Comments by "Dave M A C" (@davemac1197) on "Eisenhower’s Broad Front vs Monty’s Narrow Front in 1944" video.

@Truthaholokz - XXX Corps were still on schedule when they reached Nijmegen and found that the Waal bridges were still in German hands and not the 82nd Airborne's. The 36-hour delay to force a crossing of the Waal sealed the fate of 1st Airborne Division at Arnhem, who had done their job and were expecting to be relieved. What was foolish was entrusting an unreliable officer to taking a critical objective. Gavin's judgement to assign this mission to Colonel Lindquist's 508th PIR, he had not performed well in Normandy and Ridgway did not trust him. The airborne plan was already compromised by Brereton and Williams, but Gavin failed to provide for a replacement coup de main operation on the Nijmegen bridge after Brereton had deleted Browning's glider assault planned for Operation COMET. Instead, he instructed Lindquist to send his 1st Battalion immediately to the bridge and he failed to do so. That allowed 10.SS-Panzer-Division to reinforce the bridges and the city overnight and force a delay on XXX Corp's advance to Arnhem.
10
@Truthaholokz - the plan was still working except where it wasn't even being followed at Nijmegen - that was the fatal compromise. Complex operations are broken down into simple parts and not following a simple instruction undid the plan at Nijmegen on the first afternoon. I don't see anything too complex about the 508th's mission, the commander was just not a good field commander and that had been demonstrated earlier in Normandy - most notably the attack on Hill 95 (Sainte Catherine near La Haye) on 4 July 1944, over open ground instead of a recommended covered approach, resulting in unnecessary casualties. Source: Put Us Down In Hell - A Combat History of the 508th PIR in WW2, Phil Nordyke (2012), chapters 8 - 10.
9
The broad front strategy took another six months, whereas montgomery's single thrust to Berlin strategy aimed to end the German war more quickly.
8
*G-4 for supply and logistics. Eisenhower's broad front strategy was a political one and ran counter to military doctrine of concentration of forces at a point where the enemy is weak, which is what Montgomery was arguing.
6
@Truthaholokz - G-3 (and S-3 in units below Division) was the Operations staff section, so I think that may be right, G-1 was Admin and Personnel. When I did a search on G-5 I kept getting hits on a United Nations staff position, which is obviously post-war and not what I was looking for. I could only find a wartime position called G-5 in SHAEF as the Civil Affairs Division, which I had never heard of before in the US structures. In the British Army, "Civil Affairs" was a wartime staff position, but British positions are enumerated by rank rather than department, so at Divisional General Staff Officer level you would have a Lieutenant Colonel as GSO 1 Operations, GSO 1 Intelligence, etc., and their deputies would be a GSO 2 - Major, and the third officer a GSO 3 - Captain. I also have a long-time interest in UFOs and learned through the Admiral Thomas Wilson leak/memo case that the Joint Chiefs of Staff have 'J' staff positions, as he was Assistant to the J-2 Intelligence Officer and Deputy Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency at the time in 1997 under the Clinton admin. His boss in both positions was J-2 and Director DIA, and Wilson himself was promoted to those positions after being threatened with early retirement and loss of one or two stars and pension rights if he exposed a UFO reverse engineering program. He duly retired in 2002 after getting the promotion and serving in those positions, and then leaked the story of his investigation into the program to a UFO investigator.
6
Well done, and thank you for doing this video. I think you covered all the major issues and certainly did a great job of picking up on points that a lot of (professional?) authors miss. I find the same problems of fighting the conventional narrative or orthodoxy whenever the Montgomery haters (it's almost like a religion) vent their spleen over Market Garden. (By the way, it was Lindquist. Gavin was just his boss, and was very angry when he found out his divisional plan was not followed at Nijmegen against zero opposition and knew this had probably compromised the entire operation - Ref: Phil Nordyke - Put Us Down In Hell, 2012). A good reference on the German 15.Armee during this period is Jack Didden and Maarten Swarts' new book - The Army That Got Away - The 15.Armee in the Summer of 1944 (2022). It's effectively a prequel to their first book, Autumn Gale (Herbststurm) - Kampfgruppe Chill, schwere Heeres Panzer-Jäger-Abteilung 559 and the German recovery in the Autumn of 1944 (2013). These books are heavy, expensive, limited print runs, and based on detailed research of primary sources, aimed at people seriously interested in these topics instead of the pulp mass-market Montgomery-hating orthodoxy.
6
The Scheldt and the German 15.Armee did occupy much of 21st Army Group's time and effort, but this is a period that hasn't been written about very much. I'm currently reading a book that attempts to fill in the gap and that is The Army That Got Away - The 15.Armee in the Summer of 1944, by Jack Didden and Maarten Swarts (2022). It's a prequel to their first book, Autumn Gale (Herbststurm) - Kampfgruppe Chill, schwere Heeres Panzer-Jäger-Abteilung 559, and the German recovery in the Autumn of 1944 (2013). These are specialist limited print run books and based on a huge amount of detailed scholarship by the authors. You're right about the prejudice in the American Army, and it seems to have infected most historians as well. I have very little faith in the mass market authors who just seem to recycle the same old mythology just to make a quick buck from their books.
6
Montgomery and Eisenhower were agreed on the need to prioritise a Rhine crossing before opening up Antwerp, because Antwerp's port capacity was only needed to supply Eisenhower's broad front advance into Germany, not for an advance to the Rhine. Eisenhower stated after the war - “I not only approved Market-Garden, I insisted upon it. We needed a bridgehead over the Rhine. If that could be accomplished I was quite willing to wait on all other operations.” The Ijssel bridges were indeed targets for Operation GARDEN, but because they were not required to be crossed for operations into Germany until later, they were not needed for the airborne Opertion MARKET. It was intended for 43rd (Wessex) Infantry Division to seize a brigade bridgehead each at Deventer and Zutphen, while 50th (Northumbrian) Infantry Division did the same at Doesburg and Westervoort. The infantry divisions each had one battalion in two of their brigades fully mobilised in amphibious DUKW trucks for river crossings, and there was an engineering plan with a dedicated bridging column to replace the bridges for further operations if they were blown by the Germans.
5
@Truthaholokz - the G-5 Staff Division at SHAEF was the Civil Affairs Division, which was concerned with civilian government in liberated territories.
5
Lots of reaction channels on YouTube reacting to "1st Time You Realized America Messed You Up"
5
You need to do more homework. Not only had Montgomery exercised in England the use of airborne troops to secure a route for an armoured advance, he had already tried it on a small scale in Sicily before planning to try it on a larger scale for COMET, which had to be cancelled because of the intelligence situation in the Netherlands and upgraded to an even larger operation as MARKET GARDEN. XXX Corps was absolutely the right formation to take the centre line along the airborne corridor (VIII and XII Corps were advancing on the flanks), as they had led the British 2nd Army's 'great swan' through northern France and Belgium all the way from the Seine. The Guards had established a record daily divisional advance on 3 September to liberate Brussels - better than any headlines Patton ever achieved, and a record I believe was not broken until the First Gulf War in 1991 - and the next day 11th Armoured Division (also under XXX Corps at the time) extended that advance to liberate Antwerp. Far from being "out of their depth" - XXX Corps were schooling everybody else on how it should be done. MARKET GARDEN didn't work because when the tanks got to Nijmegen, on schedule to get to Arnhem in the planned 2-3 days, they found the Waal bridges were still in German hands, which was not part of the plan. Operation GARDEN as stopped by a catastropihic command failure in operation MARKET at the top of the 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment on D-Day of the operation, and the responsibility rested with their divisional commander in 82nd Airborne. Blaming the ground forces is misdirection.
5
@johnpeate4544 - probably exactly right. Comet was cancelled on the morning of 10 September and Montgomery met Eisenhower on his plane at Brussels airport on the same day to have another go at the narrow front argument (and we know that once again he failed to persuade Ike), and then he presented his Market Garden plan - Comet upgraded to three airborne divisions. Ike was not convinced that Market Garden would help free up access to Antwerp (he didn't accept the analysis), however, he endorsed the operation because it fitted in with his broad front policy of advancing to the Rhine, and of course made sure Montgomery only got enough logistics to achieve that much! The Market Garden plan did include the XXX Corps' deployment north of Arnhem to the Zuider Zee, to cut off all German forces west of the corridor (including 15.Armee around Antwerp), but also included the 43rd (Wessex) and 50th (Northumbrian) Infantry Division bridgeheads on the River Ijssel at Deventer and Zutphen (43rd ID) and Doesburg (50th ID). The planned 1st Airborne Division perimeter also included the Polish Brigade occupying the Ijssel bridges at Westervoort. I think because it didn't work out like that, people forget or don't realise that geographically the Ijssel is a major distributary of the Dutch Rijn, and you're not really over the Rhine delta until you have bridgeheads on the Ijssel, not just the Neder Rijn at Arnhem. I've only really seen Dutch contibutors to YouTube comments really pick up on that, because it's local knowledge. So, Montgomery's plan, fully endorsed by Eisenhower, involves the advance to the Zuider Zee and cut the Netherlands off from Germany whole. TIK was on the money with this video.
5
It was doing just fine and on schedule until it got to Nijmegen, and then found the bridges were still in German hands. Not part of the plan, and not the fault of the tanks.
5
@johnpeate4544 - American school system!
5
It wasn't his fault it failed, so what would you think of Montgomery if it had succeeded? If you think the person ultimately in charge should be called the fool and that he made a mistake, then surely Eisenhower is the man who should be so hated? Just on logic alone, your argument falls apart and is revealed as simply invective.
5
Evidence? Where was Montgomery's caution and meandering in Market Garden? The plan was undone by the 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment's caution by digging-in on their Groesbeek ridge intitial objective against zero opposition, instead of moving immediately on the Nijmegen bridges as instructed, even after receiving Dutch resistance reports the city was evacuated by the Germans and the highway bridge guarded by just 18 men. Guards Armoured Division arrived at Nijmegen on the morning of D+2, still on schedule to reach Arnhem in two days, only to find the River Waal bridges still in German hands and reinforced by SS-Panzer troops.
4
What were his failures during the Caen fighting? Seems to me the Germans knew how important Caen was to them, because Caen was on the road Paris, and Paris was on the road to Berlin, and Berlin was on the road to total defeat.
4
Wesel was the original target for the airborne Operation 'Comet', but in the planning process it was changed to Arnhem, possibly because of Flak. When intelligence showed more German forces building up in the Netherlands, 'Comet' was cancelled and replaced with 'Market Garden' upgraded with three Airborne Divisions. The Groesbeek heights were an issue because it was not known if there were German combat troops in Nijmegen, and the ridge line might have been occupied as a defensive feature. The exact location of 10.SS-Panzer-Division was unknown, but it was known to be no more than a regimental battlegroup in strength. If it was in Nijmegen, it may cause problems for the 82nd Airborne. The ridge had to be taken as an initial objective, but if unoccupied the 508th PIR was instructed to move with speed on to the highway bridge. The operation was compromised when it failed to do so, and allowed the 10.SS-Panzer-Division to reinforce the bridges overnight. Deelen airfield had been bombed on 3 September, prompting the air units stationed there to evacuate to Germany, and bombed again on the morning of Market Garden, 17 September. The runways were not usable for aircraft but there was an American airfield construction battalion ready to be flown in by glider to repair the runways and allow 52nd (Lowland) Division to be flown in to reinforce Arnhem. Obviously that part of the plan could not be carried out. Some elements were later flown in to Keent airstrip, near Grave, which was a grass strip planned by the Germans as an emergency alternative to Volkel airbase, but the Dutch workers who were used to prepare the airstrip did everything they could to ensure the field was as waterlogged as possible, and the Germans made little use of it! You made some good points and there's so much down the Market Garden rabbit hole to talk about, so it is easy to write about this forever.
4
@berthika1219 - you're welcome. One of the features of 'Comet' were Pegasus Bridge style coup de main glider assaults, but the switch to 'Market Garden' involved every available transport aircraft to carry the three divisions, and it was deemed unacceptable to have any losses to Flak close to the bridges as it would affect the transport capacity for the second lift. So the coup de main attacks were removed. I have John Sliz's excellent series of books on Market Garden Engineers and in his Bridging The Club Route volume for the Guards Armoured's Royal Engineers, he makes a good point that the Zon Bailey bridge was built entirely in the hours of darkness, when it was doctrine not to operate tanks, so the effective delay there was zero hours. The Zon bridge was on the Wilhelmina canal, which was a German defence line, so the chances of a blown bridge there were quite high. The other main defence line was along the Maas to Heumen, the Maas-Waalkanaal to Weurt, and then along the Waal to the North Sea. These were the only lines where all bridges were prepared for demolition and combat troops located, although the Maasbrug at Grave was also prepared with explosives there was no 'sprengkommando' on station to blow the bridge.
4
I think that's dancing on the head of a pin. Market Garden is an upgrade of Comet and Montgomery presented the Market Garden plan to Eisenhower at their Brussels airport meeting on 10 September after cancelling Comet.
4
Why would they do that? Montgomery was let down by his allies (specifically at Nijmegen). If anyone at Arnhem had a gripe about Montgomery, they probably weren't aware the 82nd Airborne missed an undefended bridge in an evacuated city on the first day. Hardly Montgomery's fault at all.
4
Montgomery had conducted an exercise in England using airborne troops to secure bridges for a rapid advance and used the method for real in Sicily with 1st Airborne Division taking bridges on the east coast road. Market Garden was not a surprise proposal from Montgomery if you had followed his career.
3
@phann860 - but why the hate for Montgomery? All he did was select Arnhem as the target for British 2nd Army's Rhine crossing. MARKET GARDEN was compromised by American Generals Brereton and Williams in the planning and on the ground by American Colonel Lindquist of the 508th PIR failing to move quickly on the Nijmegen highway bridge - despite being instructed by 82nd Airborne commander General Gavin standing over a map with Lindquist to show him the exact route he wanted the 1st Battalion to take to the bridge, and even after Lindquist was told at his initial objective on the Groesbeek ridge by Dutch resistance leader Geert van Hees that the Germans had deserted Nijmegen and left only an NCO and seventeen men to guard the bridge. Added to this was Gavin's choice to assign the 508th to the Nijmegen mission over the more experienced and aggressive 505th, after Lindquist had performed badly in Normandy, and failing to plan some sort of replacement coup de main assault for the bridge after Brereton had removed Browning's original plan for glider coup de main attacks on the Arnhem, Nijmegen, and Grave bridges for Operation COMET. Browning could not object to the changes to COMET for MARKET because he had already threatened to resign over Brereton's Operation LINNET II having too short notice to print and distribute maps to the troops, and then had to withdraw the threat when he realised Brereton planned to accept his resignation and replace him with Matthew Ridgway and his US XVIII Airborne Corps. While Montgomery and Browning were trying to fght the Germans and end the war as quickly as possible, it seems the American commanders were fighting the British all the way for their own political reasons and were incompetent in doing so. I would trust a British commander in a complex operation over an American one every time.
