If you are enjoying walking the ground with Jim and Al, please do like our videos and subscribe to the channel. We are so appreciative of all the comments and support. As you were 🫡
It is called ‘the blue hand’ (de blaauwe hand) cause back in the day they used to make cloth in indigo! All the workers that came in for a pint had blue hands. It’s written on e plaque in the arch to the church.
Absolutely love this series . Heavy subject matter , light banter without undermining the men who suffered so much .Really informative and in depth without giving brain ache . Wonderful . :)
Thank you Adrian. This is exactly what we aimed for with the series. We never forget the sacrifices and bravery of these men whilst keeping their stories alive.
I'm walking the ground at the moment with the help of these videos and the maps in "Arnhem Black Tuesday". I went to the Airborne At The Bridge museum, then Oosterbeek War Cemetery for the Remembrance Sunday Service, and after that the Hartenstein Museum. Tomorrow it'll be Son, Gravy (!) and Nijimegen bridges, with a pint at the Blaawe Hand to finish. Oh and the ladies at the Hartenstein are going to get their book buyer to look into getting some copies of "Arnhem Black Tuesday" on sale! Now about that commission... 😉
Tabletop exercises down the pub should be THE method for teaching history. Another great episode, Gents. Thanks for all you are doing to keep the stories alive.
James Holland and Al Murray are fantastic. I hope James Holland write a book about operation Market Garden and the Arnhem book from Al Murray is great.
Fellas, what can I say? I've thoroughly enjoyed both the Normandy episodes and the Dutch ones. Incredibly informative, done with great knowledge, passion, enthusiasm, and humour. But above all, respect for those who were there and fighting towards the goal of Berlin. I've another trip planned for both areas next year, and along with the books you've mentioned ( yep, got yours al, as well as some of james) it's going to be far more meaningful. Thankyou guys, just brilliant. More please!
Living in the area I've grown up with all the stories of Market Garden. It's wonderful to see you make this series. I think your observations are refreshing. These are things I and many people who live here have talked about for a long time. It just seems that there are many historians who live far away are making observations solely based on maps and reports etc. Actually walking the grounds and matching the stories to the locations gives such valuable insights.
You mentioned the bombing of Nijmegen. My great grandfather was there when it happened. He had cycled from his home in Leur to Nijmegen to take the train to Arnhem when the bombers flew over and started bombing the city. He and others took refuge under the train. He was near the back of the train. The front of the train was hit, but luckily he made it out alive. After the bombing he had to move through many dead people to get to his bicycle to be able to get home again. He came home covered in blood, to the horror of my grandmother.
Thank you for sharing this reminder of the horrors faced by citizens. We found the photos of bombed out Nijmegen so hard square with the calm, elegance of the city today.
This has been a terrific series. You are doing a great job letting *us* see the landscape. It's a very difficult thing to do. Also - lots of praise for Black Tuesday which I picked up at Al's signing in Cambridge the other weekend (had no idea you were going to be there so that was a bonus). I remain, like you, baffled by that basic planning error. Even on the maps it seems "obvious". Especially given Montgomery's constant mantra of both balance and overwhelming concentration.
I truly hope that next spring you do more filming for the Rhine crossing and the advance into north western Germany. There's never anyone interested in the capture of Hamburg and the drive into Schleswig-Holstein. I'd love to see it. 😊😊❤❤😊😊
Loving this series. As an American we never really learned that much about Market Garden besides watching, A Bridge Too Far, in history class. So this is really filling in a lot of gaps. If you guys play any video games I'd recommend checking out Squad 44 which has ton of maps set in accurate recreations of the Market Garden battlefields.
It’s a stunningly brilliant yet simple concept - walk the battlefield ! But when told by 2 blokes who not only know their subject inside out but are also clearly good friends, it’s utterly brilliant. I love all the knowledgable insights and map views and how they correspond to observations on the ground. It’s just a shame I have to wait a week between each episode.
I have been an avid watcher since the D-Day series. Enjoyed these videos immensely. Have recently finished a second listen of Al's Black Tuesday audio book. Thank you for writing, and reading such an emotive, brilliant and unfortunately bitterly sad story. Made me respect even more the bravery of the airborne forces.
I just want to say thank you guys, between discovering this and the podcast a few months back I’ve been utterly enthralled with the war again, something I’ve not been since I was in school. The new perspectives and information I’ve learnt from you guys has been fascinating and I can’t wait to keep learning more and understanding this monumental part of our history. Keep up the amazing work! ☺️
Thank you so very much for doing this! There are so many half-baked, confusing documentaries about Market Garden, but you making your points very clear, having great maps at hand with the actual sites to see - that's a thrilling history lesson, once again. Okay, the German point of view is a bit out of focus, but it's complex enough without that perspective already. Very well done!
Nice to see our boys doing us proud. A beer each in around 15 minutes despite all that chatting. So we're on pace for four beers an hour. Outstanding! Just don't try that with anything near 8%
Great series Al and Jim…. You question why the British did not use the first day’s DZ instead of Ginkel Heath on day 2. The simple reason is that the original DZ was being used as a glider LZ on the 18th, Ginkel Heath being less than ideal for gliders and the day 1 zones being somewhat full of gliders already. The only other alternative would have been the Polish zone at Johannahoeve which could have been used by 4th Brigade on the 18th and the Polish gliders on the following day. I don’t know if this was considered as it would certainly have allowed 4th Brigade to link up with the rest of the division more quickly and the KOSB need not then have had to redeploy from Ginkel to Johannahoeve to cover both landings on the 18th and 19th. The only fly in the ointment it seems to me would be the supposed flak concentrations at Arnhem and Deelen which might have been able to come into play
Best series on the tube right now. Goodness knows I’ve watched all the decent war especially WW2 documentaries to death. Thanks guys I’d sure love to have been with you guys throughout the trip thus far. Cheers from across the big pond.
Great stuff, lads. After Arnhem, not too mention the Americans getting bogged down at Metz and the Hurtgen Forest, I think the Allies realised the Germans were no longer retreating.
I covered the area of Market Garden. My Regiment the RCR took over control from the 82Airborne. The trophy for the the Soldier of the year in 3RCR is a Thompson machine gun “borrowed” from the 82.
My Granddad said he was actually here before as part of the scottish rifles now that part has never been confirmed but i beleived him as well i have the news paper clip and his words, "Joe Counter Started off in the Scottish rifles then became a Paratrooper". He and his men were cornered and hid in a brothel and this is his quote "Not for the woman, Just so that they could feed us before we could find a way out." Strange to think you could possibly sat roughly where he was hiding. Much love keep up the good work.
Enjoying this videos. It's great to see two people who are genuinely passionate about the subject matter, and have clearly spent huge amounts of time studying the history. Fascinated to see which ground you cover next!
Hugely informative guys ... Just creating a series of joined wargames on market garden and this is valuable source material. And watching on armistice day ♥️
Absolutely great sceries of videos. So easy to understand and grasp what was going on. Lovely to hear about the Brits in WW2 Normandy and beyond too. I enjoy the American stuff but to have the Britts stuff too is helpful in getting the bigger picture. Thanks - keep it up!
Love this series. I hope you guys are coming to Bastogne later this year. As for Market-Garden, I've always felt it should have been combined with a 2 division amphibious landing somewehere n the north of Holland.
Another brilliant video, keep up the great work. Booked to follow your footsteps early next year, I can't wait, you explain everything so well. Thank you James and Al.
Definitely hook,line and sinkered on your wonderful informative series lads. That pint looked good as well 😊. Thank you for sharing and all the best from Somerset 👍🏻👍🏻🍺🍺💯✨
Thanks James & Al - great series. One question I'm not sure has been raised or answered is 'What if 82nd had been given Arnhem and the British Airborne targeted Nijmegen do you think ther ewould/could have been a different outcome? Would Frost had taken Nijmegen Bridge on the first day? Did the British have to be given Arnhem? Thanks again.
Please do like, subscribe and spread the word! The bigger the community we can create here, the bigger the opportunity we have to do cover more ground which we would absolutely love to do. Thank you for watching!
Fascinating stuff chaps. I have to agree with you, in so much as the more I have studied the circumstances of this Operation, the more I came to the conclusion that it was feasible to achieve the objectives, but for some unforeseen elements of bad luck and a couple of poor decisions. Every plan no matter how executed will start to unravel at the first engagement with the enemy…that is a fact of life., you just need the chips to fall your way which can be the difference between success and failure. This conceivably could have been the much sought after breakthrough for the push into the heart of the Reich. Monty was a man not without his failings, but I do feel he has been unfairly castigated for the failure of the Operation as a whole, when as we’ve seen from this series and continue to see that there is a hell of lot of nuance. The plan certainly had merit in my humble opinion.
Great blog as usual Gent's, and a well deserved beer to ease the throat. Al's mike seemed a bit off today and sounded strange, not sure why.......or was it the Dutch lager 😉
Good job guys. Beers looked good. A few snacks would have been nice. @09:38 Yep well said Al. My wife get fed up with me reading Al's book because I kept saying "Oh no" "Come on" , "No, oh FFS". Great job and everytime as James said I'm looking for them to make it this time.
Had OMG succeeded, there still was no logistical basis to end the war by Christmas. Antwerp wasn’t opened until well into November. Had the follow up of OMG turned west to Rotterdam, it is very unlikely that the Germans left that port intact. With the logistics still coming from Normandy, there simply was no basis to exploit a successful OMG. Stacey’s Victory Campaign quotes Montgomery’s calculations for his logistical needs. It clearly shows some level of creative accounting and wishful thinking.
Agreed, on the other side Arnhem is not far from Krupp Werks in Essen, Ruhr Valley is not quite so close but nowhere near the 400 miles/600km to Normandy.
All true, but at the end of August/ first half of September the Germans were realy on the run and expected the end them selfes too. A succesful Market Garden would have isolated the western part of the Netherlands, defence would have been so much weaker. But I aggree that without Antwerp the push east would have been very very difficult. Still, war is at least 50% psychology, the will to fight and the expectation that you won't die for nothing are so important. In that respect the whole Market Garden operation started 10 days too late.
@@ce17ec Yet even with Antwerp open from November, the total amount of Allied supplies barely increased. It just made the distance from the coast to the source of the front shorter. Anyway, by the time MG started, there was no intention or belief that the war would be over by Xmas.
