Comments by "Nicholas Conder" (@nicholasconder4703) on "Gavin wasn't to blame? 'New' evidence on Operation Market Garden's failure?" video.

  1. I think it is possible that all the statements could be correct, and we are seeing the issue in small chunks, like puzzle pieces. The statements are not as contradictory as they might first appear, especially given the fog of war and rushed nature of the planning and execution of Market-Garden. Having read Gavin's book, he strikes me as being an extremely honest biographer. What might have happened is the following. Gavin and Browning discussed the issue and agree the heights are important, and so Browning directed Gavin to make the heights a priority target. Following these orders, Gavin sends a large portion of his forces to the heights. However, prior to leaving England he orally orders Lindquist to send one battalion to secure the bridge immediately after landing. However, this order is given at the last minute, in the midst of their rush to load the troops and equipment, possibly on the runway with aircraft warming up. Gavin tells Lindquist to send a battalion to seize the bridge, but Lindquist does not hear Gavin's order over the din or the confusion of preparing for the drop (or, being human and overloaded with tasks or suffering from target fixation, forgets). As a result, all parties are right in their statements, and in effect all are to blame. And the vital task was not accomplished. That said, it is possible that the SS troops could have overrun a single US battalion holding a bridgehead on the north end of Nijmegen bridge, or destroyed the bridge with artillery fire if that failed. Either way, I don't think there were sufficient airborne troops at Nijmegen to have pushed the Germans out of artillery range of the bridge and kept it intact for later use. Basically, the Germans reacted faster and with greater skill than the Allies could muster.
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