3
It wasn't the only intention. It was a potentially useful byproduct of the operation. Eisenhower did not accept Montgomery's analysis when Montgomery pointed this out during their 10 September meeting, but Eisenhower endorsed the operation because it fitted in with his his broad advance to the Rhine and intention to cross it at multiple points. The British 2nd Army crossing in the Arnhem area would be the base for one arm of an encirclement of the Ruhr in conjunction with a US 1st Army crossing in the Koblenz area south of the Ruhr.
3
There was a sound tactical reason for giving Arnhem to 1st Airborne Division and the Polish Brigade, and that was the 83 anti-tank guns they took to Arnhem between them, including 16 of the 17-pounder guns that can deal with the German Tiger tanks. The US Airborne Divisions had just 36 of the 6-pounder anti-tank guns in their AAAT Battalion and Glider Infantry Regiment, although they had more field artillery than their British counterparts. The intelligence picture of German SS panzer units reported northeast of Arnhem and only the unknown supposition of a tank depot at Kleve near the Reichswald probably decided the final divisional deployments.
3
I'm currently reading Jack Didden and Maarten Swarts' new book, The Army That Got Away - The 15.Armee in the Summer of 1944 (2022). The channel port garrisons really hampered the Canadian 1st Army's ability to pursue the 15.Armee up the coast. Much of the less mobile infantry was left behind to invest the channel fortresses, while the armoured units (1st Polish Armoured and 4th Canadian Armoured Divisions) were more mobile and continued the pursuit. When the 15.Armee withdrew into the Breskens pocket west of Antwerp, the canal zone terrain really required infantry as it was not suitable for amoured operations. Considering the 15.Armee was composed exclusively of infantry units itself, with mostly horse drawn transport, they conducted a very skilled withdrawal.
3
@sean640307 - which explain's perfectly Montgomery's statement that - "In my prejudiced view, if the operation had been properly backed from its inception, and given the aircraft, ground forces, and administrative resources necessary for the job, it would have succeeded in spite of my mistakes, or the adverse weather, or the presence of the 2nd SS Panzer Corps in the Arnhem area. I remain Market Garden's unrepentant advocate."
3
I always ask the Patton fans what he would have done differently if he had been the one that reached Nijmegen and found the bridges still in German hands?
3
It's funny, but German Generals felt the same way about being transferred to the West!
3
@Bullet-Tooth-Tony- copied from the other video: @davemac1197 22 hours ago (edited) @Bullet-Tooth-Tony- you ask, I oblige. At 4:51 on this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7UCLf7a-3k (Ambush of the Irish Guards | Operation Market Garden | September 1944) Narrator says "Meanwhile, the tanks of the 2nd Irish Guards began deploying off the road to engage, and get around, the enemy." At 5:06 - note the farm named 'Odiliahoeve' marked on the map in the video, and the lozenge-shaped 'woods' between it and road. I refer to these later. At 5:06 - narrator says "Maneuvering into the field to the left of the road, Cowan's Firefly spotted a tank hidden behind a farmhouse" - not quite correct, Cowan may have reported the inevitable generic "tank", but it was a StuG IIIG assault gun, and we now know the unit was Heeres schwere Panzerjäger-Abteilung 559, specifically the surviving vehicles of 2 and 3.Kompanie. The Abteilung was down to about two vehicles in each Kompanie, with 1.Kompanie having a couple of Jagdpanthers. One was seen the next day near Aalst (reported as a "Panther" [tank]) with a couple of StuGs. The photo I can recall I think is in After The Battle magazine's Operation Market Garden Then and Now volume 1 (edited by Karel Margry, 2002), which I don't have to hand (it's in a box awaiting additional shelf space), and that volume also contains the sketch map of the MARKET GARDEN corridor with notes on terrain and whether suitable or not for off-road maneuvers on each sector, and as you would expect the terrain is very variable and only a few sections of the MSR 'Club Route' has limited ability to manuever - actually just the last sector between Nijmegen and Arnhem the main road is on a raised embankment, hence the original intent to have 43rd Division lead the advance at that stage, but this terrain gets conflated by Hollywood for the whole 64 miles, when it's patently nonsense. If you look at Google maps at the N69 just north of the Belgian/Dutch border, most of the first block of woodland they passed through without incident, then the panzerfaust ambush was at the end of that block just past the driveway to the farm marked with the business name 'Odilia Agro' (Odiliahoeve farm in WW2). The small lozenge-shaped stand of woodland on the left (west) side of the road masking the farm is not on the contemporary maps, so it may not have been there in 1944, but this seems to be the area of the ambush marked on the map (The Breakout, page 32) in Bridging The Club Route – Guards Armoured Division’s Engineers During Operation Market Garden, John Sliz (2015, 2016). The open fields on both sides of the road to the north seem to be the kill zone for the SP guns (StuG IIIG) incorrectly credited to Röstel's SS-Panzerjäger-Abteilung 10 and marked in positions on both sides of the road, but actually belonged to Heeres schwere Panzerjäger-Abteilung 559 and I think were only deployed to the west. The topographic map I have for this area is dated 1939 (57a Valkenswaard West 1939) I obtained from a Dutch antique maps site, and apart from the farm fields adjacent to the road, the ground on either side is marked as heathland and obviously quite dry. Only when you get towards the various streams and rivers in the area do you get into some marshes and soft ground, so it's not great tank country for sure, but the scene in A Bridge Too Far where the tanks maneuver awkwardly by staying on the road itself after the ambush (despite the fact the scene is clearly shot on heathland and not polder or farmland) is completely wrong and probably designed to over-emphasise the terrain problems, helping to construct Richard Attenborough's narrative that the British officer class were incompetent. The truth, as always, is a lot more complex.
3
@jeffreybeigie5244 - I've been in the position of working for people whose job I knew I could do better, and in every case it was a political appointment and not someone who was there because they were the most capable. It happens all the time and it's always bloody annoying. I think Ike was lucky Montgomery was not in the habit of carrying a pair of pearl-handled pistols. He might have been tempted to use them!
3
@jeffreybeigie5244 - Marshall probably wouldn't have been acceptable to Churchill, in fact I think I recall reading as much somewhere. Eisenhower was a skilled politician who kept the coalition together, but he had his work cut out with the Generals he had in his own Army. My comment about Montgomery using pistols was obviously tongue in cheek, because he must have felt exasperated at times - but he didn't even slap anyone, to my knowledge. Bradley had to order Patton to halt at Falaise because he feared a friendly fire incident with the Poles, who were leading the Canadian arm of the pincer. Yet time after time I read in YouTube comments that Montgomery let the Germans escape at Falaise! I suspect it's a product of the American school system, because it doesn't even make any sense. Montgomery, as commander of all land forces throughout his brief tenure in June, July, and August 1944, was the architect of the whole encirclement strategy in Normandy. Market Garden, as this video explains, was another encirclement operation devised by Montgomery, unfortunately undone by an American Colonel at Nijmegen, who failed to follow the instructions of his own chain of command. As I said... exasperating.
3
It was working until it got to Nijmegen. The reason it failed was not shown in the Hollywood film because it was an American failure to secure the undefended Nijmegen bridges on the first afternoon that compromised the operation. The wrong crystals affected exactly two radio sets at Arnhem - both VHF sets used by the American USAAF Fighter Control Teams attached to 1st Airborne Division. The film doesn't explain that, again for obvious reasons.
3
@TheImperatorKnight - responsibility goes up the chain of command, but the fault was at regimental level: Captain Chet Graham was assigned as the regimental liaison officer with division headquarters. "I sat in on a high level briefing at division headquarters. Colonel Lindquist was told by General Gavin to move to the Nijmegen bridge as soon as Lindquist thought practical after the jump. Gavin stressed that speed was important. He was also told to stay out of the city and to avoid city streets. He told Lindquist to use the west farm area to get to the bridge as quickly as possible as the bridge was the key to the division's contribution to the success of the operation. Receiving information from the patrols that no enemy was between them and their objective at De Ploeg, Captain Adams and Company A increased the pace of the advance. “The march to the objective was (almost) uneventful… Everyone started digging in. Everyone had the idea that the rest of the job would be as easy as it had been up to that point. That was somewhat my own impression and I still believe if we had marched straight to the [highway] bridge [in Nijmegen] we would have had it without a fight.” Captain Ben Delamater, the battalion’s executive officer, got the command post organised. "The regimental commanding officer [Colonel Roy Lindquist], with his radio operator and two Dutch interpreters from the British army soon followed us onto our first objective. The planned defenses were being set up when several civilians wearing arm bands and carrying Underground credentials of some sort told the colonel that the Germans had deserted Nijmegen, that the town and the highway bridge were lightly held. The regimental CO had been instructed that if the initial mission were accomplished to 'go ahead and take the highway bridge if you can.' This division order was perfectly understood in relation to the primary missions and was not a weak, conditional order as might be supposed offhand.” Captain Chet Graham, the regimental liasion officer with division headquarters, decided to obtain a status of the progress toward the capture of the Nijmegen highway bridge. "I went to the 508th regimental CP and asked Colonel Lindquist when he planned to send the 3rd Battalion to the bridge. His answer was, 'As soon as the DZ is cleared and secured. Tell General Gavin that.' So I went through Indian country to the division CP and relayed Lindquist's message to Gavin. I never saw Gavin so mad. As he climbed into his Jeep, he told me, 'come with me - let's get him moving.' On arriving at the 508th regimental CP, Gavin told Lindquist, 'I told you to move with speed.' " Source: Put Us Down In Hell - A Combat History of the 508th PIR in WW2, Phil Nordyke (2012)
3
Montgomery had been fighting the Germans the first time since 1914, and the second time since 1940.
3
@robinsattahip2376 - actually it was a quote in response to Montgomery's memoirs that criticised Eisenhower and made to Cornelius Ryan, who wrote it in a book - 'He's a psychopath, don't forget that. He is such an egocentric... He has never made a mistake in his life.' The fact is that Eisenhower was not a doctor and was not qualified to make that diagnosis. I think Montgomery got the measure of Eisenhower on their first meeting - 'Nice chap, no soldier'. At least Montgomery was qualified to make that determination.
3
The tanks got to Nijmegen on the 'single road' still on schedule. It was only the Waal bridges still in Germans hands that stopped them for 36 hours.
3
The Market Garden deployment plan for the divisions of XXX Corps north of the Rijn involved the 43rd (Wessex) Infantry Division to establish bridgeheads at Deventer and Zutphen on the Ijssel River, and the 50th (Northumbrian) Infantry Division a bridgehead over the Ijssel at Doesburg. The Polish Parachute Brigade's part of the planned 1st Airborne Division perimeter around Arnhem also included the Ijssel bridges at Westervoort. While this leaves XXX Corps in a position on the Rhine delta facing east to strike into Germany, reaching the Zuider Zee (or Ijsselmeer) at Nunspeet with the Guards Armoured Division would cut off all German forces in the western Netherlands, including the 15.Armee west of Antwerp and the V-2 rocket launch sites on the Dutch coast. Montgomery had pointed this out to Eisenhower during his 10 September meeting at Brssels airport, but Eisenhower had actually not accepted his analysis. Eisenhower did approve of Market Garden because it fitted in with his strategy of a broad advance to the Rhine, but he did so for the wrong reasons. Montgomery was way ahead of him.
3
Actually, Caen was a D-Day target for 3rd Infantry Division, but unfortunately the Germans knew how important it was to their defence. You can't blame Montgomery for that.
3
Great comment. I think it's on the money.
3
You need to research the advance from the Seine to Brussels and Antwerp. Twice, Horrocks of XXX Corps even risked operating tanks at night and it paid off, but during Market Garden (at Valkenswaard on 17 September) he didn't want to push his luck and stopped overnight. Despite the blown bridge at Zon, which was replaced in 10 hours overnight, the Guards Armoured Division reached Nijmegen still on schedule to get to Arnhem in 48 hours, only to find the Waal bridges were still in German hands. I refer you to Phil Nordyke's combat history of the 508th PIR - Put Us Down In Hell (2012), and a contribution to Zig Boroughs' The 508th Connection contains the story from Trooper Joe Atkins (S-2 Section 1/508th) and how he was one of three Scouts that reached the south end of Nijmegen highway bridge and surprised 6/7 Germans guarding it. They waited for more troops to show up, but after an hour with no shows and night falling, they decided to withdraw, and as they did so could hear "heavy equipment" arriving at the other end of the bridge. Market Garden failed through no fault of the ground forces or the route planning, but a command failure in one parachute regiment at Nijmegen. That regiment failed to move quickly on a lightly defended bridge and allowed SS-Panzer units to reinforce it on the first evening. Montgomery was let down by an allied unit, he was not too slow at all.
3
That was already being done. It was what the US IX Troop Carrier Command units were doing when they were not being used to carry troops for airborne operations.
3
@ghostinthemachine8243 - this may not be the best source because it's not specifically about the logistics, but Sebastian Ritchie's Arnhem: Myth and Reality: Airborne Warfare, Air Power and the Failure of Operation Market Garden (2011, revised 2019) is probably the best one covering all the issues in the book title. Having a quick skim through, I came across this 7 September memo (while Operation Comet was delayed by weather) to Eisenhower from Montgomery after the head of administration for 21st Army Group warned him that it would be impossible to advance beyond Arnhem before the Channel ports were open and without a substantial increase in airlifted supplies: "My maintenance is stretched to the limit. First instalment of 18 locomotives only just released to me and balance still seems uncertain. Require an airlift of 1,000 tons a day at Douai or Brussels and in last two days have had only 750 tons total. My transport is based on operating 150 miles from my ports and at present I am over 300 miles from Bayeux... I cannot go on for long like this. It is clear therefore that based as I am on Bayeaux I cannot capture the Ruhr." He finished by asking Eisenhower for a meeting to discuss this, and that led to the 10 September Brussels airport meeting on board Eisenhower's plane, the day Montgomery cancelled Comet and presented Market Garden as a replacement, but they also discussed the logistics problems and also Montgomery pressed his single thrust to Berlin argument again. The latter was shot down again in favour of broad front and multiple Rhine crossings to encircle the Ruhr, but Market Garden was approved and Eisenhower promised priority to 21st Army Group for supplies. I hope that sheds some light.