If anything, all of this highlights the importance of "Red Teaming" a plan. Asking the uncomfortable questions and testing your plan is vital. The responsibility of a commander is to not be fixed by ego (and let's face it there were plenty of egos in the mix). Rushing ahead without thinking that the Germans could muster the ability to respond was naive at best.
Absolutely loved this series. It still boggles my mind that Montgomery, or whoever made the decision, DID NOT tell Urqhart and Gavin about the location of the II SS Panzer Korps. They tell Gavin about a “forces” that may be in the Reichswald but NOT 6-8 miles north of him. Also, not telling Urqhart is criminal, if not just plain wrong. Plans could have been modified. British 1st Airborne may not have been split in three parts. Gavin moves quicker to the Rais Bridge., etc…
Urquhart and Gavin were not cleared to know that II.SS-Panzerkorps had been identified by 'Ultra' code intercepts, because only Montgomery and Dempsey (2nd Army) were cleared to know that Ultra even existed. The main point is that Cornelius Ryan also didn't know about it when he published his book (A bridge Too Far) in the same year Ultra was declassified and made public in FW Winterbotham's book, The Ultra Secret (1974). Many authors have also followed Cornelius Ryan's narrative because it sells books in the huge US market. Montgomery cancelled the original Arnhem operation COMET on 10 September as a result of this intelligence and the still stiff resistance on 2nd Army's immediate front in the Belgian canal zone and the Dutch border. He realised 1st Airborne Division and the Polish Brigade landing at Arnhem-Nijmegen-Grave were not strong enough to deal with the SS units (even in reduced condition from Normandy) and two divisions would be required in this area, and another division was needed to form a corridor between 2nd Army and Grave. When Gavin was told on the evening of 10 September his division was now to land at Nijmegen-Grave for operation MARKET, he went immediately to 1st Airborne Division HQ to see their latest intel and plans they had made for COMET, and saw the Dutch resistance reports on heavy armour in the Reichswald and SS troops in Nijmegen. By 13/14 September the Dutch had identified vehicle insignia for the Hohenstaufen Division (9.SS-Panzer-Division) near Arnhem, and it was presumed the troops in the Nijmegen area may be the 10.SS-Panzer-Division 'Frundsberg', but in fact they had gone to Ruurlo east of Arnhem, where the Dutch had identified Kasteel Ruurlo was a division headquarters - but not which division. The details could not be disseminated to lower formations because the Dutch reports could not be confirmed by other means, such as aerial reconnaissance, and the Ultra source had to be protected. The decision to concentrate 1st Airborne and the Poles at Arnhem was no doubt because of their strong anti-tank establishments, having 84 guns combined, and Model was assessed to have only 50-100 operational panzers in his entire Army Group B. In fact by a bizarre coincidence, his September returns listed exactly 84 operational panzers. The British anti-tank units (such as Major Arnold's 1st Airlanding Anti-Tank Battery supporting 1st Parachute Brigade) were briefed to expect heavy armoured counter-attacks from the first day, and that may include Panther and Tiger tanks - this is code to expect a 1944-type panzer division and a Corps heavy tank battalion respectively, so although specifics and names were removed ("sanitised" in the Ultra vernacular) from the raw intel, it could be passed down on a very restricted need to know basis. Cornelius Ryan wrote that the presence of Bittrich's panzer troops came as a complete surprise to the British Airborne, but only in a sense of the specific identifications, and it also depended on who in 1st Airborne you talked to. In the correspondence between Cornelius Ryan and Gavin in the Cornelius Ryan Collection of his papers held at Ohio State University, there's a cover letter Gavin sent Ryan enclosing some papers by Dutch researcher Colonel TA Boeree, who had tracked the movements of the Hohenstaufen Division on its withdrawal from Belgium, crossing the Maas at Maastricht on 4 September and assembling near Sittard, before receiving orders on 7 September to withdraw to the north of Arnhem for refit. Its route went through Venlo, Gennep, Nijmegen and Arnhem, apparently making a stop in the Reichswald. Only now in 1966 did Gavin suddenly realise the source of the reports of armour in the Reichswald was the Hohenstaufen Division in transit to Arnhem. The real crime was Ryan not including this in his book and instead giving the impression there had been a complete breakdown in Montgomery's intelligence. The operation did not fail for reasons of intelligence, it was actually accurate as far as it went, but incomplete. What was surprising was the speed of II.SS-Panzerkorps' reaction to the landings, and this was because of two measures that Bittrich had underataken. First, he had the ren=mnants of the combat units in the two divisions formed into 'alarm companies' ready to move on an hour's notice. Second, he installed a direct phone line between his Kasteel Slangenburg headquarters and the nearby Luftwaffe FLUKO (air warning command centre) in Doetinchem and his HQ placed on the list of units to be alerted of any unusual air activity. He received a warning call from the FLUKO within half an hour of the airborne landings starting and his units were ready to move in another hour. By the time Model had evacuated his Oosterbeek headquarters and made his way to Bittrich's headquarters at Slangeburg, Bittrich already had his units moving in response and Model approved the orders he had given. This was what Montgomery meant when he wrote in his memoirs that he knew II.SS-Panzerkorps were there, but didn't know they could react so quickly. Your mind was successfully boggled by Cornelius Ryan, and few authors have since put the record straight, but I can recommend Swedish historian Christer Bergström's two volumes as the best update of Cornelius Ryan using unpublished documents and interviews in his own papers and also debunking the many myths in the Hollywood film. Sources: Letter James Gavin, 18 November 1966, box 101, folder 09: James Maurice Gavin page 48, Cornelius Ryan Collection, Ohio State University. Arnhem 1944 - An Epic Battle Revisited vols 1 and 2, Christer Bergström (2019, 2020) The 1st Airlanding Anti-Tank Battery At Arnhem: A-Z Troop volumes, Nigel Simpson, Secander Raisani, Philip Reinders, Geert Massen, Peter Vrolijk, Marcel Zwarts (2020-2022)
We love it there. James Holland's favourite place in Nijmegen. He was mortified on our last trip when we tried to take XXX Corp for a drink and it was closed.
@@WW2WalkingTheGround Well, seems James made up for that during your September trip. I thoroughly enjoy your video and podcast series 'Walking the ground'. And James is right, Dutch beer and ales tend to be a little stronger in the alcohol department. Cheers from the Arnhem/Nijmegen area!
The resistance HQ in Nijmegen that 1st Battalion 508th was due to stop by on their way into town was a hotel on the corner of Molenstraat and Tweede Walstraat, which is now the Pinoccio pizza restaurant. I'm sure they could have had a beer with their pizza... Conveniently, the resistance HQ was just a few doors away from the old civil hospital building that was occupied by the headquarters of the German Ordnungspolizei for the entire Netherlands until they evacuated in a hurry on 17 September, now redeveloped as the Molenpoort shopping centre.
Those of us born in late 60s early 70s it is fascinating the what if market garden had succeeded? The Soviets would have been beaten to Berlin, Cold War may not have happened in the form it did and our childhoods and early adulthood hood could have taken a different unknown path! This is what and why it holds so many what ifs.
Interesting to hear how modern assessments of the viability of the Market Garden plan are more amenable to it's chances of success. I grew uo reading about this stuff as a teenager in the 70's and it was generally judged doomed to fail. Although not representative of anything the old Avalon Hill game Storm Over Arnhem also made out that it was near impossible to succeed as the Allies. Of course we have the benefit of hindsight but once the initial pieces are on the board it's pretty obvious what the plan is. Must have been so for the German command too
Another great episode chaps, yes probably worth a gamble, but the price was maybe to high for me 😢 and feel there was far too many things that could go wrong than right. But certainly makes you think 👍
It's good to hear others have faith that Market Garden was a workable venture. A huge part of its failure has been skirted around on this series up to now i believe. Although you have alluded briefly, in patches, the role of the occupiers was more integral to the downfall of the plan. The allies reluctance to heed the warnings of Brian Urquhart and the others of the intelligence community was a huge faux pas on the part of those in key appointments.
Great series again - I think this one was even better than Normandy. One question I have for the guys - I wonder how much the waiting around for the 2nd drop issue would've been avoided had Browning not insisted on taking over 38 (or is it 35) gliders with his HQ? Seems to me that's a lot of the lift that would've been better purposed for frontline action and would have have been enough to overcome the "waiting for drop 2" inertia?
