operation was 90% successful, which is usually pretty good in war. The trouble is that this was one operation which needed to be 100% successful.

Of course there was some "bad luck" like the narrow failure of US 101st Airborne to take the Son bridge before it was blown and the same with 2nd Battalion the Parachute Regiment at the Arnhem railway bridge, but these were secondary reasons in my opinion.

[JoeRoman]

It does all come down to the Germans having very good troops in the correct spot. If the Germans had not been there, then the rest of Mr Middlebrooks's reasons would have been moot.

Is the original question about reality or theory?

Joe

[morse1001]

. Failure to use 2 TAF in the "cab rank" ground support role.

That was down to ineffectual or non-existant ground - air comms.

[angie999]

Originally posted by morse1001@Sep 29 2004, 10:41 PM

That was down to ineffectual or non-existant ground - air comms.

Quoted post

It is not the case that it was planned for and did not work. It was not in the plan and simply not available. They were able to communicate for this purpose in 21st Army Group, so there is no reason to suppose that it could not have been tried. The fact is that the air chiefs did not want to risk 2 TAF aircraft in the operation and it was too far for UK based close air support.

[angie999]

Originally posted by JoeRoman@Sep 29 2004, 08:21 PM
It does all come down to the Germans having very good troops in the correct spot.X If the Germans had not been there, then the rest of Mr Middlebrooks's reasons would have been moot.

Is the original question about reality or theory?

Joe

Quoted post

Some of them were, but even the divisions of II SS Panzer Korps were in the early stages of reforming after Normandy, with many new recruits coming in to fill the ranks who had never been in action. The two divisions were also extremely short of tanks, although there were some heavy tank units at corps level with quite a number of Panzer VIs.

Also, the bulk of the German divisions facing XXX Corps and the American divisions were very low in strength, many with divisional infantry strength of below 2,000 and regimental strength of 600, often less (and the rifle strength would be even lower).

The Germans were recovering fast after the Normandy debacle, but were still scratching together units.

If 1st Airborne had been able to concentrate in at least brigade strength in Arnhem town and south of the bridge, with more 17 pr AT guns than were available to the division, on 17 September and then rely on close air support, in my view they could have held out, particularly if the lead units of XXX Corps had been mor ewilling to take risks.

Of course, this is just my opinion and we will never know.

See OOBs at:
http://www.arnhemarchive.org/order.htm

[Dpalme01]

Originally posted by JoeRoman@Sep 29 2004, 09:21 PM
It does all come down to the Germans having very good troops in the correct spot. If the Germans had not been there, then the rest of Mr Middlebrooks's reasons would have been moot.

Is the original question about reality or theory?

Joe

Quoted post

Reality- I tottally agree with Ike in theory- I personally think that alot of it was the falt of the troops- especially stopping to have tea and sociallize with the Dutch.
They should have just pressed foreward and secured all the bridges before the Germans had time to recover from the shock. But also the reasons that Angie999 gave (by the way thanks for those) mostly applied to the troops.

[plant-pilot]

Although there were several full formations in and around the Arnhem area, a major contributing factor in the speed with which the Germans were able to react is the standardization in German training and their ability to quickly draw together ad hock units that could work well together and follow the orders of the senior rank around.

It was not uncommon around Arnhem to find mixed units of SS, Wehrmacht, Kriegs Marine and Luftwaffe, all fighting together as a single unit and fighting well. Common weapons, tactics anc doctorine all helped, as did the fact that they were fighting on the doorstep of the fatherland.

I feel that if everything else hadn't gone wrong the battle for the bridge, as planned, would not have been a walkover. It would have needed everthing to have been dropped much closer to the objective and all in one lift for them to have had a chance to have taken and held the bridge long enough for XXX Corps to have made it.

Blaming it on XXX Corps tanks for stopping to make tea is a little cruel. The infantry had to clear the towns, hindered by the jubilant Dutch, while the tanks had to wait for their infantry support to catch up. Tanks advancing without support is not clever. Nothing wrong with making a brew while you are waiting as any squaddie knows.