3
The decision to move as quickly as possible to secure a Rhine crossing before clearing the Scheldt estuary to open Antwerp was the logical one. The Germans were still off balance after their withdrawal from Normandy and were hurriedly trying to establish defence line along the major rivers and canals in the Netherlands. The Canadians, in whose sector the Scheldt lay, were not ready to conduct operations in the area until after MARKET GARDEN was expected to conclude, they were repositioning around Antwerp during MARKET GARDEN in preparation to strike north, so it made sense to strike with the right (British 2nd Army) for the Rhine before German defences fimed up, and then with the left (Canadian 1st Army) when they were ready. Eisenhower was in full agreement with the priorities and after Cornelius Ryan's misleading book A Bridge Too Far was published felt he had to make a public statement clarifying the situation - “I not only approved Market-Garden, I insisted upon it. We needed a bridgehead over the Rhine. If that could be accomplished I was quite willing to wait on all other operations.” (Eisenhower: A Soldier's Life, Carlo D'Este, 2015) Montgomery later admitted he underestimated the difficulty the Canadians faced in their sector and after an airborne operation on Walcheren island that he requested was rejected by Brereton of 1st Allied Airborne Army, he eventually had to divert units from British 2nd Army's left flank (XII Corps) to assist them. He had argued in his 10 September meeting with Eisenhower that a northwards advance (to Arnhem and the Ijsselmeer) would ease operations around Antwerp, but although Eisenhower did not accept that analysis, he "agreed that 21 Army Group should strike northwards towards Arnhem as early as possible, and he admitted that successful operations in that direction would open up wide possibilities for future action." (The Memoirs of Field Marshal Montgomery (1958)
2
It clearly it wasn't a bridge too far for the tanks if they could get to Nijmegen, just 11 miles short of the Arnhem bridge and still on schedule, only to find the bridges at Nijmegen had not been secured by the Airborne on the first day, when they were relatively undefended in a city evacuated by the Germans. The Germans were allowed to reinforce the bridges with SS-Panzer troops and impose a 36-hour delay while the Guards assisted the Airborne in doing their job for them. Arnhem was not a bridge too far for the Guards, it was a bridge too many for one relatively inexperienced Parachute Infantry Regiment. Montgomery was let down by the very allies who claim he was not a good commander. The hyprocrisy is just extraordinary, and it really is about time it stopped.
2
@AnthonyBrown12324 - my copy of Antony Beevor's book on Arnhem went to the Oxfam bookshop, because I didn't learn a single thing from it, except a joke I had not heard before. He simply recycled every aspect of the conventional narrative I've been reading for decades, and no new research that has come to light in the last 10-12 years was included, and no new research was done for his book that advanced my knowledge at all. A complete waste of money, but I hope the Oxfam charity benefits. The Devil's Bridge by Anthony Tucker-Jones (2020) went with it for exactly the same reason - although I did pick up a German unit identification that was hiding in plain sight in Cornelius Ryan's bibliography all along. That's a very poor show for two brand new hardback books. I'm not trusting these 'professional authors' again, they just make money from old rope. For Market Garden, Montgomery had the resources he needed for a swift advance to the Zuider Zee. What he didn't have was enough logistics if he had major problems along the way, and he made that point when he wrote about this afterwards - "In my prejudiced view, if the operation had been properly backed from its inception, and given the aircraft, ground forces, and administrative resources necessary for the job, it would have succeeded in spite of my mistakes, or the adverse weather, or the presence of the 2nd SS Panzer Corps in the Arnhem area. I remain Market Garden's unrepentant advocate." Nobody would have complained about the plan if it had been successful, and it could hardly be successful if it wasn't even followed at Nijmegen. I think Gavin knew the operation was compromised the moment he heard the 508th were not moving, that's why his reaction was anger when he found out, according to the regimental liaison officer who gave him the bad news. My reference is 82nd Airborne historian Phil Nordyke's combat history of the 508th - Put Us Down In Hell (2012), which also details the command problems the regiment previously had in Normandy on their first combat operation. Another good book is RG Poulussen's Lost At Nijmegen (2011), but he had only identified Gavin as being responsible, not the 508th specifically being at fault. Probably the best updated work on the whole operation is Christer Bergström's Arnhem 1944: An Epic Battle Revisited, vols 1 and 2 (2019, 2020), using unpublished documents and interviews in the Cornelius Ryan Collection at Ohio State University. There's nothing "strange" about the difference with El Alamein - there wasn't one, except that at El Alamein Montgomery was not let down by an American unit under his command.
2
@AnthonyBrown12324 - nonsense. 1st Airborne Division and the Polish Brigade took 83 anti-tank guns between them to Arnhem, while Model had less than 100 operational tanks in his entire Heeresgruppe B front. Montgomery had 2,400 in 21st Army Group. The operation did not fail because 1st Airborne were overwhelmed with tanks - they weren't. 9.SS-Panzer-Division had just three Mark V Panthers, two of which were disposed of in western Arnhem, and 10.SS-Panzer had 16 Mark IV tanks they couldn't get to Nijmegen as long as Frost held the Arnhem bridge. Market Garden was upgraded from Comet precisely because of the developing intelligence picture in the Netherlands, so again, the intelligence 'failings' are another aspect of the Arnhem mythology that don't stand up to scrutiny. The intelligence turned out to be remarkably accurate. I don't take a view on the failure of the operation, I'm interested in facts, and some interesting ones have emerged in the last few years that challenge the conventional narrative. The evidence is that the conventional narrative is wrong, and the people that had already been fighting the war for five years at that point did actually know what they were doing, including Montgomery.
2
@AnthonyBrown12324 - I think TIK is on the money, but he only managed to drill down to Gavin being responsible in his Market Garden series of videos. If he had read Nordyke's book on the 508th Regiment, which is a deeper dive than he normally does on a campaign level, he would have got to the bottom of the story - at least as far as the bottom of the Market Garden rabbit hole has progressed. The research frontier is always moving forward, and I expect more books will be forthcoming.
2
A child deeply disrespecting its parent. I suggest you read the inscriptions on the Peace Arch at the US/Canada border on the Pacific coast - words written by much wiser men than yourself.
2
Depends on what you mean by "revisionist" much - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruqt8uv__18
2
The French resistance came up with a marvellous way to slow down the 2.SS-Panzer-Division 'Das Reich' from moving quickly to Normandy from the south of France - they drained the axle oil from every flat bed rail car they could get their hands on.
2
@sean640307 - the "Field Order NO.1, 508 PIR" reproduced in the appendix of Poulussen (Lost At Nijmegen, 2011) was from "Hq 508 Prcht Inf... 13 September 1944" and signed "LINDQUIST Commanding" - these were HIS detailed orders to his Regimental units outlining the specific initial objectives for the Regiment on the Groesbeek ridge. They were not GAVIN's orders to LINDQUIST. Section 2. a. reads - ", be prepared to seize WAAL River crossing at Nijmegen (714633) on Div order" Section 3. x. (6) reads - "All Bns will be prepared to attack to the N, within their sectors to seize WAAL River crossing at NIJMEGEN (714633)." Lindquist relies on this to suggest he was not to move until given the order to do so from Division HQ. In question 2 in his interview with Westover, the Q&A were: 2. GENERAL GAVIN said that he gave you orders to move directly into NIJMEGEN? "As soon as we got into position we were told to move into NIJMEGEN. We were not told on landing. We were actually in position when I was told to move on" A more full account is revealed in Phil Nordyke's combat history of the 508th - Put Us Down In Hell (2012): Chapter 9: 'Put Us Down In Hell' - Captain Chet Graham was assigned as the regimental liaison officer with division headquarters. "I sat in on a high level briefing at division headquarters. Colonel Lindquist was told by General Gavin to move to the Nijmegen bridge as soon as Lindquist thought practical after the jump. Gavin stressed that speed was important. He was also told to stay out of the city and to avoid city streets. He told Lindquist to use the west farm area to get to the bridge as quickly as possible as the bridge was the key to the division's contribution to the success of the operation." [Note, there's no date associated with Chet Graham's testimony, but I would surmise that Lindquist left this briefing to go and write his Field Order dated 13 September, but it is a divisional briefing days BEFORE departure for Holland] Chapter 10: 'Use Trench Knives and Bayonets' - Captain Ben Delamater, the battalion’s executive officer, got the command post organised. "The regimental commanding officer [Colonel Roy Lindquist], with his radio operator and two Dutch interpreters from the British army soon followed us onto our first objective. The planned defenses were being set up when several civilians wearing arm bands and carrying Underground credentials of some sort told the colonel that the Germans had deserted Nijmegen, that the town and the highway bridge were lightly held. The regimental CO had been instructed that if the initial mission were accomplished to 'go ahead and take the highway bridge if you can.' This division order was perfectly understood in relation to the primary missions and was not a weak, conditional order as might be supposed offhand.” “The regimental and battalion COs then planned to send one platoon of C Company [led by Lieutenant Bob Weaver], plus the S-2 section, plus two light machine gun squads on a reconnaissance patrol to approach the bridge from the south." Captain Chet Graham, the regimental liasion officer with division headquarters, decided to obtain a status of the progress toward the capture of the Nijmegen highway bridge. "I went to the 508th regimental CP and asked Colonel Lindquist when he planned to send the 3rd Battalion to the bridge. His answer was, 'As soon as the DZ is cleared and secured. Tell General Gavin that.' So I went through Indian country to the division CP and relayed Lindquist's message to Gavin. I never saw Gavin so mad. As he climbed into his Jeep, he told me, 'come with me - let's get him moving.' On arriving at the 508th regimental CP, Gavin told Lindquist, 'I told you to move with speed.' " Nordyke's chapters on Normandy, the 508th's first combat jump, are also very interesting, because there were command problems in the Regiment then. Some were sorted out by Division CO Matthew Ridgway, but in August Ridgway was promoted to CO XVIII Airborne Corps and Gavin took over. Gavin, however, failed to replace himself as Assistant Divisional Commander and he was running himself ragged doing both jobs during Market Garden, as well as carrying a painful jump injury to his spine. My impression is that these are the cumulative factors resulting in the command failure at Nijmegen.
2
@sean640307 - there's also the question of what happened to Lt. Weaver's recon patrol into the city. Weaver was given an SCR-300 radio set on the Battalion net - the comms within a Company did not have the range. The patrol got split up and lost in the back streets of Nijmegen and ran into some small pockets of German rear echelon troops still in the city. Eventually they received a radio message that two Companies were being sent to the bridge (the result of Gavin finally telling Lindquist to move), so Weaver decided to withdraw. However, there's an interesting story in Zig Borough's (vet 508th Demolition Platoon) book the 508th Connection (2013), a collection of letters and stories from 508th veterans: Chapter 6: Holland, Operation Market Garden - Nijmegen bridge - A battalion S-2 patrol led the way and reached the Nijmegen bridge during the daylight hours. Trooper Joe Atkins, HQ 1st, told that story: "I was called on to take the point going into Nijmegen. As we entered the city, a crowd of people gathered around us, and we had to push our way through. Three of us in the lead became separated from the other troopers behind us by the crowds of Dutch people. We three continued to make our way into the city until we came to the bridge. At the bridge, only a few German soldiers were standing around a small artillery weapon. I had a Thompson sub and a .45 pistol. The other two were armed with M1 rifles...” “The Germans were so surprised; the six or seven defenders of the bridge gave up without resisting. We held the prisoners at the entrance to the bridge for about an hour. It began to get dark, and none of our other troopers showed up. We decided to pull back away from the bridge, knowing we could not hold off a German attack. The German prisoners asked to come with us, but we refused, having no way to guard them. As we were leaving, we could hear heavy equipment approaching the bridge." The "heavy equipment" was undoubtedly SS-Hauptsturmführer Victor Gräbner's SS-Panzer-Aufklärungs-Abteilung 9, which had come from Beekbergen via Arnhem bridge in the early evening of 17 September. Darkness fell at about 7:30-7:40 at that time of year, and they reached Nijmegen about the time Frost was moving into position at the north end of Arnhem bridge.
2
I haven't been able to positvely identify the handful of troops guarding the Nijmegen highway bridge at this time before the SS-Panzer troops started arriving. Nijmegen was host to the BdO - Befehlshaber der Ordnungspolizei - HQ for the 'Order Police' for the whole Netherlands equivalent to a division HQ under Generalmajor der Polizei Hellmuth Mascus, evacuated from Den Haag in 1943 when the Dutch coast became a potential invasion coast, and evacuated again from Nijmegen on receiving reports of the airborne landings. They left north for their training depot at Schalkhaar (near Deventer) and eventually settled in Zwolle, but I understand they left behind their Musikkorps-Zug (the divisional music band platoon), since there were no combat troops available. I have some information that the bridges at Nijmegen and Grave were the responsibilty of a company from the Fallschirm-Panzer-Ersatz-und-Ausbildungs-Regiment 'Hermann Göring', which was the training unit for the Luftwaffe's only Panzer-Division (currently fighting in Poland) and was based in Utrecht. All three battalions of the training regiment were deployed to the front in the Belgian canal zone, but some other units were in reserve (including the tanks famously photographed by RAF Spitfire), and one of them was Kompanie 'Runge' under Hauptmann Max Runge, commander of the 21.ULK (Unter-Lehr-Kommando), which was the 21st (NCO) training company. I'm not clear on their exact dispositions at the time of the airborne landings, but some of them appeared to be forward deployed at Overasselt - the eastern end of the Maasbrug near Grave, and they evacuated as soon as they realised the paratroops were landing on both sides of the river and had them caught in a pincer. The ethnic German Dutchman tasked with detonating the bridge demolitions had failed to show up, so Kompanie Runge withdrew to the Maas-Waalkanaal bridges (road and rail) at Honinghutje, reinforcing the third rate home guard troops defending the canal bridges. When that bridge came under attack on the 18 September by the Americans, they tried to demolish the bridges - the rail bridge was destroyed but the road bridge only damaged - and withdrew into Nijmegen, where they were incorporated into the SS defences around the highway bridge and made their last stand on 20 September at the Villa Belvoir overlooking Hunner Park. The 18 Germans the Dutch reported guarding the highway bridge on the first day could have been from either unit or another I haven't yet pinned down. I've been working on the Nijmegen story for a few years now and still putting the pieces together.
2
@johnfleet235 - Montgomery told Eisenhower at their 10 September meeting at Brussels airport that Market Garden was the best way to resolve the problem with Antwerp, but Eisenhower did not accept his analysis. However, he approved the operation because it fitted in with his broad front strategy of advancing to the Rhine. Montgomery was way ahead of Eisenhower, but he still gets the nonsensical critcism and blame.