The I Airborne Corps HQ flight consisted of 32 British Horsa and 6 US Waco gliders, towed by RAF 38 Group Stirlings and Albemarles respectively. This included 14 Horsas for the Corps staff, liaison, SAS, Jedburgh, and other minor units. The remainder of the Horsa allocation I don't have a manifest for, but I imagine it was for the Royal Signals staff, minus a radio section that had to be provided by the US XVIII Airborne Corps. The six Waco gliders carried US liasion officers from their two divisions and two teams from the USAAF 306th Fighter Control Squadron with VHF sets for contacting air support - these were the people with the wrong crystals for their radios due to the haste in forming the unit without proper training or testing - another two teams went to Arnhem. The British I Airborne Corps was not raised as a field Corps HQ but as an administrative GHQ for Airborne Forces lately converted into a Corps HQ, while US XVIII Corps had been an ordinary Army Corps HQ converted into Airborne by simply replacing the senior staff positions with Airborne personnel - notably Matthew Ridgway - the former commander of 82nd Airborne Division. Ridgway had no role in MARKET, but his Corps staff in England were used to coordindate the aerial resupply operations. Browning's decision to move the transport of his Corps HQ to Groesbeek from the originally planned second lift to the first lift was a consequence of decisions made beyond Browning's control: The first was Brereton and Williams' decision to conduct all flights for MARKET in daylight and this restricted the airlifts to one flight per day. This meant the second lift would no longer arrive in the afternoon or early evening of D-Day as Browning proposed, but was now due to arrive in the morning of D+1, unless delayed to the afternoon by weather, which became the case. The second was that this decision on daylight flights ruled out the planned dawn glider coup de main raids on the Arnhem-Nijmegen-Grave bridges, conducted by D Companies of 2nd South Staffords, 7th KOSB, and 1st Border Regiment respectively in 18 gliders, as these raids were deemed too risky for broad daylight. Browning had deemed the raids as so essential that he cabled Dempsey (2nd Army) that the original Arnhem operation COMET should not go ahead without them. Browning sought to have alternative coup de main plans for these big bridges to be taken quickly in MARKET, and Urquhart's solution was to use his Reconnaissance Squadron Jeeps to rush to the bridge as quickly as possible. For Nijmegen, Gavin said in his interview with (A Bridge Too Far) author Cornelius Ryan that the British wanted him to drop a battalion on the northern end of the bridge, and while he toyed with the idea he said he eventually discarded it because of his experience in Sicily with a scattered drop and a division that was disorganised for days. It's interesting that for the Grave bridge, the highly experienced Colonel Reuben Tucker 'insisted' on a special drop zone for one Company to land south of the bridge so it could be taken from both ends, and he got it. All the evidence points to Browning being concerned about the Njmegen bridge and events proved him right to be concerned. I don't think it was 'ego' that drove his decision to take the Corps HQ there on the first lift, because it was originally scheduled to arrive there on the second lift. I think the main motive was his frustration at being unable to influence the planning once it was handed over to Brereton and Williams, and could only hope to influence events once he was on the ground in the Netherlands and wanted that to happen as quickly as possible. Browning had previously objected to a Brereton plan called LINNET II being scheduled too soon to print and distribute maps and Browning threatened to resign if it went ahead. Brereton had planned to accept Browning's resignation as his deputy and replace him with Matthew Ridgway and his US XVIII Airborne Corps for the operation, but LINNET II was fortunately cancelled and both men agreed to forget the incident. The point being that MARKET was out of Browning's hands and he knew what would happen if he objected to the plan. Montgomery's 21st Army Group was also not notified of the changes to the proposed plan that he had presented to Eisenhower for his approval on 10 September until after Brereton's 14 September cut-off date for any further amendments, so unless Eisenhower was prepared to dismiss Brereton and promote Browning to command 1st AAA, it was Brereton's show. As for units that were bumped by the late change to the glider schedule, I presumed for a long time, as many do, that the unit affected was the second half of the South Staffords Airlanding battalion going to Arnhem, because they required another 40 Horsas and a Hamilcar (41 tug aircraft), but since reading the recently published 1st Airlanding Anti-Tank Battery Troop volumes by Nigel Simpson et al (2020-2022), it appears from these and the glider flight schedules in the Appendices of Peters and Buist (2009) that the bumped glider loads were the four guns of Z-Troop (Division HQ defence) and the second line ammunition trailers and Jeeps for the whole 1st Battery, and the Jeep transport for 1st Parachute Brigade. I had even studied what effect taking the whole of the South Staffords to Arnhem on the first lift would have and found it would make little difference, since Brigadier Hicks (standing in for the missing Urquhart) had decided to release the first half of the battalion from its Phase 1 task of protecting LZ 'S' early (they were Brigade reserve in Phase 2) and send them into Arnhem to reinforce 1st Parachute Brigade's efforts to reach the bridge, but by the time they arrived in the western outskirts of Arnhem the delayed second lift had landed and the other two companies had caught up with the battalion. An examination of the 1st Anti-Tank Battery's actions at Arnhem show that they did not lack for ammunition or guns, as German tanks were very wary of British anti-tank guns and avoided known sight lines. Some guns barely fired a round in the entire battle and at the bridge the only form of unexpended ammunition the Germans recovered after the seige was 6-pounder AT rounds - Frost was forced to surrender when they had run out of everything else. I'm convinced that if you're looking for the reasons the operation failed, the answers are not here, but I do think that the much maligned Browning was very concerned with and looking at the right area all along. Sources: Notes on meeting with J.M. Gavin, Boston, January 20, 1967 (box 101 folder 10: James Maurice Gavin, Cornelius Ryan Collection, Ohio State University) Glider Pilots At Arnhem, Mike Peters and Luuk Buist (2009) Arnhem: Myth and Reality: Airborne Warfare, Air Power and the Failure of Operation Market Garden, Sebastian Ritchie (2011, 2019) Little Sense Of Urgency - an operation Market Garden fact book, RG Poulussen (2014) The 1st Airlanding Anti-Tank Battery At Arnhem: A-Z Troop volumes, Nigel Simpson, Secander Raisani, Philip Reinders, Geert Massen, Peter Vrolijk, Marcel Zwarts (2020-2022) Proposed Airborne Assaults in the Liberation of Europe, James Daly (2024)
Al - when you do Cpt McKay RE, and his defence with Sappers at the north end of the bridge at Arnhem. Can I counter that with Cpt Briggs, with his defence of the east side of the north end of the bridge with RAOC-RE-Bde Sigs Platoon, under command of Lt Cairns R Sigs, who held for 3 Days. Especially his radio conversation with Frost which was pivotal to the action: as follows; Captain Briggs: The position is untenable. Can I have your permission to withdraw? Lieutenant-Colonel Frost: If it is untenable you may withdraw to your original position. Captain Briggs: Everything is comfortable. I am now going in with bayonets and grenades. Where he retook the position. Full disclosure - I speak as a former Scaly Back myself
One of my favourite pubs in the Netherlands. Your conversation is quite hard to follow in this episode, much harder than others. Or is it the beer? ;-)
Come on then, we all know that as soon as the camera stopped filming James & Al started an argument/discussion with the school kids about Market Garden. If true - that would have been fun to watch. 😄
My family is from the next major town beyond Arnhem. Hope in your next video you discuss the next step the allies could have taken if the Arnhem assault had worked. Instead my relatives endured another 3-4 months under German occupation with freedom only
If you're talking about Apeldoorn, the plan was for 43rd (Wessex) Infantry Division to deploy between Arnhem and Apeldoorn, with forward brigades establishing deep bridgeheads over the river Ijssel at Deventer and Zutphen, while the attached Dutch Prinses Irene Brigade was to have the honour of liberating Apeldoorn and the Royal Palace at Het Loo. The Guards Armoured Division were to deploy between Apeldoorn and Nunspeet on the Zuider Zee (Ijsselmer) coast, and the 50th (Northumbrian) Infantry Division between Arnhem and a deep bridgehead over the Ijssel at Doesburg. The original planned 1st Airborne Divisional perimeter around Arnhem included the Polish Parachute Brigade forming the eastern sector of the perimeter and included the Ijssel bridges at Westervoort. This line along the Ijssel was the ultimate objective of MARKET GARDEN, as well as the corridor cutting supply lines to the German 15.Armee, 1.Fallschirm-Armee, the WBN (Military Command Netherlands), and the V-2 launch sites in the western Netherlands from their supply lines to Germany, it would provide a base for further operations into Germany once Antwerp was opened and the US 1st Army had made its own Rhine crossing between Bonn and Cologne. There's a copy of a British War Office map on the Vrienden Airborne Museum website showing the final planned dispositions of XXX Corps, on the Bibliotheek page, it is under maps as 'Het operatie plan Market Garden - kaart uit Battlefield tour Royal Engineers 1945'.
Wot, no brewing up on this series yet? Was awaiting methods of instruction part 2 on hexi....😂 but a hugely impressive series and can't wait for 'der Hexenkessel' insights next. Just back from a weekend at Woodhall Spa where 1st Airlanding Brigade were billeted before the operation....sobering indeed how many left and never returned.
@@chrisarnold4709 We’ll hold our hands up and say, honestly, we had intended to brew up in this series. But we soon discovered that it was the end of camping season and there was not a gas canister to be had in any store. Airport security don’t seem keen on us bringing our own Hexis for some reason…
😂 hope you'll then youve re-enacted Alf Roullier's tin bath stew making on I think Sun 24th in Oosterbeek, something that just stood out for me in the book as so focused and normal in what must have been utter carnage - not a laughing matter at all but it would be a great you tube moment!
I've drunk in Arnhem a few times, but never in Nijmegen. In de Blauwre Hand looks worth a visit. Do they have "Chaos in Nijmegen" by The Squats on the jukebox?
That thinking, "What if" and you think about it and hope "this time it could work" is also what is in my mind so many times. In those last 9 months of the war, the destruction of people, military, civilians and people also in the camps was on its peak, both in the west and in the east. The destruction of cities and villages, the future of complete countries would have been different. If only .....
It wasn’t the plan, or the divisions, or the leaders at fault for the failure, it was merely the circumstances that unfolded Lightly armed units with minimal supply and no armour support were never going to be able to hold out for long
The city of Nijmegen was not destroyed by the fighting with Market Garden , but by a USAF bombardement on 22 februari 1944, 7 months earlier ! The bomb fleet could not reach their mission target , sonthey had to drop it elsewhere , to get home to England . With Nijmegen ,just across the border they thought a German city. Over 800 people got killed . Nearly as much as in Rotterdam , but in a 4x smaller city . The same day the cities Arnhem , Enschede and Deventer were also hit by air raids of USAF/RAF .
Fascinating discussion gents. Do you think it’s possible to identify one main reason why Market Garden didn’t work? Apart from Americans needlessly getting bogged down in urban fighting at one point. I always remember the Dirk Bogarde character at the start of the film ( General Browning?) pompously saying at that he shared Monty’s optimism about Market Garden being certain to work, and then backpedaling at the end saying ‘As you know I always thought it was a Bridge too far’. Was it hubris? Did the filmmakers intend for Browning to look slightly buffoonish?
Bogarde was the first actor to be cast and he objected to the script because he knew most of the main characters - he was in the RAF on Dempsey's 2nd Army staff selecting bombing targets from (ironically) aerial photographs. He opted to take the role of Browning instead of passing on the role and having someone play him according to the script, so Bogarde did his best to mitigate the script by playing the character as somewhat conflicted. His performance still upset Browning's widow, the writer Daphne du Maurier. The officers most at fault for the failure of MARKET GARDEN were all American and not portrayed in the film, very cleverly, so that audiences cannot blame people they don't even know existed.
"Do you think it’s possible to identify one main reason why Market Garden didn’t work?" -- I'll have a stab at that. The Allied army was not set up to perform that sort of offensive operation. All the Allied planning for the last two years had been planning for the invasion of France and then the bitter fighting in Normandy. The British army of September 1944 had been optimized for heavy frontal assaults on well-defended enemy positions, preceded by massive artillery and air bombardments. Market Garden required a completely different mentality and planning. The commanders did the best they could, but everything had to be done in a rush and there were plenty of things that could have been planned better. In reality, everything 30 Corps did took longer than it should have because they weren't set up for dynamic offensive operations on a quickly-changing battlefield. The mindset was to stop and wait and plan every time they hit a problem, because that strategy had worked in Normandy.