2
The British 2nd Army direction of travel was towards the Rhine sector between Arnhem in the Netherlands and Wesel in Germany. So when Operation Comet was being planned a suitable crossing and airborne landing zones were studied along the Rhine in this sector and Arnhem was agreed by Browning and Montgomery over Dempsey's preferred option of Wesel. We don't know why Arnhem was initially preferred by Montgomery, Dempsey's diary only records that overnight of 3/4 September Arnhem had been settled on as the target. Some researchers have speculated that Montgomery considered an axis of advance towards Wesel would be too close to the US XIX Corps boundary to avoid possibly having to share a Rhine crossing with the Americans, or it may be because of Flak and suitable landing zone considerations. The main advantage of a crossing of the Dutch Rijn at Arnhem was that it was a short distance to the Zuider Zee as TIK says, and by terminating at the Zuider Zee coast almost all German occupation forces in the Netherlands (an Army sized formation called Wehrmacht Befehlshaber Niederlande or WBN) and the 15.Armee west of Antwerp on the Scheldt would be cut off. By the time the weather delayed Operation Comet was finally cancelled by Montgomery on 10 September, due to the worsening intelligence picture in the eastern Netherlands, he had received news the previous day that the first V-2 rockets had fallen on London and Antwerp. The London rockets were fired from a battery on the Dutch coast near Den Haag and the Antwerp rockets from a battery in the Reichswald near Kleve. An advance to the Rijn at Arnhem would also disrupt these operations and Churchill wanted to know when Montgomery could rope off this area of the Netherlands, so he proposed Operation Market Garden to Eisenhower with three airborne divisions instead of one for Comet to handle the additional German forces in the area. Montgomery wrote after the war that he made a mistake in thinking the Canadians (1st Army) could clear the Scheldt on their own (it was in their sector of the front) while he went for the Rhur (with British 2nd Army). I've recently finished reading Jack Didden and Maarten Swarts' new book, The Army That Got Away - The 15.Armee in the Summer of 1944 (2022), and it was clear throughout this period that the Canadians (and the British and Polish units that were part of Canadian 1st Army) were overstretched and had a lot on their plate. Most of the major Channel ports were ordered by Hitler to hold out to the last man last bullet, and this tied up most of the infantry units in Canadian 1st Army to invest those ports, leaving only the 1st Polish Armoured Division and 4th Canadian Armoured Division to pursue the retreating 15.Armee up the Channel coast into the Breskens pocket on the Scheldt. In that area, the terrain resembles the rest of Holland and is unsuited to armoured warfare - infantry was really needed just when those units were not available. I think Montgomery's rationale was that a Rhine crossing while the Germans were still reeling from their defeat in Normandy would shorten the war, and cutting off the 15.Armee and WBN west of the Arnhem corridor would render them ineffective in stopping him - they would literally be sidelined. After Market Garden failed to get British 2nd Army beyond Nijmegen and complete the Zuider Zee cut-off, Montgomery had to turn his attention to helping the Canadians clear the Scheldt by direct assault just as you suggest, and that proved to be a lot more difficult and costly than first anticipated. Those operations are covered in Didden and Swarts' first book, Autumn Gale (Herbststurm) - Kampfgruppe Chill, schwere Heeres Panzerjäger-Abteilung 559 and the German Recovery in the autumn of 1944 (2013). To be honest, it was only after reading Autumn Gale on the battles around Woensdrecht and Didden and Swarts' second book on Kampfgruppe Walther on the battle of Overloon that I appreciated Montgomery's remark that Market Garden was "90% successful." I had previously thought it to be a completely fatuous statement, but I think the operation demonstrated the potential for airborne forces to enable a rapid advance across virtually impossible terrain and only failed because of the failure to secure the Nijmegen bridges on the first day. The battles at Woensdrecht and Overloon demonstrated how difficult and costly these operations are without the benefit of the Airborne to secure the bridges for you, and the events at Nijmegen also underlined that lesson.
2
@richardjansen3317 - the film version of A Bridge Too Far is only about 50% historically accurate, but some scenes are probably quite true to life and very nicely done. One of them is von Rundstedt's return as OB West, relieving Model of one of the two jobs he was doing and now able to concentrate on running Heeresgruppe (Army Group) B. One of the things Model was working on was a counter-offensive, which he was planning to conduct in the Netherlands and scheduled for October. For this he needed II.SS-Panzerkorps refitted, and he needed all the key bridges to remain intact, which is why he refused to allow their demolition, even during Market Garden. In the event, Market Garden's partial success forced Model to reschedule his planned counter-offensive for December, and relocate it to the Ardennes instead of the Netherlands. Interestingly, the 9.SS-Panzer-Division after refitting in Germany took part in the Ardennes offensive, but the 10.SS-Panzer-Division was only able to commit its Artillerie-Regiment, which had been 'over-establishment' since the withdrawal from Normandy and the discovery of an abandoned train in Arras carrying 40 brand new leFH 18/40 howitzers abandoned by its army owners. I'm not Dutch, I'm British, and I read Cornelius Ryan while still in school in 1977 before the film was released that Summer. I've been fascinated by the story ever since, and the arguments over the operation's failure. I think the last 10-12 years have been very interesting with the information coming out about the Airborne failure to secure the Nijmegen bridges on the first day. I think it's no coincidence that A Bridge Too Far puts much of the blame on Montgomery and Browning, as the book and film were released after both gentlemen had passed, but many of the American officers were still alive. Now they're all gone, I think more true stories are coming out in new books. Revisionism is a valid historical process, as indeed TIK has done a video on that issue himself. Obviously, you would be closer to any issues surrounding the Dutch Royal Family, I wouldn't want to comment out of respect to you and your country (we had a great family holiday on Walcheren in 1975!), but I do find it interesting that the first Bilderberg conference was named after the hotel in Oosterbeek where it was held, and it was chaired by Lord Peter Carrington, who as a Captain in the Grenadier Guards was in command of the operation to send the first tanks over the Waalbrug in Nijmegen on 20 September 1944. I remember Carrington as Margaret Thatcher's Foreign Secretary in 1982 when he resigned over the invasion of the Falkland Islands, and yet still became the 6th Secretary General of NATO. I do find it all fascinating! My best wishes to you and everyone in the Netherlands.
2
@richardjansen3317 - we do have issues with our own Royals and while I know it's a Dutch custom to be quite direct, it would be considered rude here for a non-Brit to express a disparaging opinion of our Royal Family. Even if many people here might agree with it! I was just being polite.
2
@richardjansen3317 - Cheers! Just one correction - it's the 'British' Royal family - since the Acts of Union in England (1706) and Scotland (1707) united the two thrones into one United Kingdom of Great Britain. CGP Grey has a great YouTube video explaining the UK and GB etc., I know most Europeans understand most of it, but it seems to really blow the minds of our American cousins on their reaction channels! Great fun watching those.
2
@richardjansen3317 - I even have a favourite Dutch politician - Eva Vlaardingerbroek - but I have to copy and paste her name into the comment! She's been a star guest on GBNews channel in the UK and I've seen her on Tucker Carlson on Fox in the USA. She's standing up to wokery, the nitrogen policy forcing Dutch farmers to sell their farms, and the like. The same sort of things are happening here, so it's great to see someone fighting the good fight!
2
@richardjansen3317 - yeah, a lot of stories about Barclays. I had an IT contract with Barclays. In some ways the banks are the best clients, but this one miscalculated their IT budget while I was there and fired all the contractors and offered replacement contracts at 80% of the original rate to make up the shortfall. I thought they could have done by taking it out of the IT Director's annual bonus - only his wife would probably notice the difference!
2
@richardjansen3317 - we're getting way off-topic here, but I think it's true that there's a cabal that runs the world right now and so-called democratically elected leaders are actually chosen by the global elite. The recent revolving door on 10 Downing Street has been an illustration of how this works - if the Conservative Party elected a new leader (and therefore Prime Minister) that the globalists don't like, they immediately start plotting to remove them and have their man - who has already been rejected in the popular vote - installed by a coup. It's absolutely infuriating and 'we the people' are not happy about it.
2
@richardjansen3317 - appreciate it, thank you!
2
Eisenhower approved Market Garden because it fitted in with his strategy of a broad advance to the Rhine anf crossing it at multiple points. Montgomery pointed out that it would also help free up Antwerp, but Eisenhower did not accept the analysis. From Montgomery's Memoirs (online), P.247: The quickest way to open up Antwerp was to back my plan of concentration on the left – which plan would not only help our logistic and maintenance situation but would also keep up the pressure on the stricken Germans in the area of greatest importance, thus helping to end the war quickly… It was obvious that he disagreed with my analysis. He repeated that we must first close to the Rhine and cross it on a wide front; then, and only then, could we concentrate on one thrust… But Eisenhower agreed that 21 Army Group should strike northwards towards Arnhem as early as possible, and he admitted that successful operations in that direction would open up wide possibilities for future action.
2
The manning of the Westwall and the defeat of Market Garden were both achieved by using the 'Valkyrie Plan' to mobilise the Reserve Army in early September, precisely because the Field Army was shattered and the remnants of it in the west had withdrawn from Normandy in disarray. Putting the Reserve Army, composed of training units that supplied replacements to the Field Army, into the front lines also impacts the Field Army's ability to recover and refit its units, as well as putting untrained or part-trained troops into the front lines with obvious consequences.
2
Not after Antwerp was captured and supply lines to 15.Armee from Germany were cut. Cutting off all German forces west of the Market Garden corridor would have eased operations by 1st Canadian Army to clear the Scheldt, a point made by Montgomery when he presented Market Garden to him at their 10 September Brussels airport meeting - "The quickest way to open up Antwerp was to back my plan of concentration on the left – which plan would not only help our logistic and maintenance situation but would also keep up the pressure on the stricken Germans in the area of greatest importance, thus helping to end the war quickly… It was obvious that he disagreed with my analysis. He repeated that we must first close to the Rhine and cross it on a wide front; then, and only then, could we concentrate on one thrust… But Eisenhower agreed that 21 Army Group should strike northwards towards Arnhem as early as possible, and he admitted that successful operations in that direction would open up wide possibilities for future action." (The Memoirs of Field-Marshal the Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, 1958) The main reason the Channel ports held out so long was because the Canadians did not have the force ratios over the port garrisons to overcome them quickly - the Canadian Army was spread too thin investing the Channel ports AND pursuing the 15.Armee up the coast to the Scheldt estuary. I'm currently on the final chapter ('Conclusions') of Jack Didden and Maarten Swarts' new book, The Army That Got Away - 15.Armee in the Summer of 1944 (2022), which I think is probably the definitve history on this since it is such an overlooked part of the European campaign, and is effectively a prequel to their first book, Autumn Gale (Herbststurm) on Kampfgruppe Chill, schwere Heeres Panzerjäger-Abteilung 559 and the German recovery in the autumn of 1944 (2013).
2
Actually, Hitler was a great help in many ways, but some of the American comanders were a hindrance to Montgomery's efforts to win the war as quickly as possible. American exceptionalism is an absolute pain in the butt-ocks at times. There's a story that John Lennon was once asked by an American journalist if he thought Ringo Starr was the best drummer in the world? The story goes that John just laughed and replied that he wasn't even the best drummer in The Beatles. I'm sure Canada is just too polite to point out the obvious parallel!
2
Montgomery proposed an airborne operation on Walcheren, but it was rejected by Brereton as a suicide mission on the grounds of Flak.
2
@michaelbourgeault9409 - the Poles were due to drop on DZ 'K' just south of Arnhem bridge on the Malburgsche Polder on D+2, by which time the 1st Parachute Brigade was expected to be in control of the area and neutralised any remaining Flak positions (many had been bombed and strafed on D-Day) and also cut the power to the transmission lines crossing the drop zone (!) - the power station was in the 3rd Battalion sector of Arnhem supporting Frost's 2nd Battalion, and it was also the RV for the Royal Engineers after their other tasks were completed. The intention was that the Polish Brigade would cross over the Arnhem bridge, RV with their transport and anti-tanks guns that had landed on the north side of the river, and take up their assigned positions in the eastern sector of Arnhem in an arc between the Rosendaalseweg and the Westervoort bridges (Zevenaarseweg) to complete the divisional perimeter. An airborne assault on Walcheren would have been a direct assault on a heavily defended Flak concentration that was avoided by bombers going to Germany and also avoided by the air routes planned for Market Garden. Deelen airfield, Arnhem, and Nijmegen, also had a horrible concentration of heavy and light Flak guns, but the drop and landing zones were to the south and west of them on D-Day and D+1 to avoid them.
2
@michaelbourgeault9409 - it would depend on the timing. I'm currently just coming towards the end of Jack Didden and Maarten Swarts' new book, The Army That Got Away - 15.Armee in the Summer of 1944 (2022), which is a prequel to their first book on called Autumn Gale (Herbststurm) - Kampfgruppe Chill, schwere Heeres Panzerjäger-Abteilung 559 and the German Recovery in Autumn 1944 (2013). The 15.Armee evacuated from the Breskens pocket between 9-22 September, during which time Walcheren island was full of German Infantry Divisions evacuated from the pocket and then sent along the Zuid-Beveland peninsula to the Dutch mainland. On 23 September that process was complete and 15.Armee assumed responsibility for the whole of the western side of the Market Garden corridor (taking over from 1.Fallschirm-Armee). The only real opportunity would be in early September after the capture of Antwerp on 4 September by 11th Armoured Division and before the evacuation began on the 9 September. The problem was the the broad front policy that meant there was no concentration of forces available in the area. Dempsey wanted to pass 53rd (Welsh) Infantry Division through 11th Armoured, but as Didden and Swarts point out in their analysis (I had a quick sneek peek at the final chapter) that idea was just a fantasy and simply not possible. To have concentrated 2nd Army on Antwerp and Zuid-Bevelland at this time would mean abandoning the (Market Garden) pursuit to the Rhine and having to do it later when it would doubtlessly be against fully prepared defence lines. If Market Garden had succeeded in reaching the Zuider Zee, 15.Armee would still be cut off, but in a much bigger encirclement along with another army (the WBN - Wehrmacht occupation forces in the Netherlands), and the V-2 issue came into play on 9 September as well. This would have made it easier for the Canadians to clear the Scheldt estuary because their German opponents would no longer be getting any fresh supplies.
2
@Bullet-Tooth-Tony- YouTube is up to its tricks again. Are you able to see my reply to your question on the 'Real consequences of the Allied failure at Arnhem' video about the Irish Guards ambush? My reply is the third on that thread, but YouTube insists there's still only "2 replies" on the thread. I posted a 4th to ask if you can see it, and it's disappeared. Still showing "2 replies". I'm not one for conspiracy theories, but...
2
It's probably from A Bridge Too Far on von Rundstedt's re-appointment as commander of OB West and his analysis of the front on 4 September 1944: With the other Channel ports still in German hands, Von Rundstedt saw Antwerp as essential to Eisenhower's advance--so why had Montgomery not moved for thirty-six hours and apparently failed to secure the second-largest port in Europe? There could be only one reason: Montgomery was not ready to continue the attack. Von Rundstedt was certain that he would not depart from habit. The British would never attack until the meticulous, detail-minded Montgomery was fully prepared and supplied. The answer therefore, Von Rundstedt reasoned, was that the British had overextended themselves. This was not a pause, Von Rundstedt told his staff. Montgomery's pursuit, he was convinced, had ground to a halt. Von Rundstedt was sure of it. Further, he was banking on it that Montgomery's slowdown held a far deeper significance. Because of overextended communications and supply lines, he was convinced, the Allied breakneck pursuit had reached its limit. At the close of the conference, as Blumentritt was later to recall, "Von Rundstedt looked at us and suggested the incredible possibility that, for once, Hitler might be right." Hitler's and Von Rundstedt's estimates of the situation, although only partly correct, were far more accurate than either realized. The precious time Von Rundstedt needed to stabilize his front was being provided by the Allies themselves. The truth was that the Germans were losing faster than the Allies could win. This got worked into the script of that scene at the beginning of the film version of A Bridge Too Far. The Germans had repeatedly tried to establish defence lines on major rivers, first on the Seine and then the Somme, but Allied units were able to bounce crossings before the Germans could establish a strong line. The next defence line was established on the Albert Canal, which runs across the nothern 'canal zone' of Belgium from Antwerp to Maastricht, and this only succeeded (mostly) because its establishment finally coincided with the Allied pursuit running out of steam. The Albert canal bridge at Beringen was forced and another bridgehead established over the next canal - the Meuse-Escaut canal at Neerpelt on 10 September - and this became the start point a week later for Market Garden. There's even a reference in the script of that scene to "someone" pulling retreating troops into a defence line on their own initiative (I forget the exact words in the script), and this is a rather nice reference to Kampfgruppe Chill - an ad hoc battlegroup formed by Generalleutnant Kurt Chill of the 85.Infanterie-Division, who on his own initiative disobeyed his orders to withdraw his division into Germany for refit and instead used the remnants of his shattered division and that of the 84.ID to establish checkpoints on the Albert canal bridges, stopping anyone without written orders to incorporate them into the kampfgruppe on the canal. It bought enough time for the 1.Fallschirm-Armee (1st Parachute Army) of Hermann Göring's thousands of redundant Luftwaffe ground crews to be formed to plug the gap in the German lines in Holland.
2
@garylynch7619 - I usually watch it when it comes around on TV quite frequently and enjoy it for William Goldman's script mostly. He had previously written Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid (1969), so you can see where the idea of having Robert Redford (the Sundance Kid himself as Major Julian Cook) take the Nijmegen bridge virtually single handed came from - all complete fiction. There was also a rail bridge involved in the operation and a radio message from the Irish Guards reporting an American flag seen at the far end of "the bridge" actually referred to the rail bridge, so the Grenadier Guards waiting to cross the road bridge thought it referred to their bridge and they had better getting moving. They forced a crossing with four tanks at 1830 hrs, a full 45 minutes before US paratroopers even got to it. A lot of other historical inaccuracies were not so much complete fiction but things switched a round to suit the director or the actors. James Caan was offered the role of the Captain who was afraid of dying, but was more interested in the role of Sgt Dohun who saved the Captain's life, so the characters were switched. In reality, Captain LeGrand 'Legs' Johnson, commander of Fox Company 502nd PIR, was a Normandy veteran awarded the Silver Star, and said to be ten times the man Eddie Dohun was, who was Johnson's driver and runner (messenger) in combat. Dohun was running an errand when he returned to the Company during the battle at Best (an alternative crossing to the Son bridge) and found Johnson in a 'dead pile' at the battalion aid station. Dohun knew he carried a lot of money, about $400, and wanted to send it to Johnson's family before the gravediggers got their hands on it and started going through his pockets. It was then he realised Johnson was still breathing and loaded him and four other serious casualties to drive them through the enemy held Sonsche forest to the division field hospital at Son. There, he pulled a pistol on a Major conducting triage, insisting Johnson be seen by the surgeon immediately, and the rest played out almost as per the film. He was sent to his battalion commander, who placed him under arrest for 10 seconds. Johnson "woke up in England six weeks later - blind, deaf, dumb, forty pounds lighter and with a big plate in my head." Except for partial blindness, he recovered. After doing an in depth study of the film, I came to the realisation it was only 50% historically accurate, about 40% had altered or switched characters and situations, and about 10% was completely made up fiction. Most of the changes were to cater for American audiences, who in the wake of the Vietnam War would not be interested in a film where their side lost a battle. By contrast, I estimate episodes 4 and 5 of the Band Of Brothers mini-series, covering the Market Garden period, to be about 80 and 90% accurate respectively.
2
Yes. They were unable to establish multiple lines on the Seine and the Somme and finally some order came into being on the Albert canal in Belgium, thanks in part to Generalleutnant Kurt Chill of the 85.Infanterie-Division, who disobeyed an order to withdraw his division to Germany and instead on his own initiative established checkpoints on the Albert canal bridges and inducted any troops attempting to cross them into the remnants of his Division. This became 'Kampfgruppe Chill', and it enabled the Germans to turn a rabble of a rout into an organised defence. The other key individual was head of the shattered Luftwaffe - Hermann Göring - at a command conference of OKW, Hitler asked his Generals if any of them had a solution to fill the enormous gap that had opened up in the front facing British 2nd Army in Belgium? Nobody did, until Göring piped in and said he had 20,000 men he could transform into a parachute army. Apparently, everybody in the room turned to stare at this unbelievable intervention (I would love to have been a fly on the wall), but this is how the 1.Fallschirm-armee was formed under veteran airborne commander Kurt Student, and made up of redundant Luftwaffe ground crews and other troops formed into new 'parachute regiments' and sent to Holland. The concentration centre was s'Hertogenbosch, with Student setting up headquarters just south at Vught on the Eindhoven road. Hitler had forbidden large scale airborne operations after the disaster of the Crete operation in 1941 and the Fallschirmjäger were now used as light infantry units instead of jump-trained, still part of the Luftwaffe but under army command. In the film version of A Bridge Foo Far, the scene at the start where von Runstedt was reinstated as 'OB West' and is told that a commander had pulled together forces on a defence line in Belgium - that was a reference to Kampfgruppe Chill, and the part of II.SS-Panzerkorps commander Bittrich played by Maxilmillian Schell also doubled for Kurt Student where he sees the Allied Airborne Army fly overhead and says "just once to have such power..." The planes only flew over Student's HQ in Vught and he made that comment to his adjutant, while Bittrich was miles further east in Doetinchem and did not see the planes directly.
2
The planned deployment of XXX Corps north of the Rijn between Arnhem and Nunspeet on the Zuider Zee coast is not necessary for an advance to the Ruhr, but it does cut off all German forces in the western Netherlands, including the 15.Armee. The best map that shows this is available on the battlearchives site and the filename is: market-garden-objective-areas-and-drop-zones-battle-map The exact reasons for switching the Rhine crossing from Wesel to Arnhem during the planning process for Operation 'Comet' is not recorded, but the sector between the two towns was always the sector that 2nd Army was heading for, and a bridge over the Rhine somewhere between those two points had to be selected. A crossing at Wesel was fine for subsequent operations into Germany, but they did nothing to help the situation regarding Antwerp or prevent the escape of the 15.Armee over the Scheldt estuary, and during this period the Germans also started V-2 rocket operations against London from launch sites on the Dutch coast. The multiple advantages of Arnhem and an advance terminating at the Zuider Zee made 'Market Garden' the potential solution to everybody's problems. One of the (many) worst aspects of the film A Bridge Too Far was the briefing scene in which Browning (Dirk Bogarde) shows Urquhart (Sean Connery) on a map that once over the Arnhem bridge, 2nd Army would be able to sweep down and capture the Ruhr. That development was NOT part of the Market Garden plan. The plan terminated on the Zuider Zee, with the capture of bridgeheads over the River Ijssel (a distributary of the Dutch Rijn and part of the Rhine delta), providing 2nd Army with a base from which to conduct further operations into Germany.
2
@johnpeate4544 - the basic planning for Operation 'Comet' - Wesel or Arnhem - was discussed between Browning and Montgomery on 3/4 September. Dempsey's diary notes that Arnhem had been decided by the morning of 4 September when Browning visited him. This is in Sebastian Ritchie, Arnhem: Myth And Reality (2019). Too early for the V-2 issue, starting 9 September (I think the first rockets were indeed fired on the 8 September), but it did solidify the choice of Arnhem by 10 September. Comet was scheduled for 6/7 September, delayed and then cancelled on the 10th. Montgomery then met with Eisenhower on the 10th to propose Market Garden, an upgraded version of Comet, still on Arnhem, and in that meeting Montgomery used Antwerp to justify the Arnhem axis and Eisenhower rejected his analysis, but agreed with the operation because it fitted in with his broad front policy of advancing to the Rhine in all sectors. The reasons for choosing Arnhem over Wesel are not recorded as far as Ritchie is aware, and he notes that both Browning and Dempsey preferred Wesel, so the impetus for Arnhem seems to have come from Montgomery. Ritchie speculates it may have been heavy Flak at Wesel (but why didn't Browning object, and the Flak at Arnhem/Nijmegen was horrible as well), or possibly a vector on Wesel would bring 2nd Army very close to US XIX Corps boundary, and Montgomery feared a 2nd Army crossing and exploitation might have to be shared with Bradley.
2
There was an attempt to advance north from Antwerp, but German resistance was too strong for anything but a major operation. The German recovery in the Autumn of 1944 was based on a defence of the Albert Canal - the western end of which was in Antwerp. The canal was breached further east and another bridgehead established at Neerpelt over the Meuse-Escaut canal. That was used as the start point for Market Garden, which promised to encircle the entire 15.Armee and much of the WBN (Wehrmacht occupation forces in the Netherlands), as well as cut the V-2 supply lines and establish bridgeheads across the Rhine delta.
2
That would make Eisenhower a cold blooded butcher of Allied troops, a worse fault than anything Montgomery may have been guilty of. A disgraceful slur on an essentially good man.
2
@stephensmith5982 - I would refer you to 82nd Airborne historian Phil Nordyke's combat history of the 508th PIR - Put Us Down In Hell (2012): Chapter 9: 'Put Us Down In Hell' - Captain Chet Graham was assigned as the regimental liaison officer with division headquarters. "I sat in on a high level briefing at division headquarters. Colonel Lindquist was told by General Gavin to move to the Nijmegen bridge as soon as Lindquist thought practical after the jump. Gavin stressed that speed was important. He was also told to stay out of the city and to avoid city streets. He told Lindquist to use the west farm area to get to the bridge as quickly as possible as the bridge was the key to the division's contribution to the success of the operation." Chapter 10: 'Use Trench Knives and Bayonets' - Receiving information from the patrols that no enemy was between them and their objective at De Ploeg, Captain Adams and Company A increased the pace of the advance. “The march to the objective was (almost) uneventful… Everyone started digging in. Everyone had the idea that the rest of the job would be as easy as it had been up to that point. That was somewhat my own impression and I still believe if we had marched straight to the [highway] bridge [in Nijmegen] we would have had it without a fight.” Captain Ben Delamater, the battalion’s executive officer, got the command post organised. "The regimental commanding officer [Colonel Roy Lindquist], with his radio operator and two Dutch interpreters from the British army soon followed us onto our first objective. The planned defenses were being set up when several civilians wearing arm bands and carrying Underground credentials of some sort told the colonel that the Germans had deserted Nijmegen, that the town and the highway bridge were lightly held. The regimental CO had been instructed that if the initial mission were accomplished to 'go ahead and take the highway bridge if you can.' This division order was perfectly understood in relation to the primary missions and was not a weak, conditional order as might be supposed offhand.” “The regimental and battalion COs then planned to send one platoon of C Company [led by Lieutenant Bob Weaver], plus the S-2 section, plus two light machine gun squads on a reconnaissance patrol to approach the bridge from the south." Captain Chet Graham, the regimental liasion officer with division headquarters, decided to obtain a status of the progress toward the capture of the Nijmegen highway bridge. "I went to the 508th regimental CP and asked Colonel Lindquist when he planned to send the 3rd Battalion to the bridge. His answer was, 'As soon as the DZ is cleared and secured. Tell General Gavin that.' So I went through Indian country to the division CP and relayed Lindquist's message to Gavin. I never saw Gavin so mad. As he climbed into his Jeep, he told me, 'come with me - let's get him moving.' On arriving at the 508th regimental CP, Gavin told Lindquist, 'I told you to move with speed.' " The earlier chapters on Normandy, their first combat operation, have similar incidents involving the command of the Regiment. Ridgway dealt with a dismissal and replacement of the Regiment XO, and when he was promoted to XVIII Airborne Corps, Gavin took over the Division. However, Gavin failed to replace himself as Assistant Division Commander and was running himself ragged doing both jobs during Market Garden. The chain of command was Browning-Gavin-Lindquist. Lindquist had clear instructions from Gavin and failed to carry them out.
2
@lyndoncmp5751 - I think the operation would have been cancelled if the restrictions placed on it were too onerous. It wsn't cancelled and it nearly worked. 1st Airborne, and its descendants in the modern British Army, deeply resent any suggestion it failed at Arnhem. It's like suggesting the 101st Airborne at Bastogne were 'rescued' by Patton! 1st Parachute Brigade controlled access to the bridge and repelled several German attempts to place demolition charges. That's not the opinion of an armchair historian writing in 2023, that's the opinion of the men who were at the bridge, including the Brigade Major, Tony Hibbert, who is on video saying that he still thought they could have passed XXX Corps over the bridge on 21 September until around midday, when they finally ran out of ammunition. They were expected to hold the bridge for two days, and Browning told Montgomery they could hold it for four. They did hold it for four days, so the failure was definitely not 1st Airborne's.
2
@raybarry4307 - don't blame YouTube for putting a line through your text. It's done by using a hyphen immediately before and after the text like this but doesn't happen if you leave spaces like - this - so please check your targets before getting triggered. And you are indeed seriously misinformed. There's a whole school of Montgomery bashing, and it's mostly American and entirely ignorant.
2
The Rhine crossing was deliberately chosen over the opening of Antwerp because it had the potential to end the war sooner. It was also Montgomery's belief that the Canadians could clear the Scheldt on their own (it was in their sector of the front) while he went for the Ruhr (with 2nd Army), and he admitted only with hindsigt after the war that it was a mistaken belief. This puts the lie to the often made charge of hubris. It's not hubris to give your allies too much credit. Quite the reverse. It should be noted that Market Garden was intended to terminate on the Zuider Zee coast at Nunspeet, because the 43rd (Wessex) Infantry Division was to deploy facing the Ijssel - a distributary of the Dutch Rijn - and seize crossing points at Deventer and Zutphen to allow further operations into Germany. You're really across the Rijn in the Netherlands until you are across all the distributaries of the Rhine delta. So, by cutting off all German forces west of the Market Garden corridor, Montgomery would not only have 15.Armee trapped in the pocket but another Army echelon force in the Wehrmacht Befehlshaber Niederlande (WBN - the German occupation forces in the Netherlands) completely sidelined and effectively out of the war. Antwerp took on more urgency after Market Garden had failed to reach its intended target (beyond Arnhem), but would have been next on the agenda and made somewhat easier if Market Garden had succeeded.
2
YouTube obviously object to any condemnation of the H-word. Apparently the wrong side won the war.