I think @jrd33 can easily shoot down his own theory by reading about the XXX Corps pursuit across France from the Seine and into Belgium. These advances were better than anything Patton achieved in the entire war and I believe the Guards Armoured Division advance on Brussels on 3 September was a record daily divisional advance that was not broken until the First Gulf War in 1991. 11th Armoured probably could have gone further to Antwerp on the same day, but stopped overnight and made the final advance into Antwerp the next day - the right decision to avoid getting over-extended, because it took the whole day until late evening (4 September) to subdue the German resistance in the city. The Guards' success assured they would be chosen to lead the XXX Corps advance in MARKET GARDEN, while 11th Armoured was to lead VIII Corps on the right flank. MARKET GARDEN was a replacement upgrade of COMET - which was designed as a pursuit operation, but since the German lines had stabilised on the Albert canal and further defence in depth was being prepared on the canal and river lines behind it, MARKET GARDEN developed into more of a set piece assault on a prepared position. XXX Corps (operation GARDEN) moved as fast as they could, dependent as they were on the success of the airborne to secure the bridges (operation MARKET). When they had a clear run from Son to Nijmegen (60 km) on D+2 (19 September), they made the trip in just 2 hours for the armoured cars and about 4 hours for the tanks - that's a better speed than the advance to Brussels two weeks earlier, although not a record because it was over two-thirds of the distance. The holdups were created by the deletion of drop zones for the 101st Airborne south of the Wilhelmina canal at Son to quickly seize the Son-Eindhoven-Aalst bridges and effect a linkup on D-Day (Aalst is just 4 km north of Valkenswaard, where the Guards stopped with an hour of daylight remaining). Also the deletion of glider coup de main assaults on the Arnhem-Nijmegen-Grave bridges, and the rejection by Gavin of an alternative battalion coup de main drop on the northern end of the Nijmegen bridge and assigning his least aggressive and experienced regimental commander to the Nijmegen mission instead. It was also proposed to drop a brigade of 1st Airborne at Elst on the Nijmegen 'island', which would secure the Linge-Wettering drainage canal bridges north of Elst and the main settlement between the two cities of Nijmegen and Arnhem, deleted due to lack of aircraft. The Linge-Wettering canal became the front line for many weeks in October after MARKET GARDEN had failed. If I had to boil down the failure of the operation to one word, I would say 'politics'. To expand on that, MARKET was compromised operationally in the planning by politics within 1st Allied Airborne Army by USAAF officers compromising on the needs of the airborne to be landed close to their objectives in order to protect their own air assets, and then it was compromised tactically on the ground at Nijmegen on D-Day by politics within 82nd Airborne Division. Gavin was quite open about the latter point regarding Colonel Lindquist of the 508th not being someone he could trust in a fight, and on his discarding the Nijmegen bridge battalion drop he said the British wanted in his 1967 interview with Cornelius Ryan for A Bridge Too Far. Ryan misled his readers by omitting this kind of critical information, creating a false impression the planning was all in the hands of the British. The interview is in the Cornelius Ryan Collection of his papers held at Ohio State University and can be read online, box 101, folder 10: James Maurice Gavin.
Another Bear 52 ad coming up. RGP - sterling work on re-framing one of the key reasons for only being 90% successful. Proost. Both Deelen and Volkel were abandoned before MG. Would it have been possible to use either in anyway? Been a great series so far.
Volkel was completely abandoned and only one heavy battery from the Flak defences remained at the time of the operation. Deelen was abandoned by the air units stationed there after a couple of RAF bombing raids and the runways damaged, and they were bombed again during the morning preliminary bombings for MARKET on 17 September, but the Fliegerhorst base units were still there and at least two light Flak batteries, as well as the 3.Jagd-Division headquarters at Schaarsbergen, and the associated 'Teerose' I, II and III radio direction finding and radar installations, were all still present. The heavy Flak-Abteilung 428 at Deelen with 24 x 8.8cm guns had been removed only days before MARKET GARDEN and the batteries were repositioned at the Best and Son bridges on the Wilhelmina canal near Eindhoven. The 4.Batterie with four guns at Son was engaged by the 506th PIR when they took the demolished bridge site, and two detached guns from the battery that were on the northern apporaches of Eindhoven were also taken out by the 506th when they entered the city on 18 September. The control centre of the 3.Jagd-Division in the DIOGENES nightfighter control bunker at Schaarsbergen was in the process of a move to Duisberg in Germany when the landings began and this process was accelerated and the final evacuation of a skeleton staff and destruction of the bunker (internally) was completed on 17 September. After MARKET GARDEN was over I believe Fliegerhorst Deelen was still in use as a storage area for V-1 flying bombs. During the opening hours of the landings at Wolfheze, a scratch force of 90 Luftwaffe signals staff from the 'Teerose' II and III positions under Hauptmann Weber drove to the landing zones and engaged 1st Parachute Battalion as it tried to access the main Amsterdam road into Arnhem, and they were then further delayed by the arrival of SS-Panzer-Aufklärungs-Abteilung 9 from Beekbergen, and Weber withdrew his force to pre-prepared positions at Deelen in accordance with a defence plan to protect the DIOGENES bunker. Deelen also had two ground defence companies from the local security battalion, Sicherungs-Infanterie-Bataillon 908, stationed there, and the 2.Kompanie was later recorded by 1st Airborne Intelligence Section as being used against the Oosterbeek perimeter. Operation MARKET had planned to bring in the US 878th Airborne Engineer Aviation Battalion by glider, which was a unit within 1st Allied Airborne Army, to repair a runway at Deelen in order to bring in two brigades of the British 52nd (Lowland) Infantry Division (air transportable and another 1st AAA unit) to reinforce 1st Airborne Division, after XXX Corps had advanced across the Arnhem bridge, cleared Deelen, and proceeded on to Apeldoorn and the Zuider Zee (Ijsselmeer) coast to complete the operation. The third brigade of 52nd Division was in the XXX Corps column moving up from Belgium behind 43rd (Wessex) and 50th (Northumbrian) Infantry Divisions, but obviously this plan could not be carried out. Some parts of the AFDAG (Airborne Forward Delivery Airfield Group) was flown into the grass airstrip at Keent, west of Grave, which was discovered by a patrol from Grave to be an emergency satellite grass field to Volkel, but not used much by the Germans because the Dutch engineers they used to drain the land to make the strip usable had used their knowledge to make the worst possible job of it. The strip was not too waterlogged in September to be used by the Allies to fly in some Corps units, such as the 1st Airborne Light Anti-Aircraft Battery and to evacuate wounded and 1st Airborne personnel back to England. Operation MARKET ended officially on 26 September not because that was the date of the 1st Airborne evacuation from Oosterbeek as many believe, but because the last flights in support of the operation were conducted on that date from Keent.
I have several questions, I understand delaying a week would have been impractical but a couple of days would have 1) given time to make sure everyone fully understood their objectives. 2) it would have allowed to better plan how 2nd tactical airforce integrated with transport command. 3) who was in charge of transport command? He is not mentioned in Wikipedia
1) not sure if a couple of days would have made a difference with Lindquist - he had been a poor field officer since June in Normandy. The first Field Orders were issued on 13 September and final briefings on 15 and 16 September. Considering 1st Allied Airborne Army commander Lewis Brereton wanted to launch LINNET II on 36 hour's notice without maps to brief the troops, I think MARKET had plenty of time with a week. 2) the problem was 1st Allied Airborne Army did not notify 2nd TAF when the transports were delayed by bad weather in England, and the tactical air support could have flown from Belgium to the Netherlands in clear skies instead of waiting while grounded. Again, this is on Brereton. 3) USAAF Major General Paul Williams was commander of transport forces in 1st Allied Airborne Army and of US IX Troop Carrier Command, he also had RAF 38 and 46 Transport Groups attached. I would add: 4) another day and 9.SS-Panzer-Division 'Hohenstaufen' would have completed its move back to Germany. 5) Horrocks said he didn't like operations that started on a Sunday, as in his experience they were not successful.
Even Cornelius Ryan in the book that gave rise to the popular impression of this battle as "A Bridge Too Far" concedes at the end that for all the blunders, how close they came to success. Out of the two main ideas out there, only Market Garden was worth doing. Patton's lunge into central Germany was insane and would make the looming supply situation worse, not better. For me the big question of Market Garden is this: Why not Walcheren?
Montgomery requested an airborne operation called INFATUATE on Walcheren on 4 September and Brereton rejected this on the grounds of Flak and his fear that his own airmen would drop American paratroopers (this was during the planning for COMET which tied up British and Polish units) into the North Sea or flooded areas of the island. INFATUATE was later revived as an amphibious operation in November.
Why not Walchern? Eisenhower was fixated in gaining a bridgehead over the Rhine and had ordered both Montgomery and Bradley in late August to gain them as soon as possible. Montgomery’s response was Operation Comet which morphed into Market Garden. At the time 21st Army Group had the Canadian Army all along the channel coast fighting to clear ports and other elements pushing against the 15th Army south of the Scheldt,. All of which was in part to help with the delivery of supplies for the 21st Army Group as per the original plan developed prior to Normandy. The 21st Army Group were to be supplied through the channel ports and the US initially through Cherbourg and then the French Atlantic ports in Brittany. The fact the ports in Brittany held out for so long and the destruction of the French transport system and the inability of the allies logistics plan to keep up with where the ground troops were on the ground verses the logistics schedule ( when Market Garden started the allied schedule said it would be May 1945, the logistics were still at September and trying to rebuilt railways etc which is why the red ball express and the British equivalent became key). Eisenhower even said in his memoir that he should have prioritised Antwerp but was fixated on the Rhine. Basically it was all down to resources and priorities. When you have a finite amount of resources in this case divisions and a list of priorities it becomes a huge juggling act and Eisenhower as the Allied Land Forces Commander a role (he took on as well as being Supreme Allied Commander) from Montgomery on 31st August was the juggler.