2
Deelen was an armed camp with about 2,000 ground personnel still stationed there, protected by a heavy Flak battalion and several batteries of light Flak, and at least two companies from the local army security unit, Sicherungs-Infanterie-Bataillon 908. The 1st Airborne Division did not have the resources for capturing Deelen, it's principle objective was to assist XXX Corps in crossing the Rijn. 1st Parachute Battalion was blocked from accessing the Amsterdamseweg main road, heading for their high ground objectives at Klein Warnsborn (grid 7279) and Valkenhuizen (7580), because the Germans thought they were heading for Deelen and their ground defences went into action on that basis. The road was then patrolled by a substantial column of vehicles from Gräbner's SS-Panzer-Aufklärungs-Abteilung 9, and then subsequently from von Allwörden's SS-Panzerjäger-Abteilung 9 as part of Spindler's kampfgruppe. The airbase was a planned target for 43rd (Wessex) Infantry and Guards Armoured DIvisions, once they crossed the Rijn, and the plan was for the US 878th Airborne Engineer (Aviation) Battalion to be flown in by glider to repair the runways for the air transportable 52nd (Lowland) Infantry Division to be flown in. Relocating the IX Troop Carrier Command Squadrons to the continent would obviously help, but they were engaged full time on transporting supplies to the continent and then the Airborne Army for the operation. Moving house, as anyone who has done it knows, means work stops for the move. Browning's HQ used 38 gliders: - 6 x WACO required for 2 x US Fighter Control Teams and 2 x Comms (82nd and 101st AB Liaison) Teams, and 32 x Horsa required for I Airborne Corps HQ. I take the point, but 70 gliders is incorrect. The second lift requirements for the second half of 2nd Battalion South Staffordshire Regiment to Arnhem were 40 x Horsa and 1 x Hamilcar. My source for the data is Appendices 8 and 9 in Glider Pilots At Arnhem by Mike Peters and Luuk Buist (2009). Incidentally, the 101st Division Liaison Officer and his Comms Team was in the WACO that crashed near Student's HQ at Vught, carrying documents that enabled Student to extrapolate the airlift schedule for the operation.
2
@lyndoncmp5751 - Eisenhower was holding himself in reserve in case the Germans launched a counter-offensive and threatened Paris, or maybe even New York...
2
@lyndoncmp5751 - I just love that script. I had the office in stitches when I used Crapgame's line on the phone one day - "Hey, I've got a little favour to ask you... will you stop crying!!? I haven't even told you what it is yet!"
2
@lyndoncmp5751 - I also appreciate the attention to detail. Dare I say it's because the writer was British? Troy Kennedy Martin (actually from the Isle of Bute in Scotland) was a veteran of early British TV, wrote film The Italian Job (1969), and would later return to TV in the UK for Colditz, The Sweeney and film Sweeney 2 (1978), Z-Cars, Reilly: Ace Of Spies, Edge Of Darkness, Hollywood film Red Heat (1988), and BBC film adaptation of Andy McNab's Bravo Two Zero (1999). I think he does his research before he puts pen to paper! The setting for Kelly's Heroes was during the halt outside Nancy in September 1944, and the uniforms have the correct divisional patch for US 35th Infantry Division. I'm not sure the vehicles are right for the Mechanized Cavalry Reconnaissance Troop of a standard 1944 Infantry Division. The recon elements used M8 Armored Cars and Jeep Sections, with half-tracks and trucks (including 1/4 ton trucks - i.e. Jeeps) in the HQ, AMS (Administration, Mess, and Supply), and Maintenance Sections of the Troop HQ. Kelly's Jeep I noticed had 'RCN 4' on the front fender, indicating the 4th Jeep in the company/troop, so I think it suggests it's in the AMS Section. The 35th Infantry were a National Guard unit from Fort Leavenworth in Kansas and were nicknamed the "Santa Fe Division", they were 'federalized' (became part of the United States Army) in 1940 and 'triangularized' in 1942 to the WW2 establishment. It's possible they did not have regularised reconnaissance vehicles available and had to use old hand-me-downs. The platoon's half-track with the 105mm howitzer gun (not an anti-tank weapon) looks like the T19 based on the White M3 half-track, although the half-tracks themselves are International Harvester M5 models, which were usually exported to allies like the UK, while M3 production was rationalised to US Army service. So it's an odd collection of vehicles. The German Tiger tanks are well known fakes built in Yugoslavia (where the film was made) based on Russian T34 chassis for a Yugoslav film production. The markings include the 'key' Leibstandarte symbol for the schwere SS-Panzer-Abteilung 101 serving under I.SS-Panzerkorps, and turret numbers 112, 113, and 115 indicate tanks 2, 3, and 5, from 1.Zug, 1.Kompanie. The whole movie plot seems to be inspired by a combination of Patton's Hammelburg raid behind enemy lines by Task Force Baum of 4th Armored Division to rescue American POWs (including Patton's son-in-law aviator John K. Waters), and a missing haul of gold from the German Operation Tannenbaum shipments to Swiss banks at the end of the war, both in 1945. It's a great comedy caper (like The Italian Job), but a really fascinating production as well. If you haven't seen it, check out the YouTube video of Don Rickles' hilarious roasting of Clint Eastwood at an awards dinner event.
2
@lyndoncmp5751 - I'm sure you're right about the Kelly's Heroes Tigers and their turret numbers - very similar patterns and other variations used in different units. I haven't read much on the I.SS-Panzerkorps, being all over the II.SS-Panzerkorps, obviously. The story of their Tiger unit is shrouded in mystery, got a few tantalising details from Dieter Stenger's book Panzers East And West (2017), which is a history of 10.SS-Panzer-Divisison. He's a USMC veteran but had a family member on his mother's side serving in 6./SS-Panzer-Regiment 10 and had access to a family photo album. In Holland the Regiment had 16 Mark IV tanks at Vorden, most handed over from 9.SS-Panzer after arrival from Normandy and concentrated in the 5.Kompanie under an officer named Quandel (must do some research to find his full name), and their 4 surviving StuG IIIG assault guns (a hangover from the division originally being raised as a panzergrenadier division in 1943) were concentrated in the 7.Kompanie. The 6.Kompanie was made up of unhorsed crews and logistics troops acting as infantry. When Model supplied 20 new Panthers to the division during the battle of Arnhem (a batch of 8 and another of 12 vehicles), they had no Panther battalion yet, it was still training in Germany with just 5 or 10 tanks between HQ and four companies, new deliveries kept getting diverted to Normandy as replacements to other units, but SS-Panzer-Regiment 9 had 100 unhorsed Panther crewmen formed into an 'Alarm Kompanie' acting as infantry, so they were transferred to the other division and crewed the new Panthers as 8./SS-Panzer-Regiment 10. Several got knocked out in the Elst area on the 'island'. Interesting photos show them finished in plain desert yellow from the factory as the crews had no time to apply green/brown camouflage paint or turret numbers. Another interesting factoid: while the two divisions of the II.SS-Panzerkorps were stationed in towns and villages around the Ijssel River north and east of Arnhem, did you know that SS-Flak-Abteilung 10 was in Ede to the west of the British Airborne landings? It clears up a mystery of which unit owned the Flak wagons that showed up at Drop Zone 'Y' held by the 7th KOSB. Haven't seen that reported anywhere else, although the marketgarden dot com web site order of battle alluded to an SS Flak unit in the area without revealing what they knew about its identity or where it originated from. Didn't realise Clint had inserted the Don Rickles tribute in Thunderbolt and Lightfoot - that was a nice touch. Reminds me of Ross Kemp in Ultimate Force asking his SAS Troop "who shot the TV?" after the Killing House exercise - the TV was showing his soap opera Eastenders at the time!
2
@lyndoncmp5751 - Hey, I got this one! Thanks for the effort - it's a topic right up my street! As I'm sure you know, the 9.SS were entraining for refit in Germany (Siegen) and ordered to hand over their armoured vehicles and heavy weapons to the 10.SS, which would refit in Holland. Most of the Mark IV tanks belonged to 9.SS in Normandy and were initially camped on the Rozendaal golf links (there was a RAD labour camp there with barrack accommodations), just up the road from SS-Panzer-Regiment's staff and workshop companies in the Saksen-Weimarkazerne in north Arnhem. When ordered to hand over equipment, the Mark IV tanks (I think they had about 10 offhand but don't quote me) went to SS-Panzer-Regiment 10 at Vorden, bringing their total to 16 concentrated in 5./SS-Panzer-Regiment 10 under the command of an officer named Quandel. I just looked him up in Dieter Stenger's Panzers East And West (2017) and he was SS-Obersturmführer Hans Quandel, who was commander of 6.Kompanie in Normandy in a Mark IV with turret number 601. Stenger's family connection was to SS-Oberscharführer Westerhoff in tank number 622, who at Arnhem was still in 6.Kompanie, but they had no tanks and acted as an infantry 'alarm kompanie'. One of the things I got from Dieter Stenger's book is that the two divisions were originally raised as panzergrenadier divisions, so only had a StuG Abteilung with StuG IIIG assault guns. When the man with the small mustache ordered several SS divisions to be converted to panzer divisions, the Panzer-Regiment had to be formed from new. I don't know the history of 17.SS, but it may be the same story, the II.Abteilung only had two Kompanies of Mark IV tanks and the other two had the StuGs reorganised from the StuG Abteilung into the 7 and 8.Kompanies of the Regiment. In Holland, the 10.SS had 4 surviving StuGs concentrated in 7.Kompanie. When Model sent 20 new Panthers straight from the factory, they formed 8.Kompanie and crewed by the 100 unhorsed Panther crewmen from the 9.SS-Panzer-Regiment 'alarm kompanie'. 9.SS-Panzer-Regiment did have three surviving Panthers from Normandy, which they kept at Arnhem. I expect they either didn't have to hand them over to the 10.SS because the other division did not yet have their own Panther Abteilung and its logistical support - they were still in training, a slow process because their new deliveries of tanks kept getting diverted to Normandy as replacements, so they only had 5 or 10 tanks to train on until January 1945. I have some information that the three Panthers and possibly the two Flakpanzer IV 'Möbelwagen' belonging to SS-Panzer-Regiment 9 were in the Saksen-Weimar barracks, possibly in the workshops to declare them out of service and avoid handover, until 15 September, when a Dutch resident in a house at the end of Callunastraat on the junction with Heijenoordseweg, received a knock on the door from an SS tank crew asking for milk. They explained they were camped with their vehicles under trees on Heijenoordseweg to avoid the possibility the barracks might be bombed. They went into action on 17 September, losing two Panthers in western Arnhem to 3rd Parachute Battalion (a Gammon bomb and a PIAT), and the two Möbelwagen were very active with Kampfgruppe Spindler on the Dreyenscheweg against 4th Parachute Brigade. Also on 17 September, Quandel's 5.Kompanie with 16 Mark IV tanks officially on the books (I don't know if all of them were operational, but I refer to James Sims later) were expected in Nijmegen as part of Kampfgruppe Reinhold (II./SS-Panzer-Regiment 10), and Reinhold's adjutant could not understand why they hadn't arrived (Retake Arnhem Bridge, Bob Gerritsen and Scott Revell, 2014). The reason was because the Arnhem bridge was now in British hands and the alternative route via the ferry at Pannerden could not take the weight of the Mark IVs. According to Harmel, the first tank onto the raft slid off and into the river, so the tanks had to be held back. Cont...
2
@lyndoncmp5751 - on SS-Flak-Abteilung 10 at Ede, only the 4.Batterie (3.7cm) remained completely intact after Falaise and the withdrawal across the Seine. The Batterie had 3.7cm self-propelled Sd.Kfz.6/2 half-tracks. They were attached to a unit on the Albert canal blocking line at Hasselt - a mysterious 'Kampfgruppe Weiss' under SS-Sturmbannführer Weiss [the schwere.SS-Panzer-Abteilung 102 commander?] with a new battalion of Panthers [really?] and provided defence for a commando operation by Skorzeny [?]. The Flak guns expended their last ammunition shooting up a suspected church tower observation post and three remaining vehicles were sent back to Arnhem [Ede?], while most of the men remained acting as infantry. After the Albert canal line was breached, the surviving men started the long march north to rejoin the division [and the group known as Gruppe Buttlar at Arnhem were a group of 'Frundsbergers' mostly from the 4.Batterie - isn't it nice when some of the dots start to join up?] There were some elements from the 5.Batterie (2cm) that had also returned from Normandy and were collected in the Ede barracks, while survivors of the 8.8cm batteries were collected in Elten (German border east of Pannerden) to reorganize and receive new guns). The 4.Batterie commander was SS-Obersturmführer Gottlob Ellwanger, and the staff [Kompanie?] officer SS-Obersturmführer Karl Rüdele assumed command of the 5.Batterie, which was rebuilt by concentrating the remaining 2cm autocannon from the 8.8cm batteries and from each 14.Kompanie of the Panzergrenadier-Regiments, with many of the guns coming from the Hohenstaufen Division. They were deployed on the Rhine to protect the ferry crossings, which is also a nice bit of information. However, the main problem I have with Stenger's book (Panzers East And West, 2017) is that the timelines are not clear. I can't be sure of exactly what equipment the Flak unit had at Ede after this deployment on the Albert canal, which I had not heard of before, but I am sure they are the source for the equipment that reconnoitred the 7th KOSB positions on the night of 17 September, consisting of SP Flak guns and a vehicle with a searchlight. The good thing about the book is that it is an English language history of the 10.SS-Panzer-Division (so how many of those are there?), and has a lot of interesting photos from the family of Bernhard Westerhoff of 6./SS-Panzer-Regiment 10. The book's cover picture on Amazon is confusingly a post-war picture of an American M60 tank (!), which is not the picture on the cover of my copy - it has a Panzer IV photo from the Westerhoff Archive! Any books by Bob Gerritsen and or Scott Revell on German units at Arnhem are superb and have a wealth of well-researched detail, but they are limited print run books, so you may have to hunt for them. I rely a lot on Paul Meekins Books, a specialist military bookshop - they are very good and often come through with rare books, even old ones in unsold 'new' condition, and their order/despatch is very efficient.
2
@lyndoncmp5751 - sorry, another post!!! Dieter Stenger's narrative on the deployment of 4./SS-Flak-Abteilung 10 was bothering me because I couldn't see in his book how they had an intact batterie after Falaise and the Seine, and then after Belgium only had three 37cm SP guns, so I did some digging to find out what KStN (war establishments) they used in panzergrenadier/panzer divisions in 43/44 and I think it looks like KStN 1712 (fG) 1.6.44 or possibly the earlier 1.5.44 version, and I only have the earlier version anyway (the main difference would be the later 'frei Gliederung' version having the batterie supply trains taken out and concentrated into a battalion supply company, but the weapons platoons should be similar). The structure seems to be 1 platoon of 3.7cm SP, 2 platoons of towed 3.7cm, and 1 platoon of 2cm vierling SP. So that would explain Stenger's narrative of the Albert canal mission, because they sent all the "vehicles" back to Arnhem but he says they left the "guns" behind. That would explain why only 3 x 3.7cm SP guns came back to Arnhem/Ede, and presumably the flakvierling SP wagons as well, so they left the towed 3.7cm guns behind.
2
@lyndoncmp5751 - Hi Lyndon, it's my pleasure. I've already fallen quite a long way down the Market Garden rabbit hole since originally tripping over a schoolfriend's paperback 'film tie-in' edition of Cornelius Ryan's A Bridge Too Far, before the film came out a few months later in cinemas during the Summer holidays. I think the deployment by II.SS-Panzerkorps was probably the most logical, professional steps they could take based on the information available to them and their later orders (Model confirmed Bittrich's initial moves made on his own intitiative). I believe the logic was that 10.SS-Panzer had most of the armour and heavy equipment, so they were assigned the Korps' "schwerpunkt" (point of main effort) at Nijmegen. The Germans (Bittrich and Model) immediately recognised that holding the British advance on the Waal (which is Dutch for "wall" for a reason - it's the main channel of the Dutch Rhine and the Waalbrug at Nijmegen was the largest single span bridge in Europe in 1944) was their best chance and also recognised the reality that the canal defence lines (Wilhelmina and Maas-Waal canals) were lightly held with poor quality troops, and the canals were easily bridged by engineers. It was probably not realistic for II.SS-Panzerkorps to be concerned with operations further south, apart from their own Kampfgruppe on the Belgian border - Kampfgruppe Heinke under command of Division Kampfgruppe Walther (1.Fallschirm-Armee). Situational awareness with reinforcements? I think Model just promised Bittrich reinforcements wherever he could get them (Reserve Army!) and they would be attached as they arrived. They were obviously divided between the twin priorities of the heaviest equipment attached to 10.SS-Panzer at Nijmegen (and Arnhem bridge on their supply line) to counter the British 2nd Army advance, and lighter infantry/security elements could be attached to 9.SS-Panzer with the job of containing the 1st Airborne lodgement, and once isolated, destroyed at leisure. The logical division of forces apparently included Artillerie-Regiment 191 (from 91.Luftlande-Infanterie-Division, the 6.Batterie was famously destroyed at Brecourt Manor by E/506th in Normandy on D-Day), was refitted and stationed on the River Ijssel defence line under construction in Holland, so they were allocated to the 9.SS-Panzer because they had no guns and SS-Artillerie-Regiment 10 was 'over-establishment' after finding an abandoned train carrying 40 brand new 10.5cm leFH 18/40 guns at Arras railway station during the retreat! The armour was also divided between competing priorities, but obviously they wanted the main concentration for the Nijmegen 'schwerpunkt'. Schwere.Panzer-Abteilung 506 was split between 2.Kompanie to 10.SS-Panzer, 3.Kompanie to 9.SS-Panzer, and the staff and 1.Kompanie either held in reserve at Elten (German border) or sent immediately to Aachen to stop the American advance there. In the later stages of operation Garden, Model withdrew 9.Panzer (army not SS) and 116.Panzer-Divisions (both somewhat depleted) from Aachen and attached them to II.SS-Panzerkorps on the Nijmegen 'island'. After 1st Airborne were withdrawn, the 9.SS-Panzer-Division could continue their delayed withdrawal to Germany for refit. Mielke was a training unit, Hummel's kompanie was a 'fire brigade' probably going to the Eastern Front but diverted to Arnhem. All the Panzer-Brigades were designed and outfitted for action on the Eastern Front and (at least) several were diverted to the West instead (111 and 113 faced Patton at Arracourt, I believe). Panzer-Brigade 107 was already heading for Aachen on 15/16 September, but diverted to detrain at Venlo on 18 September and then road-marched to the Nuenen area for operations against the 101st Airborne at Zon. Best online reference for this unit is the 'axishistory' website - they have a detailed breakdown for all you armour enthusiasts! Panzer-Brigade 108 was also diverted and sent to Kleve to fight 82nd Airborne at Nijmegen. They were eventually integrated into 116.Panzer-Division at Arnhem to refit that Division - not as much information on this unit's history, but the equipment would probably be the same as the breakdown on 107, formed at the same time. cont...
2
@lyndoncmp5751 - just looking at Autumn Gale for an answer to your question about schwere Panzerjäger-Abteilung 559 in the period up to 23/24 September. The Jadgpanther (1.Kompanie) were in LXXXVIII.Armeekorps reserve at Turnhout until the planned attack on the Market Garden corridor by 59.Infanterie-Division, aimed at seizing the bridge at Veghel and blowing it up. P.242 - "In addition the Jagdpanther of 559 were to be involved. Once again they were to be deployed in a role for which they were not really designed. At 1830 hours Reinhard ordered Chill to send the three operational Jadgpanther via Tilburg to the southeast of Vught for the planned attack of 22 September. Later 559 reported back that it had four operational Jadgpanther. The order prompted the acting kommandeur of 1.Kompanie, Oberleutnant Seitz, to send in an urgent request to LXXXVIII.Armeekorps that day. He informed Reinhard (LXXXVIII.Armeekorps Kdr] that his company with the forward workshop and a small staff had been deployed at the Ten Aard bridgehead with four operational Jadgpanther while five others were in workshops near Zutphen. He asked to be reunited with the rest of 559 both for tactical and technical reasons. Seitz pointed out that the Belgian-Dutch terrain with its limited visibility was completely unsuitable for the heavy Jagdpanther unless they could operate alongside the more mobile Sturmgeschütze. The Jadgpanther could protect the lighter vehicles from enemy armour while the Sturmgeschütze could provide flank cover. Technically it also made sense, Seitz argued, because the forward workshops could only carry out minor repairs. Effectively this meant that most of the Jadgpanther which were in repair might never make it back to the front because of Allied air superiority. Finally, Seitz said he was out of touch with headquarters which had moved back to Well, a village on the Maas [east side of the river from Venray in the Venlo pocket] almost 100 kilometres to the east of Turnhout. Seitz certainly had a point and 559 would indeed be reunited, just not in the way he had asked for. Since the start of Operation Market Garden the remnants of schwere Panzerjäger-Abteilung 559 had been scattered to the four winds. For a couple of days it seemed as if the unit had gone. Heeresgruppe B reported that '559 has apparently slipped away from Fallschirm.AOK. 1 and the bulk is now concentrated around Wesel'. Thereupon the Heeresgruppe decided to order it in reserve. However, it was soon discovered that this only applied to the two Sturmgeschütz Kompanien which were in Germany and that the Jagdpanther were still with LXXXVIII.Armeekorps west of the Corridor. One measure which Oberst Eichert-Wiersdorff [LXXXVIII.Armeekorps Chef des Generalstabes] took right away was to order the major workshops in Zutphen to move close to the front and set up shop in Baarle-Nassau. They were to take the Jadgpanther and Sturmgeschütze which were under repair along with them and report to LXXXVIII.Armeekorps. Around this time Kopka [Oberleutnant Franz Kopka, 559 Kdr] went to fetch orders from Heeresgruppe B (Generalfeldmarschall Model) in Garath castle near Düsseldorf. There he learned that 559 would be assigned to 15.Armee (Von Zangen) who had his headquarters near Dordrecht. Before seeing von Zangen in Dordrecht Kopka and his staff company travelled back to de Bilt, near Utrecht, where some of the workshops had been located since the unit had arrived in the Netherlands on 2 September." It's complicated! Hope you enjoyed.
2
@lyndoncmp5751 - thanks, my pleasure, as always. Yes, I was trying to make the point that any StuGs or Jadgpanther seen in the Valkenswaard area belonged to 559 and any references to Röstel’s unit in the area is an error. In the 2nd Bn Irish Guards’ War Diary there’s a few interesting entries we can attribute to 559, mostly StuGs: 17 September 1944 - During the breakout - "L/Sjt COWAN, No. 2 Sqn, saw a Self-Propelled gun and knocked it out, made the crew climb on the back of his tank and point out their friends positions, which they did gladly in return, as they thought, for their lives." - Valkenswaard - "A German half-track later drove in - a welcome addition to the 3rd Bn’s transport." - this was the Sdkfz 251/8 Krankenpanzerwagon and Medical Officer belonging to 559 Abteilung Staff Kompanie - they got lost and ran smack into the Guards laager in Valkenswaard with the half-track and a truck and surrendered. 18 September 1944 "The Bns were ready to move behind HOUSEHOLD CAVALRY Sqn, but were delayed until 10.00hrs by the report of one JAGD PANTHER and 2 Self Propelled guns covering the road to AALST. We rang up the Station Master there and he confirmed their presence by the church. The leading Sqn (No. 2) pushed on and saw a Self-Propelled gun just S of AALST which L/Sjt COWAN immediately knocked out." - I believe it was already abandoned. A sketch map of the breakout indicates an SP gun on both sides of the road just north of the Dutch border, so that's probably two StuGs from 559. The later group of Jadpanther and SP guns was a sighting by the leading 2nd HHC unit. I recall from reading (somewhere?) they saw the vehicles pull off the main road into a side road heading East. When the Guards were brought up to deal with them, they only found the one StuG parked on the main road, abandoned. I think that's basically it. These books by Didden and Swarts are excellent - I'm just coming to the end of their new one, The Army That Got Away - The 15.Armee in the Summer of 1944 (2022). It's effectively the prequel to Autumn Gale. A free alternative to buying Autumn Gale, if you haven't already come across it, is Jack Didden's 2012 university thesis on Kampfgruppe Chill that he later expanded into the book. Search for 'Fighting Spirit. Kampfgruppe Chill and the German recovery in the West' and you should find the pdf on the Radboud University Nijmegen repository - you can download it onto your new-fangled personal computer! Take a look at pages 104-105 and the footnote on 105 - this is the 'HG' training Regiment reserve panzer kompanie famously, or infamously, photographed by RAF Spitfire on 12 September north of Arnhem in the Deelerwoud, as they were sent south to Hechtel in Belgium. The Belgium action is described here in this paper, and the aerial photo story is in another free pdf (not sure if I've mentioned it to you before) called 'Arnhem: The Air Reconnaissance Story - Royal Air Force' on the RAF MoD website, and authored by Sebastian Ritchie. Most of the tanks did break down (Browning was right!) and never made it to Belgium, and most were laagered at Wolfswinkel, near Zon, on 17 September, and after they fired on the 506th PIR's parachute drop across the road from their orchard laager, they were pounced on by escorting USAAF Mustangs or Thunderbolts. I think one of their five StuGs was also abandoned, broken down, on the corridor main road somewhere, an early model Ausf.E if I recall, I'm sure it's photographed somewhere in one of Karel Margry's Then And Now volumes. 9 and 116.Panzer-Divisions' attachment to II.SS-Panzerkorps is mentioned in the final chapter of Gerritsen and Revell's Retake Arnhem Bridge (2010), but there's not much information on their makeup. I think I found more details on the interweb. Like the 10.SS-Panzer they fought alongside, they were reduced to kampfgruppen. I see on a quick search that Browns Books (never heard of them before, so don't know if this is reliable) claim to have a copy for £35 - I think that's a bargain if you're up for snapping it up - it's only available for silly money elsewhere. Browns also have Scott Revell's A Few Vital Hours (2013) on SS-Pz.Gren.A-u-E.Btl.16 for £27.50, which looks like the original edition and cover price, also a bargain. I'll leave you to cogitate over those for the weekend!
2
The terrain was easier to defend and unsuited to armoured warfare. Most of the German forces brought to bear against Market Garden were the training and replacement units of the Reserve Army in the Netherlands and western Germany mobilised by the 'Valkyrie Plan' in the first week of September. In using these troops on the front lines in the Autumn of 1944, it further weakened the Field Army in 1945 by starving it of much needed trained replacements.
2
@phillipnagle9651 - and that's exactly why Market Garden was an airborne operation. It was working (at least until it got to Nijmegen) because airborne infantry had secured the choke points (bridges) to allow the tanks to cross the numerous water barriers. It failed when one airborne unit (the 508th PIR at Nijmegen) did not "move with speed" (Gavin's instructions) on its bridge objective. That was an unforced error that had its origins in a command failure that had nothing to do with the terrain, or the route, or any opposition, and had previously manifested in Normandy and not corrected in the meantime before the Holland operation. I refer to Phil Nordyke's combat history of the 508th - Put Us Down In Hell (2012), or Dutch researcher RG Poulussen's two books - Lost At Nijmegen (2011) and Little Sense Of Urgency (2014).
2
'Crapgame' (Don Rickles) in Kelly's Heroes was just the Sergeant!
2
That's funny because I think the exact opposite. In 1999, a British Captain in the Life Guards, now more famous for a pop song ("You're Beautiful") in his second career, questioned the orders of an American General to seize an airport from Russian troops during the NATO peacekeeping mission in Kosovo (former Yugoslavia). His own General Mike Jackson, the American commander's deputy, took up the objection and flatly refused the commander's orders, telling him point blank that he would not have British troops responsible for starting World War III. We love our American cousins as family, but they can be bloody exasperating at times.
2
@ghostinthemachine8243 - I see a pdf called Supply Front the 16th Port Story - about Le Havre and a US Army Transportation Corps unit called the 16th Major Port. It's funny because I'm currently researching the Deutsche Reichsbahn (German Railways) - based off a vague reference to a company of "railway guards" in Nijmegen mentioned in Robert Kershaw's It Never Snows In September (1990) and in some of Hans Den Brok's volumes on the Market Flights (2016-2020) of IX Troop Carrier Command which has photos of US glider pilots guarding DR personnel in the POW cage at Groesbeek. Because the DR were actually classified as combatants under the rules of war, they were treated as prisoners when captured. Anyway, I've been trying to identify these odd rear echelon units in Nijmegen on 17 September when the landings took place and I believe Nijmegen hosted the Lehr-Abteilung (training battalion) for the Chef der Transportwesen Kommando that was based in Venlo. I'm trying to determine how this unit was structured (unable to find a KStN - table of organisation - document) to determine some numbers and weapons, so it's still a work in progress. I'm guessing the Abteilung staff were able to put together a 'company' of army troops to add to Kampfgruppe Hencke, but there were a couple of trains that left Nijmegen, the first escaped unmolested but the second was bazooka'd and the Germans scrambling off the train were rounded up and put in the bag. Seems they were DR personnel they were trying to evacuate to Germany.
2
Because it would have been bombarded from southern side of the estuary. A unit had to be left behind on the south side to ensure both banks were held and the waterway itself was well behind their own lines.
1
@AnthonyBrown12324 - Patton wasn't really an issue during Market Garden. Eisenhower was. Montgomery had his measure on their first meeting - 'Nice chap. No soldier.'
1
There's no evidence Market Garden was betrayed to the Germans. All German sources are clear it was a complete surprise and the evidence that the key bridges at Arnhem and Nijmegen were undefended in the first vital hours is really proof of that.