The Germans were very good in “mission command”. This is where initiative is encouraged by lower command such as junior officers and NCOs. This is especially more important when orders from staff level is slow to come down especially when at staff level they need time to understand what was going on and this would have been the case during the initial parachute landings. Had, the operation been against the Italian army (hypothetical scenario), Market Garden although poorly planned would have succeeded.
If history was taught in schools the way that you both explain and present it then god only knows the kids would be better educated, why... because they would be interested and really drawn in. You should go on a national school tour!!
If you are enjoying walking the ground with Jim and Al, please do like our videos and subscribe to the channel. We are so appreciative of all the comments and support. As you were 🫡
It is called ‘the blue hand’ (de blaauwe hand) cause back in the day they used to make cloth in indigo! All the workers that came in for a pint had blue hands. It’s written on e plaque in the arch to the church.
Absolutely love this series . Heavy subject matter , light banter without undermining the men who suffered so much .Really informative and in depth without giving brain ache . Wonderful . :)
Thank you Adrian. This is exactly what we aimed for with the series. We never forget the sacrifices and bravery of these men whilst keeping their stories alive.
Couldn’t agree more…
I'm walking the ground at the moment with the help of these videos and the maps in "Arnhem Black Tuesday". I went to the Airborne At The Bridge museum, then Oosterbeek War Cemetery for the Remembrance Sunday Service, and after that the Hartenstein Museum. Tomorrow it'll be Son, Gravy (!) and Nijimegen bridges, with a pint at the Blaawe Hand to finish.
Oh and the ladies at the Hartenstein are going to get their book buyer to look into getting some copies of "Arnhem Black Tuesday" on sale! Now about that commission... 😉
@@enright13 THANK YOU!
Tabletop exercises down the pub should be THE method for teaching history. Another great episode, Gents. Thanks for all you are doing to keep the stories alive.
James Holland and Al Murray are fantastic. I hope James Holland write a book about operation Market Garden and the Arnhem book from Al Murray is great.
Fellas, what can I say? I've thoroughly enjoyed both the Normandy episodes and the Dutch ones. Incredibly informative, done with great knowledge, passion, enthusiasm, and humour. But above all, respect for those who were there and fighting towards the goal of Berlin. I've another trip planned for both areas next year, and along with the books you've mentioned ( yep, got yours al, as well as some of james) it's going to be far more meaningful. Thankyou guys, just brilliant. More please!
@@pauljane3323 Thanks very much Paul.
I wish my dad were around. He joined the Paras as an 18 year old in 1944. Brilliant series, thank you.
Living in the area I've grown up with all the stories of Market Garden. It's wonderful to see you make this series. I think your observations are refreshing. These are things I and many people who live here have talked about for a long time. It just seems that there are many historians who live far away are making observations solely based on maps and reports etc. Actually walking the grounds and matching the stories to the locations gives such valuable insights.
This series has rapidly become my favourite channel on UA-cam - I really hope to see Al and James don Pub Landlord blazers for their next pub visit!
You mentioned the bombing of Nijmegen. My great grandfather was there when it happened. He had cycled from his home in Leur to Nijmegen to take the train to Arnhem when the bombers flew over and started bombing the city. He and others took refuge under the train. He was near the back of the train. The front of the train was hit, but luckily he made it out alive. After the bombing he had to move through many dead people to get to his bicycle to be able to get home again. He came home covered in blood, to the horror of my grandmother.
Thank you for sharing this reminder of the horrors faced by citizens. We found the photos of bombed out Nijmegen so hard square with the calm, elegance of the city today.
Nothing like walking the ground and, at the same time, discussing all the issues to get a feel for the fighting. Thanks
This has been a terrific series. You are doing a great job letting *us* see the landscape. It's a very difficult thing to do.
Also - lots of praise for Black Tuesday which I picked up at Al's signing in Cambridge the other weekend (had no idea you were going to be there so that was a bonus).
I remain, like you, baffled by that basic planning error. Even on the maps it seems "obvious". Especially given Montgomery's constant mantra of both balance and overwhelming concentration.
I truly hope that next spring you do more filming for the Rhine crossing and the advance into north western Germany. There's never anyone interested in the capture of Hamburg and the drive into Schleswig-Holstein. I'd love to see it. 😊😊❤❤😊😊
I think the way you have told the stories has been so much better than a lot of other documentaries. Seems far more real
Loving this series. As an American we never really learned that much about Market Garden besides watching, A Bridge Too Far, in history class. So this is really filling in a lot of gaps.
If you guys play any video games I'd recommend checking out Squad 44 which has ton of maps set in accurate recreations of the Market Garden battlefields.
Thank you for watching. - so glad you’re enjoying the series. Will check out Squad 44!
It’s a stunningly brilliant yet simple concept - walk the battlefield ! But when told by 2 blokes who not only know their subject inside out but are also clearly good friends, it’s utterly brilliant. I love all the knowledgable insights and map views and how they correspond to observations on the ground. It’s just a shame I have to wait a week between each episode.
I have been an avid watcher since the D-Day series. Enjoyed these videos immensely. Have recently finished a second listen of Al's Black Tuesday audio book. Thank you for writing, and reading such an emotive, brilliant and unfortunately bitterly sad story. Made me respect even more the bravery of the airborne forces.
I just want to say thank you guys, between discovering this and the podcast a few months back I’ve been utterly enthralled with the war again, something I’ve not been since I was in school. The new perspectives and information I’ve learnt from you guys has been fascinating and I can’t wait to keep learning more and understanding this monumental part of our history. Keep up the amazing work! ☺️
Thank you so very much for doing this! There are so many half-baked, confusing documentaries about Market Garden, but you making your points very clear, having great maps at hand with the actual sites to see - that's a thrilling history lesson, once again. Okay, the German point of view is a bit out of focus, but it's complex enough without that perspective already. Very well done!
I love this guys, it feels like you're a couple of old friends of mine talking about military history.
Nice to see our boys doing us proud. A beer each in around 15 minutes despite all that chatting.
So we're on pace for four beers an hour. Outstanding!
Just don't try that with anything near 8%
Great series Al and Jim…. You question why the British did not use the first day’s DZ instead of Ginkel Heath on day 2. The simple reason is that the original DZ was being used as a glider LZ on the 18th, Ginkel Heath being less than ideal for gliders and the day 1 zones being somewhat full of gliders already. The only other alternative would have been the Polish zone at Johannahoeve which could have been used by 4th Brigade on the 18th and the Polish gliders on the following day. I don’t know if this was considered as it would certainly have allowed 4th Brigade to link up with the rest of the division more quickly and the KOSB need not then have had to redeploy from Ginkel to Johannahoeve to cover both landings on the 18th and 19th. The only fly in the ointment it seems to me would be the supposed flak concentrations at Arnhem and Deelen which might have been able to come into play
Love these 2 and the information they provide . Keep up the great work. 🙂🙂
I could listen to you guys for hours and hours. Great show.
Best series on the tube right now. Goodness knows I’ve watched all the decent war especially WW2 documentaries to death. Thanks guys I’d sure love to have been with you guys throughout the trip thus far. Cheers from across the big pond.
Thank you for the kind words! And thank you for watching!
I think your perspective is totally valid,plus it's two knowledgable blokes ,having a pint 😉👍
Nothing beats walking the ground… thanks for allowing us to tag along
Great stuff, lads. After Arnhem, not too mention the Americans getting bogged down at Metz and the Hurtgen Forest, I think the Allies realised the Germans were no longer retreating.
This series has been thoroughly enjoyable. Way way better than I expected, & in that the vids work really well!
I covered the area of Market Garden. My Regiment the RCR took over control from the 82Airborne. The trophy for the the Soldier of the year in 3RCR is a Thompson machine gun “borrowed” from the 82.
The best podcasts are like overhearing an interesting conversation in a pub. End of.
Love these episodes guys
Thank you! Please spread the word!
My Granddad said he was actually here before as part of the scottish rifles now that part has never been confirmed but i beleived him as well i have the news paper clip and his words, "Joe Counter Started off in the Scottish rifles then became a Paratrooper". He and his men were cornered and hid in a brothel and this is his quote "Not for the woman, Just so that they could feed us before we could find a way out." Strange to think you could possibly sat roughly where he was hiding. Much love keep up the good work.
Enjoying this videos. It's great to see two people who are genuinely passionate about the subject matter, and have clearly spent huge amounts of time studying the history. Fascinated to see which ground you cover next!
You guys are the best! Keep the vids coming ;)
What a fantastic series this is guys , you both make it so fascinating to watch , keep it going 👍🏻👍🏻🙌🏻
Absolutely fantastic video, enjoyable and informative.
Can’t wait for the next instalment.
Amazing series gents! Its inspired me to plan and book a trip to Normandy for that first time, can’t wait!
I’m quite sure that in one of the other 10 time lines in the universe, Market Garden WAS a success!
Fantastic series guys, absolutely love the way you guys walk the ground 👍👍
“He’s Jumpin’ Jim Gavin not Walkin’ Jim Gavin!” Bloody brilliant as always.
Hugely informative guys ... Just creating a series of joined wargames on market garden and this is valuable source material. And watching on armistice day ♥️
Guys check the 1943 US Army map of Nijmegen www.loc.gov/resource/g6000m.gct00040/?sp=37
Excellent channel so informative and interesting and respectful thank so much 😊for
Absolutely great sceries of videos. So easy to understand and grasp what was going on. Lovely to hear about the Brits in WW2 Normandy and beyond too. I enjoy the American stuff but to have the Britts stuff too is helpful in getting the bigger picture. Thanks - keep it up!
Paddy's ghost looks up from his pint of black, and mumbles, "We weren't fecking Brits, we were Limeys".
Love this series. I hope you guys are coming to Bastogne later this year.
As for Market-Garden, I've always felt it should have been combined with a 2 division amphibious landing somewehere n the north of Holland.
Another brilliant video, keep up the great work. Booked to follow your footsteps early next year, I can't wait, you explain everything so well. Thank you James and Al.
At Site Hillman I met the team from a Dutch WW2 podcast called Radio Orange. Great chance meeting.
Definitely hook,line and sinkered on your wonderful informative series lads. That pint looked good as well 😊. Thank you for sharing and all the best from Somerset 👍🏻👍🏻🍺🍺💯✨
Top job guys really loved the series..... what a great job to have
“He’s not ‘Walking Jim Gavin’!” Love it! Would love to have a beer and chat with you two…. Perhaps over Belgian Beers?
Excellent guys
Thanks James & Al - great series. One question I'm not sure has been raised or answered is 'What if 82nd had been given Arnhem and the British Airborne targeted Nijmegen do you think ther ewould/could have been a different outcome? Would Frost had taken Nijmegen Bridge on the first day? Did the British have to be given Arnhem? Thanks again.
And I guess then that the better division commander-Gavin over Urqhuart- would have also held Arnhem in this scenario.
These series are fantastic.. I hope you guys do more..please cover more theatres ✌️
Please do like, subscribe and spread the word! The bigger the community we can create here, the bigger the opportunity we have to do cover more ground which we would absolutely love to do. Thank you for watching!
Love the series guys they are just the best. 👍
Fascinating stuff chaps. I have to agree with you, in so much as the more I have studied the circumstances of this Operation, the more I came to the conclusion that it was feasible to achieve the objectives, but for some unforeseen elements of bad luck and a couple of poor decisions. Every plan no matter how executed will start to unravel at the first engagement with the enemy…that is a fact of life., you just need the chips to fall your way which can be the difference between success and failure. This conceivably could have been the much sought after breakthrough for the push into the heart of the Reich. Monty was a man not without his failings, but I do feel he has been unfairly castigated for the failure of the Operation as a whole, when as we’ve seen from this series and continue to see that there is a hell of lot of nuance. The plan certainly had merit in my humble opinion.
Great blog as usual Gent's, and a well deserved beer to ease the throat. Al's mike seemed a bit off today and sounded strange, not sure why.......or was it the Dutch lager 😉
We were having to work with back up equipment for this episode. But don't worry -- just a one-off!
@@WW2WalkingTheGround Thank you, that explains it.
This lager is strong, the chat is one pint off Ultra cypher strength😂
Love the whole series by the way
Most of their strong beers aren't lagers, they are ales.
Fascinating and entertaining episode
Really good video mate can't wait for the next one
Good job guys. Beers looked good. A few snacks would have been nice. @09:38 Yep well said Al. My wife get fed up with me reading Al's book because I kept saying "Oh no" "Come on" , "No, oh FFS". Great job and everytime as James said I'm looking for them to make it this time.
Had OMG succeeded, there still was no logistical basis to end the war by Christmas. Antwerp wasn’t opened until well into November. Had the follow up of OMG turned west to Rotterdam, it is very unlikely that the Germans left that port intact. With the logistics still coming from Normandy, there simply was no basis to exploit a successful OMG. Stacey’s Victory Campaign quotes Montgomery’s calculations for his logistical needs. It clearly shows some level of creative accounting and wishful thinking.
Agreed, on the other side Arnhem is not far from Krupp Werks in Essen, Ruhr Valley is not quite so close but nowhere near the 400 miles/600km to Normandy.
All true, but at the end of August/ first half of September the Germans were realy on the run and expected the end them selfes too. A succesful Market Garden would have isolated the western part of the Netherlands, defence would have been so much weaker. But I aggree that without Antwerp the push east would have been very very difficult. Still, war is at least 50% psychology, the will to fight and the expectation that you won't die for nothing are so important. In that respect the whole Market Garden operation started 10 days too late.
@@ce17ec Yet even with Antwerp open from November, the total amount of Allied supplies barely increased. It just made the distance from the coast to the source of the front shorter. Anyway, by the time MG started, there was no intention or belief that the war would be over by Xmas.
If anything, all of this highlights the importance of "Red Teaming" a plan. Asking the uncomfortable questions and testing your plan is vital. The responsibility of a commander is to not be fixed by ego (and let's face it there were plenty of egos in the mix). Rushing ahead without thinking that the Germans could muster the ability to respond was naive at best.
Those beers look sooo good
Cheers! 🍻
was a good one again in the oldest pub from Nijmegen, up to Arnhem
When its time to leave the pub I always have the last one for the ditch.
Thank you
Absolutely loved this series. It still boggles my mind that Montgomery, or whoever made the decision, DID NOT tell Urqhart and Gavin about the location of the II SS Panzer Korps. They tell Gavin about a “forces” that may be in the Reichswald but NOT 6-8 miles north of him. Also, not telling Urqhart is criminal, if not just plain wrong. Plans could have been modified. British 1st Airborne may not have been split in three parts. Gavin moves quicker to the Rais Bridge., etc…
Urquhart and Gavin were not cleared to know that II.SS-Panzerkorps had been identified by 'Ultra' code intercepts, because only Montgomery and Dempsey (2nd Army) were cleared to know that Ultra even existed. The main point is that Cornelius Ryan also didn't know about it when he published his book (A bridge Too Far) in the same year Ultra was declassified and made public in FW Winterbotham's book, The Ultra Secret (1974). Many authors have also followed Cornelius Ryan's narrative because it sells books in the huge US market.
Montgomery cancelled the original Arnhem operation COMET on 10 September as a result of this intelligence and the still stiff resistance on 2nd Army's immediate front in the Belgian canal zone and the Dutch border. He realised 1st Airborne Division and the Polish Brigade landing at Arnhem-Nijmegen-Grave were not strong enough to deal with the SS units (even in reduced condition from Normandy) and two divisions would be required in this area, and another division was needed to form a corridor between 2nd Army and Grave.
When Gavin was told on the evening of 10 September his division was now to land at Nijmegen-Grave for operation MARKET, he went immediately to 1st Airborne Division HQ to see their latest intel and plans they had made for COMET, and saw the Dutch resistance reports on heavy armour in the Reichswald and SS troops in Nijmegen. By 13/14 September the Dutch had identified vehicle insignia for the Hohenstaufen Division (9.SS-Panzer-Division) near Arnhem, and it was presumed the troops in the Nijmegen area may be the 10.SS-Panzer-Division 'Frundsberg', but in fact they had gone to Ruurlo east of Arnhem, where the Dutch had identified Kasteel Ruurlo was a division headquarters - but not which division.
The details could not be disseminated to lower formations because the Dutch reports could not be confirmed by other means, such as aerial reconnaissance, and the Ultra source had to be protected. The decision to concentrate 1st Airborne and the Poles at Arnhem was no doubt because of their strong anti-tank establishments, having 84 guns combined, and Model was assessed to have only 50-100 operational panzers in his entire Army Group B. In fact by a bizarre coincidence, his September returns listed exactly 84 operational panzers. The British anti-tank units (such as Major Arnold's 1st Airlanding Anti-Tank Battery supporting 1st Parachute Brigade) were briefed to expect heavy armoured counter-attacks from the first day, and that may include Panther and Tiger tanks - this is code to expect a 1944-type panzer division and a Corps heavy tank battalion respectively, so although specifics and names were removed ("sanitised" in the Ultra vernacular) from the raw intel, it could be passed down on a very restricted need to know basis. Cornelius Ryan wrote that the presence of Bittrich's panzer troops came as a complete surprise to the British Airborne, but only in a sense of the specific identifications, and it also depended on who in 1st Airborne you talked to.
In the correspondence between Cornelius Ryan and Gavin in the Cornelius Ryan Collection of his papers held at Ohio State University, there's a cover letter Gavin sent Ryan enclosing some papers by Dutch researcher Colonel TA Boeree, who had tracked the movements of the Hohenstaufen Division on its withdrawal from Belgium, crossing the Maas at Maastricht on 4 September and assembling near Sittard, before receiving orders on 7 September to withdraw to the north of Arnhem for refit. Its route went through Venlo, Gennep, Nijmegen and Arnhem, apparently making a stop in the Reichswald. Only now in 1966 did Gavin suddenly realise the source of the reports of armour in the Reichswald was the Hohenstaufen Division in transit to Arnhem. The real crime was Ryan not including this in his book and instead giving the impression there had been a complete breakdown in Montgomery's intelligence.
The operation did not fail for reasons of intelligence, it was actually accurate as far as it went, but incomplete.
What was surprising was the speed of II.SS-Panzerkorps' reaction to the landings, and this was because of two measures that Bittrich had underataken. First, he had the ren=mnants of the combat units in the two divisions formed into 'alarm companies' ready to move on an hour's notice. Second, he installed a direct phone line between his Kasteel Slangenburg headquarters and the nearby Luftwaffe FLUKO (air warning command centre) in Doetinchem and his HQ placed on the list of units to be alerted of any unusual air activity. He received a warning call from the FLUKO within half an hour of the airborne landings starting and his units were ready to move in another hour. By the time Model had evacuated his Oosterbeek headquarters and made his way to Bittrich's headquarters at Slangeburg, Bittrich already had his units moving in response and Model approved the orders he had given.
This was what Montgomery meant when he wrote in his memoirs that he knew II.SS-Panzerkorps were there, but didn't know they could react so quickly. Your mind was successfully boggled by Cornelius Ryan, and few authors have since put the record straight, but I can recommend Swedish historian Christer Bergström's two volumes as the best update of Cornelius Ryan using unpublished documents and interviews in his own papers and also debunking the many myths in the Hollywood film.
Sources:
Letter James Gavin, 18 November 1966, box 101, folder 09: James Maurice Gavin page 48, Cornelius Ryan Collection, Ohio State University.
Arnhem 1944 - An Epic Battle Revisited vols 1 and 2, Christer Bergström (2019, 2020)
The 1st Airlanding Anti-Tank Battery At Arnhem: A-Z Troop volumes, Nigel Simpson, Secander Raisani, Philip Reinders, Geert Massen, Peter Vrolijk, Marcel Zwarts (2020-2022)
They were definitely a bit pissed there. I'm not imagining that am I?
Poetry in motion - MORE MORE MORE 👍👍
"In de Blauwe Hand' is probably the famous cafe in Nijmegen. Great place to be. I spent quite some evenings there when I studied in Nijmegen.
We love it there. James Holland's favourite place in Nijmegen. He was mortified on our last trip when we tried to take XXX Corp for a drink and it was closed.
@@WW2WalkingTheGround Well, seems James made up for that during your September trip. I thoroughly enjoy your video and podcast series 'Walking the ground'. And James is right, Dutch beer and ales tend to be a little stronger in the alcohol department. Cheers from the Arnhem/Nijmegen area!