1
@richardjansen3317 - those divisions were reduced to no more than regimental battlegroups in need of complete refit, and the 9.SS-Panzer were in the process of entraining for refit in Germany with just 'alarm' companies left behnd, another day and they would have been gone as well. The 10.SS-Panzer received most of the available heavy equipment left behind by the 9.SS, and to Bittrich's annoyance were constantly being asked to send combat ready units to the front line in Belgium. The SS units in the eastern Netherlands were billeted in villages and towns between Arnhem-Apeldoorn-Deventer-Ruurlo (reported by the Dutch but only the 9.SS were identified), and that area was chosen because the Germans were building an additional defence line along the Ijssel River, and the SS units were on both sides of the river with the river itself marking the inter-divisional boundary. They were not deployed to defend the Arnhem and Nijmegen bridges, so they were in a race to get there as soon as reports of the Airborne landings reached II.SS-Panzerkorps HQ at Doetinchem. Most of the troops used to defeat Market Garden were the various patchwork of training and replacement units from all over Holland and Germany mobilised under the 'Valkyrie Plan' in the first week of September - there just weren't any frontline combat troops available to meet the inevitable advance of 2nd Army after the Albert canal line had been breached. As I said, no evidence that the Airborne attack was anything but a complete surprise.
1
@richardjansen3317 - just noticed your post about "Carrington-doctrine" - I've never heard of that. We have a Labour opposition that insists on Government ministers resigning if they get a parking ticket. The Ukranians, who are fighting for their lives, cannot understand why we forced Boris Johnson to resign over attending his own birthday party (not really a party - someone brought a cake into the cabinet room) during the Covid lockdown. We don't understand it either. Our politics has completely gone to hell in a handbasket.
1
@richardjansen3317 - no worries.
1
I don't see how. You have to get to the Zuider Zee (now called Ijsselmeer) to cut the German supply lines.
1
Every war is finished by Christmas. Just maybe not the one they first hoped for.
1
@sean640307 - I don't think it was a question of priorities but logical steps. First, Allied Intel knew that II.SS-Panzerkorps with 9., and presumably 10.SS-Panzer-Divisions, were located in the eastern Netherlands to refit. The Dutch resistance had identified panzer troops from the 9.SS and a divisional HQ at Ruurlo, but not which one (it was the 10.SS). The assessment was that they were drawing new tanks from a depot thought to be in the Kleve area (it was actually near Münster) just across the border from Nijmegen, and it even started a silly rumour the Reichswald could be hiding up to 1,000 tanks (Model had less than 100 operational tanks in the whole of Heeresgruppe B). So, the possible threat to 82nd Airborne was that Nijmegen could be hosting a regiment of SS troops (the depleted 10.SS-Panzer-Division was no more than a regimental battlegroup) and there may be panzers laagered in the Reichswald. The Groesbeek ridge, running from a high point behind Groesbeek to another at Berg-en-Dal, was a natural defensive feature, and if it was occupied by German troops it would be a barrier to quickly taking the city of Nijmegen and its bridges. So, Gavin's divisional plan set the Maasbrug at Grave as his first priority because it was on his supply line, so he assigned it to his best regiment - the 504th. The next priorities are where I have problems with Gavin's decisions. The 505th were as experienced as the 504th, and they were given a more defensive role of taking the hill behind Groesbeek (and Ben Vandervoort's battalion went into divisional reserve as soon as they seized it), the alternate rail bridge crossing over the Maas at Mook, clearing the town of Groesbeek itself, and establish part of the divisional perimeter against attacks from the Reichswald. His least experienced regiment, the 508th, were assigned Nijmegen, but their initial objectives had to be points on the intervening Groesbeek ridge at de Hut (2nd Bn), de Ploeg (1st Bn), and Berg-en-Dal (3rd Bn). It's clear from Nordyke's combat history of the 508th (Put Us Down In Hell, 2012) that Gavin stressed speed was important, and if the intial objectives were seized without problems, then the 508th were to send at least one battalion to the highway bridge as soon as possible.The Groessbeek ridge was not more important than the Waal bridges, but it had to be dealt with first, and it could have been a major threat to the success of the operation if it was occupied by the Germans. That mission required aggressive leadership, and the 508th's history in Normandy informs us that was not the case with the 508th. Leadership of the division had also passed from Ridgway to Gavin in the intervening period between Normandy and Market Garden, and Gavin had not replaced himself as Assistant Division Commander either, so I think the correct decision making process for Market Garden fell between a couple of stools.
1
@Bullet-Tooth-Tony- that's bizarre - even for YouTube! I can see all four replies on that thread, but YouTube says there's "2 replies". I'll copy and paste it here as well...
1
@TheImperatorKnight - that quote was from Captain Chester 'Chet' Graham's interview with Phil Nordyke for his combat history of the 508th, Put Us Down In Hell (2012). My entire comment was lifted directly from the book and the parts in quote marks are quoting Chet Graham, who was witness to the divisional briefing and was the unfortunate messenger who had to tell Gavin Lindquist wasn't moving on the bridge, Jonathan Adams of 'A' Company, and Ben Delamater the XO of 1st Battalion. Graham went with Gavin in his Jeep to the 508th CP at the NEBO monastery near de Ploeg and recorded Gavin's words to Lindquist "I told you to move with speed". Why would Gavin be so angry if he expected Lindquist to be dug-in on the ridge? It's clear from Lindquist's interview with Captain Westover after the war and recorded in Poulussen's Lost At Nijmegen that he didn't mention the divisional briefing instructions at all, and only said he was told to move after they were in position on the Groesbeek ridge initial objectives. Captain Ben Delamater, the 1st Battalion XO, in his interview with Nordyke, confirms the briefing instructions with his understanding that, quote "The regimental CO had been instructed that if the initial mission were accomplished to 'go ahead and take the highway bridge if you can.' This division order was perfectly understood in relation to the primary missions and was not a weak, conditional order as might be supposed offhand.” Nordyke does not give any opinions in his book, he tells the story as he finds it, and even records the fact that Ben Delamater and Shields Warren (XO and CO of 1/508th) don't agree on the patrol sent into Nijmegen - Warren says it was Lt. Lee Frigo's S-2 (Intel) Section that went first, followed later by Lt. Weaver's 3rd Platoon of 'C' Company with an LMG Section and an SCR-300 (backpack) radio on the battalion net, while Delamater says Weaver's patrol comprised the S-2 Section as well. There's no doubt the S-2 Scouts led the way, because three of them got to the bridge, while the rest of the patrol got lost in the back streets! Chet Graham's testimony does not start in Market Garden, he was also witness in Normandy to problems with the Regiment's command in their first combat operation. I think this book is the key to understanding the Nijmegen story, but it starts in Normandy! There's also a short passage in Zig Borough's book The 508th Connection (2013) from Trooper Joe Atkins, one of the three Scouts from the S-2 Section that made it to the bridge, proof that the entire Battalion could have grabbed it without a shot being fired if Warren had gone straight to the bridge as Frost had done at Arnhem. The passage is also referenced in Christer Bergström's Arnhem 1944: An Epic Battle Revisited, vols 1 and 2 (2019, 2020), which is how I became aware of it.
1
Actually, it was Don Rickles (as 'Crap Game') in Kelly's Heroes, and Telly Savalas in Battle Of The Bulge (1965) as the tank commander with the black market business on the side.
1
I believe he moved to Versailles on the 15th, but that's not much better. I think he found a nicer house there.
1
@lyndoncmp5751 - aww, that's a 'feature' of YouTube and I have seen it many times before. Despite being a moderator on a music reaction channel, YouTube still didn't appreciate my British sense of humour sometimes, yet it happily allows people to troll the YouTuber, so my fellow moderators and I had to regularly remove some very iffy comments manually for review by the YouTuber's father, who was the man behind the curtain on his daughter's channel. I didn't get an email copy of your reply so it looks like something got caught in their filters. Try avoiding saying things like "Mr H;t1er was a very silly man" and it might get through! With long posts (and being on a PC) I usually 'copy' it and be prepared to 'paste' it again if it fails to stay in the thread, and then edit to change anything that might get caught in the filter and try again. The other trick I use is to write the post in Word first, so the spell checker is helping me with my typos before I paste it on YouTube, and if it doesn't take, I still have the original in Word to try again. Perhaps E10n Mu5k can be persuaded to take over YouTube as well and get that sorted!
1
@lyndoncmp5751 - if it was about the armour... probably Ruzzian hackers in the Kr3m1;n! I think there's a delay after posting before an email copy gets sent, and that doesn't happen if the filter decides to remove the post first, so that's probably what happened. It's probably something quite innocent - I got caught out with a perfectly innocent word in English that turned out to be a derogatory racial slang naughty word in American, so... yeah... go figure!?
1
@lyndoncmp5751 - thank you. I think the answer to your question is that the tanks were needed further south where Montgomery's 21st Army Group with 2,400 tanks needed to be stopped. The Germans couldn't afford the attrition of losing some valuable tanks just getting there, and even after the training company Mielke arrived, they just didn't want to commit too much armour to clearing the Arnhem bridge, and it was clear that Frost was well dug-in with anti-tank weapons. Frost fended off the first armoured elements of Euling's battalion, which had a reduced company in SPWs, so they diverted to the Huissen ferry crossing (I believe only Euling used this crossing because after his battalion passed over it the Dutch ferryman scuttled his vessel). Next up were Brinkmann's armoured cars of SS-Panzer-Aufklärungs-Abteilung 10 from Borculo (near the Division HQ at Ruurlo), and they couldn't dislodge Frost, so they were reinforced with infantry from Knaust, supported with half of Kompanie Mielke (mostly Mark III tanks). The best equipment in Mielke's unit I would guess would be the 6 Mark IV tanks I'm guessing were added to Quandel's 5./SS-Panzer-Regiment 10 to bring it up to a full strength unit of 22, because of James Sim's impressive sighting, and I would bet that long line of tanks had the 14 Tiger I tanks of Kompanie Hummel added to the end of it as well - that would have been a sight to behold at that stage of the war! By the way, only two Tigers of Hummel's unit reached the Arnhem bridge at first, shot up a few buildings in the perimeter and then got a bit shy of the anti-tank rounds coming in and withdrew. All the others all broke down on the road march from the rail head at Bocholt. I believe they were all assembled in Arnhem by the time the seige at the bridge ended and passed over the bridge on 21 September to reinforce the blocking line on the 'island' around Elst. So, I think it was down to orders and priorities. 10-SS-Panzer-Division had the job of stopping XXX Corps, and needed as much armour as possible to do the job, but they also had the responsibility of clearing their own supply line over Arnhem bridge and didn't want to lose any armour to an isolated light infantry unit doing it. That would be my sense of their thinking and I think that would be boxing clever. I do find all the internal politics in these SS Divisions very interesting, and seeing how they managed the situation with the losses and organising the refits is fascinating. I'm absolutely stunned that committing just 14 Challenger II tanks to Ukraine is causing our own Army a logistical problem - we seem to be in the same position as the 10.SS-Panzer, albeit due to Defence Dept cuts and not combat attrition - we can only deploy one company of tanks for Ukraine? I mean... really?
1
@lyndoncmp5751 - Hi there, happy weekend! There are some good discussions on web forums about armour and people do post information they have researched directly from German records, so I always take copies for myself. If you search "9., 116. und 10. ss panzer division" in quotes, you should hit the discussion on Axis History Forum about those divisions in the 'island' counter-attack on 5 October (not: Op 'Market' ended 26 September, Op 'Garden' ended 7 October). Ron Klages posted some returns info for the armoured vehicles the three divisions had on hand, usually dated the first of each month. For the benefit of readers, they include: 9. Panzer-Division on 1 October 1944 Panzer IV = 0 Panzer V=53 Jagdpanzer IV=17 116. Panzer-Division on 1 October 1944 Panzer IV = 16 [includes 3 with I./PR24 attached] Panzer V=56 [includes 28 with I.PR24 attached] Jagdpanzer IV=0 StuG III=11 10. SS Panzer-Division on 5 September 1944 Panzer IV = 16 Panzer V=0 Jagdpanzer IV=21 StuG III=4 10. SS Panzer-Division on 12 October 1944 Panzer IV = 6 Panzer V=15 Jagdpanzer IV=19 StuG III=3 Note the 16 Panzer IV 10.SS-Panzer reported on 5 September, but lost 10 by 12 October, and Röstel had all 21 of his new Jagdpanzer IV vehicles attached to 7.Armee in Limburg and was NOT anywhere near VALKENSWAARD in Brabant. The 15 Panzer V are the survivors of the 20 factory new vehicles Model sent to Arnhem during Market Garden, so circa 5 wrecks in Elst would be about right. By the way, the forum member called 'Revellations' with the Australian flag profile pic is none other than Scott Revell, the Arnhem expert who wrote books Retake Arnhem Bridge and A Few Vital Hours on Knaust and Krafft's units respectively, so these are all serious researchers and not teenage wargamers (like myself in the 1970s). The OP I believe is an Arnhem resident they were trying to help out with a query. I'm not on these forums, they're quite old now, and I know that Ron Klages has since passed. Scott and I have corresponded by email a few times, when his work, reserve army, and family commitments allow. The StuG III caption in Margry is wrong on all counts because Röstel had Jagdpanzer IV, following 1944 Panzer Division Panzerjäger-Abteilung KStN 1106 (fG) and 1149 (fG), not StuG IV, and I think this vehicle was an early model and not the up to date Ausf.G that equipped 2 and 3./schwere.Panzerjäger-Abteilung 559. Margry hadn't taken into account that the 'Hermann Göring' Panzer Kompanie would have used this road on 12 September to get to Hechtel in Belgium, and that was the owner of this older StuG. The only other error I'm aware of in Margry's volumes is another vehicle I believe should NOT be attributed to the 'Hermann Göring' Regiment and that's the Panzer II Ausf.b wreck in Nijmegen. The Regiment never claimed to own such a vehicle as far as I'm aware (I have July and August gliederungen for the unit from the LXXXVIII Korps records, the records for 1.Fallschirm-Armee in September don't exist - the Luftwaffe did too good a job destroying their them at the end of the war), but there was a "Pz II" on the Wehrkreis VI roster for Panzer Kompanie Mielke sent to Arnhem. Autumn Gale leaves me in no doubt that apart from the StuG III (Ausf.E ?) from the HG Regiment, all StuGs in this area are from 559. They attacked or tried to contain the Neerpelt bridgehead ('Joe's Bridge') from both sides of the canal before and after the breakout of XXX Corps on 17 September.
1
@ukaszgrzesik7231 - not at all. Did you know the screenwriter for that film was British? Troy Kennedy Martin. As well as the film The Italian Job (1969), he also wrote for British TV series, notably WW2 POW series Colditz, police series The Sweeney and Z-Cars, the Gulf War SAS TV film Bravo Two Zero (1999), and nuclear conspiracy thriller Edge Of Darkness (2010). You might be forgiven for thinking Kelly's Heroes was merely the British view of corruption in the US Army and not true to life at all.
1
That was correct, but they didn't start V-2 operations until Market Garden was already being planned, but it added to the need to go north to Arnhem instead of east to Wesel, Montgomery's original target for a Rhine crossing.
1