The resistance HQ in Nijmegen that 1st Battalion 508th was due to stop by on their way into town was a hotel on the corner of Molenstraat and Tweede Walstraat, which is now the Pinoccio pizza restaurant. I'm sure they could have had a beer with their pizza...
Conveniently, the resistance HQ was just a few doors away from the old civil hospital building that was occupied by the headquarters of the German Ordnungspolizei for the entire Netherlands until they evacuated in a hurry on 17 September, now redeveloped as the Molenpoort shopping centre.
Just wondering if you stayed for a second beer and carried on the conversation! Great series so far
Those of us born in late 60s early 70s it is fascinating the what if market garden had succeeded? The Soviets would have been beaten to Berlin, Cold War may not have happened in the form it did and our childhoods and early adulthood hood could have taken a different unknown path! This is what and why it holds so many what ifs.
Cracking stuff lads
Interesting to hear how modern assessments of the viability of the Market Garden plan are more amenable to it's chances of success. I grew uo reading about this stuff as a teenager in the 70's and it was generally judged doomed to fail.
Although not representative of anything the old Avalon Hill game Storm Over Arnhem also made out that it was near impossible to succeed as the Allies. Of course we have the benefit of hindsight but once the initial pieces are on the board it's pretty obvious what the plan is. Must have been so for the German command too
Another great episode chaps, yes probably worth a gamble, but the price was maybe to high for me 😢 and feel there was far too many things that could go wrong than right. But certainly makes you think 👍
It's good to hear others have faith that Market Garden was a workable venture. A huge part of its failure has been skirted around on this series up to now i believe. Although you have alluded briefly, in patches, the role of the occupiers was more integral to the downfall of the plan. The allies reluctance to heed the warnings of Brian Urquhart and the others of the intelligence community was a huge faux pas on the part of those in key appointments.
Great series again - I think this one was even better than Normandy. One question I have for the guys - I wonder how much the waiting around for the 2nd drop issue would've been avoided had Browning not insisted on taking over 38 (or is it 35) gliders with his HQ? Seems to me that's a lot of the lift that would've been better purposed for frontline action and would have have been enough to overcome the "waiting for drop 2" inertia?
The I Airborne Corps HQ flight consisted of 32 British Horsa and 6 US Waco gliders, towed by RAF 38 Group Stirlings and Albemarles respectively. This included 14 Horsas for the Corps staff, liaison, SAS, Jedburgh, and other minor units. The remainder of the Horsa allocation I don't have a manifest for, but I imagine it was for the Royal Signals staff, minus a radio section that had to be provided by the US XVIII Airborne Corps. The six Waco gliders carried US liasion officers from their two divisions and two teams from the USAAF 306th Fighter Control Squadron with VHF sets for contacting air support - these were the people with the wrong crystals for their radios due to the haste in forming the unit without proper training or testing - another two teams went to Arnhem. The British I Airborne Corps was not raised as a field Corps HQ but as an administrative GHQ for Airborne Forces lately converted into a Corps HQ, while US XVIII Corps had been an ordinary Army Corps HQ converted into Airborne by simply replacing the senior staff positions with Airborne personnel - notably Matthew Ridgway - the former commander of 82nd Airborne Division. Ridgway had no role in MARKET, but his Corps staff in England were used to coordindate the aerial resupply operations.
Browning's decision to move the transport of his Corps HQ to Groesbeek from the originally planned second lift to the first lift was a consequence of decisions made beyond Browning's control:
The first was Brereton and Williams' decision to conduct all flights for MARKET in daylight and this restricted the airlifts to one flight per day. This meant the second lift would no longer arrive in the afternoon or early evening of D-Day as Browning proposed, but was now due to arrive in the morning of D+1, unless delayed to the afternoon by weather, which became the case.
The second was that this decision on daylight flights ruled out the planned dawn glider coup de main raids on the Arnhem-Nijmegen-Grave bridges, conducted by D Companies of 2nd South Staffords, 7th KOSB, and 1st Border Regiment respectively in 18 gliders, as these raids were deemed too risky for broad daylight. Browning had deemed the raids as so essential that he cabled Dempsey (2nd Army) that the original Arnhem operation COMET should not go ahead without them. Browning sought to have alternative coup de main plans for these big bridges to be taken quickly in MARKET, and Urquhart's solution was to use his Reconnaissance Squadron Jeeps to rush to the bridge as quickly as possible. For Nijmegen, Gavin said in his interview with (A Bridge Too Far) author Cornelius Ryan that the British wanted him to drop a battalion on the northern end of the bridge, and while he toyed with the idea he said he eventually discarded it because of his experience in Sicily with a scattered drop and a division that was disorganised for days. It's interesting that for the Grave bridge, the highly experienced Colonel Reuben Tucker 'insisted' on a special drop zone for one Company to land south of the bridge so it could be taken from both ends, and he got it.
All the evidence points to Browning being concerned about the Njmegen bridge and events proved him right to be concerned. I don't think it was 'ego' that drove his decision to take the Corps HQ there on the first lift, because it was originally scheduled to arrive there on the second lift. I think the main motive was his frustration at being unable to influence the planning once it was handed over to Brereton and Williams, and could only hope to influence events once he was on the ground in the Netherlands and wanted that to happen as quickly as possible. Browning had previously objected to a Brereton plan called LINNET II being scheduled too soon to print and distribute maps and Browning threatened to resign if it went ahead. Brereton had planned to accept Browning's resignation as his deputy and replace him with Matthew Ridgway and his US XVIII Airborne Corps for the operation, but LINNET II was fortunately cancelled and both men agreed to forget the incident. The point being that MARKET was out of Browning's hands and he knew what would happen if he objected to the plan. Montgomery's 21st Army Group was also not notified of the changes to the proposed plan that he had presented to Eisenhower for his approval on 10 September until after Brereton's 14 September cut-off date for any further amendments, so unless Eisenhower was prepared to dismiss Brereton and promote Browning to command 1st AAA, it was Brereton's show.
As for units that were bumped by the late change to the glider schedule, I presumed for a long time, as many do, that the unit affected was the second half of the South Staffords Airlanding battalion going to Arnhem, because they required another 40 Horsas and a Hamilcar (41 tug aircraft), but since reading the recently published 1st Airlanding Anti-Tank Battery Troop volumes by Nigel Simpson et al (2020-2022), it appears from these and the glider flight schedules in the Appendices of Peters and Buist (2009) that the bumped glider loads were the four guns of Z-Troop (Division HQ defence) and the second line ammunition trailers and Jeeps for the whole 1st Battery, and the Jeep transport for 1st Parachute Brigade.
I had even studied what effect taking the whole of the South Staffords to Arnhem on the first lift would have and found it would make little difference, since Brigadier Hicks (standing in for the missing Urquhart) had decided to release the first half of the battalion from its Phase 1 task of protecting LZ 'S' early (they were Brigade reserve in Phase 2) and send them into Arnhem to reinforce 1st Parachute Brigade's efforts to reach the bridge, but by the time they arrived in the western outskirts of Arnhem the delayed second lift had landed and the other two companies had caught up with the battalion. An examination of the 1st Anti-Tank Battery's actions at Arnhem show that they did not lack for ammunition or guns, as German tanks were very wary of British anti-tank guns and avoided known sight lines. Some guns barely fired a round in the entire battle and at the bridge the only form of unexpended ammunition the Germans recovered after the seige was 6-pounder AT rounds - Frost was forced to surrender when they had run out of everything else.
I'm convinced that if you're looking for the reasons the operation failed, the answers are not here, but I do think that the much maligned Browning was very concerned with and looking at the right area all along.
Sources:
Notes on meeting with J.M. Gavin, Boston, January 20, 1967 (box 101 folder 10: James Maurice Gavin, Cornelius Ryan Collection, Ohio State University)
Glider Pilots At Arnhem, Mike Peters and Luuk Buist (2009)
Arnhem: Myth and Reality: Airborne Warfare, Air Power and the Failure of Operation Market Garden, Sebastian Ritchie (2011, 2019)
Little Sense Of Urgency - an operation Market Garden fact book, RG Poulussen (2014)
The 1st Airlanding Anti-Tank Battery At Arnhem: A-Z Troop volumes, Nigel Simpson, Secander Raisani, Philip Reinders, Geert Massen, Peter Vrolijk, Marcel Zwarts (2020-2022)
Proposed Airborne Assaults in the Liberation of Europe, James Daly (2024)
Great to hear alternatives to A Bridge Too Far even though it was written in stone and stained by acid dye.
I am slightly concerned if James has another pint he will end up in a culvert.
Interestingly, James is a regular sipper and Al is an irregular gulper yet they pretty much finish a pint at the same time!!
Ha! Good observation skills. Thank you for watching!
Al - when you do Cpt McKay RE, and his defence with Sappers at the north end of the bridge at Arnhem. Can I counter that with Cpt Briggs, with his defence of the east side of the north end of the bridge with RAOC-RE-Bde Sigs Platoon, under command of Lt Cairns R Sigs, who held for 3 Days. Especially his radio conversation with Frost which was pivotal to the action: as follows;
Captain Briggs: The position is untenable. Can I have your permission to withdraw?
Lieutenant-Colonel Frost: If it is untenable you may withdraw to your original position.
Captain Briggs: Everything is comfortable. I am now going in with bayonets and grenades.
Where he retook the position.
Full disclosure - I speak as a former Scaly Back myself
One of my favourite pubs in the Netherlands. Your conversation is quite hard to follow in this episode, much harder than others. Or is it the beer? ;-)
Come on then, we all know that as soon as the camera stopped filming James & Al started an argument/discussion with the school kids about Market Garden. If true - that would have been fun to watch. 😄
My family is from the next major town beyond Arnhem. Hope in your next video you discuss the next step the allies could have taken if the Arnhem assault had worked. Instead my relatives endured another 3-4 months under German occupation with freedom only
If you're talking about Apeldoorn, the plan was for 43rd (Wessex) Infantry Division to deploy between Arnhem and Apeldoorn, with forward brigades establishing deep bridgeheads over the river Ijssel at Deventer and Zutphen, while the attached Dutch Prinses Irene Brigade was to have the honour of liberating Apeldoorn and the Royal Palace at Het Loo. The Guards Armoured Division were to deploy between Apeldoorn and Nunspeet on the Zuider Zee (Ijsselmer) coast, and the 50th (Northumbrian) Infantry Division between Arnhem and a deep bridgehead over the Ijssel at Doesburg. The original planned 1st Airborne Divisional perimeter around Arnhem included the Polish Parachute Brigade forming the eastern sector of the perimeter and included the Ijssel bridges at Westervoort.
This line along the Ijssel was the ultimate objective of MARKET GARDEN, as well as the corridor cutting supply lines to the German 15.Armee, 1.Fallschirm-Armee, the WBN (Military Command Netherlands), and the V-2 launch sites in the western Netherlands from their supply lines to Germany, it would provide a base for further operations into Germany once Antwerp was opened and the US 1st Army had made its own Rhine crossing between Bonn and Cologne.
There's a copy of a British War Office map on the Vrienden Airborne Museum website showing the final planned dispositions of XXX Corps, on the Bibliotheek page, it is under maps as 'Het operatie plan Market Garden - kaart uit Battlefield tour Royal Engineers 1945'.
Wot, no brewing up on this series yet? Was awaiting methods of instruction part 2 on hexi....😂 but a hugely impressive series and can't wait for 'der Hexenkessel' insights next. Just back from a weekend at Woodhall Spa where 1st Airlanding Brigade were billeted before the operation....sobering indeed how many left and never returned.
@@chrisarnold4709 We’ll hold our hands up and say, honestly, we had intended to brew up in this series. But we soon discovered that it was the end of camping season and there was not a gas canister to be had in any store. Airport security don’t seem keen on us bringing our own Hexis for some reason…
😂 hope you'll then youve re-enacted Alf Roullier's tin bath stew making on I think Sun 24th in Oosterbeek, something that just stood out for me in the book as so focused and normal in what must have been utter carnage - not a laughing matter at all but it would be a great you tube moment!
I've drunk in Arnhem a few times, but never in Nijmegen. In de Blauwre Hand looks worth a visit. Do they have "Chaos in Nijmegen" by The Squats on the jukebox?
That thinking, "What if" and you think about it and hope "this time it could work" is also what is in my mind so many times. In those last 9 months of the war, the destruction of people, military, civilians and people also in the camps was on its peak, both in the west and in the east. The destruction of cities and villages, the future of complete countries would have been different. If only .....
So, Market Garden was, at the time a sound (ish) pland and the PIAT was, actually, not a bad anti-tank weapon in comparison to what else was on offer!
Interesting conversation but ether theres something wrong with the sound or they had five pints before recording. lol
It wasn’t the plan, or the divisions, or the leaders at fault for the failure, it was merely the circumstances that unfolded
Lightly armed units with minimal supply and no armour support were never going to be able to hold out for long
The city of Nijmegen was not destroyed by the fighting with Market Garden , but by a USAF bombardement on 22 februari 1944, 7 months earlier ! The bomb fleet could not reach their mission target , sonthey had to drop it elsewhere , to get home to England . With Nijmegen ,just across the border they thought a German city.
Over 800 people got killed . Nearly as much as in Rotterdam , but in a 4x smaller city .
The same day the cities Arnhem , Enschede and Deventer were also hit by air raids of USAF/RAF .
Fascinating discussion gents. Do you think it’s possible to identify one main reason why Market Garden didn’t work? Apart from Americans needlessly getting bogged down in urban fighting at one point. I always remember the Dirk Bogarde character at the start of the film ( General Browning?) pompously saying at that he shared Monty’s optimism about Market Garden being certain to work, and then backpedaling at the end saying ‘As you know I always thought it was a Bridge too far’. Was it hubris? Did the filmmakers intend for Browning to look slightly buffoonish?
Bogarde was the first actor to be cast and he objected to the script because he knew most of the main characters - he was in the RAF on Dempsey's 2nd Army staff selecting bombing targets from (ironically) aerial photographs. He opted to take the role of Browning instead of passing on the role and having someone play him according to the script, so Bogarde did his best to mitigate the script by playing the character as somewhat conflicted. His performance still upset Browning's widow, the writer Daphne du Maurier. The officers most at fault for the failure of MARKET GARDEN were all American and not portrayed in the film, very cleverly, so that audiences cannot blame people they don't even know existed.
"Do you think it’s possible to identify one main reason why Market Garden didn’t work?" -- I'll have a stab at that. The Allied army was not set up to perform that sort of offensive operation. All the Allied planning for the last two years had been planning for the invasion of France and then the bitter fighting in Normandy. The British army of September 1944 had been optimized for heavy frontal assaults on well-defended enemy positions, preceded by massive artillery and air bombardments. Market Garden required a completely different mentality and planning. The commanders did the best they could, but everything had to be done in a rush and there were plenty of things that could have been planned better. In reality, everything 30 Corps did took longer than it should have because they weren't set up for dynamic offensive operations on a quickly-changing battlefield. The mindset was to stop and wait and plan every time they hit a problem, because that strategy had worked in Normandy.
I think @jrd33 can easily shoot down his own theory by reading about the XXX Corps pursuit across France from the Seine and into Belgium. These advances were better than anything Patton achieved in the entire war and I believe the Guards Armoured Division advance on Brussels on 3 September was a record daily divisional advance that was not broken until the First Gulf War in 1991. 11th Armoured probably could have gone further to Antwerp on the same day, but stopped overnight and made the final advance into Antwerp the next day - the right decision to avoid getting over-extended, because it took the whole day until late evening (4 September) to subdue the German resistance in the city. The Guards' success assured they would be chosen to lead the XXX Corps advance in MARKET GARDEN, while 11th Armoured was to lead VIII Corps on the right flank.
MARKET GARDEN was a replacement upgrade of COMET - which was designed as a pursuit operation, but since the German lines had stabilised on the Albert canal and further defence in depth was being prepared on the canal and river lines behind it, MARKET GARDEN developed into more of a set piece assault on a prepared position. XXX Corps (operation GARDEN) moved as fast as they could, dependent as they were on the success of the airborne to secure the bridges (operation MARKET). When they had a clear run from Son to Nijmegen (60 km) on D+2 (19 September), they made the trip in just 2 hours for the armoured cars and about 4 hours for the tanks - that's a better speed than the advance to Brussels two weeks earlier, although not a record because it was over two-thirds of the distance.
The holdups were created by the deletion of drop zones for the 101st Airborne south of the Wilhelmina canal at Son to quickly seize the Son-Eindhoven-Aalst bridges and effect a linkup on D-Day (Aalst is just 4 km north of Valkenswaard, where the Guards stopped with an hour of daylight remaining). Also the deletion of glider coup de main assaults on the Arnhem-Nijmegen-Grave bridges, and the rejection by Gavin of an alternative battalion coup de main drop on the northern end of the Nijmegen bridge and assigning his least aggressive and experienced regimental commander to the Nijmegen mission instead. It was also proposed to drop a brigade of 1st Airborne at Elst on the Nijmegen 'island', which would secure the Linge-Wettering drainage canal bridges north of Elst and the main settlement between the two cities of Nijmegen and Arnhem, deleted due to lack of aircraft. The Linge-Wettering canal became the front line for many weeks in October after MARKET GARDEN had failed.
If I had to boil down the failure of the operation to one word, I would say 'politics'. To expand on that, MARKET was compromised operationally in the planning by politics within 1st Allied Airborne Army by USAAF officers compromising on the needs of the airborne to be landed close to their objectives in order to protect their own air assets, and then it was compromised tactically on the ground at Nijmegen on D-Day by politics within 82nd Airborne Division. Gavin was quite open about the latter point regarding Colonel Lindquist of the 508th not being someone he could trust in a fight, and on his discarding the Nijmegen bridge battalion drop he said the British wanted in his 1967 interview with Cornelius Ryan for A Bridge Too Far. Ryan misled his readers by omitting this kind of critical information, creating a false impression the planning was all in the hands of the British. The interview is in the Cornelius Ryan Collection of his papers held at Ohio State University and can be read online, box 101, folder 10: James Maurice Gavin.
Another Bear 52 ad coming up.
RGP - sterling work on re-framing one of the key reasons for only being 90% successful. Proost.
Both Deelen and Volkel were abandoned before MG. Would it have been possible to use either in anyway?
Been a great series so far.
Volkel was completely abandoned and only one heavy battery from the Flak defences remained at the time of the operation. Deelen was abandoned by the air units stationed there after a couple of RAF bombing raids and the runways damaged, and they were bombed again during the morning preliminary bombings for MARKET on 17 September, but the Fliegerhorst base units were still there and at least two light Flak batteries, as well as the 3.Jagd-Division headquarters at Schaarsbergen, and the associated 'Teerose' I, II and III radio direction finding and radar installations, were all still present. The heavy Flak-Abteilung 428 at Deelen with 24 x 8.8cm guns had been removed only days before MARKET GARDEN and the batteries were repositioned at the Best and Son bridges on the Wilhelmina canal near Eindhoven. The 4.Batterie with four guns at Son was engaged by the 506th PIR when they took the demolished bridge site, and two detached guns from the battery that were on the northern apporaches of Eindhoven were also taken out by the 506th when they entered the city on 18 September.
The control centre of the 3.Jagd-Division in the DIOGENES nightfighter control bunker at Schaarsbergen was in the process of a move to Duisberg in Germany when the landings began and this process was accelerated and the final evacuation of a skeleton staff and destruction of the bunker (internally) was completed on 17 September. After MARKET GARDEN was over I believe Fliegerhorst Deelen was still in use as a storage area for V-1 flying bombs. During the opening hours of the landings at Wolfheze, a scratch force of 90 Luftwaffe signals staff from the 'Teerose' II and III positions under Hauptmann Weber drove to the landing zones and engaged 1st Parachute Battalion as it tried to access the main Amsterdam road into Arnhem, and they were then further delayed by the arrival of SS-Panzer-Aufklärungs-Abteilung 9 from Beekbergen, and Weber withdrew his force to pre-prepared positions at Deelen in accordance with a defence plan to protect the DIOGENES bunker. Deelen also had two ground defence companies from the local security battalion, Sicherungs-Infanterie-Bataillon 908, stationed there, and the 2.Kompanie was later recorded by 1st Airborne Intelligence Section as being used against the Oosterbeek perimeter.
Operation MARKET had planned to bring in the US 878th Airborne Engineer Aviation Battalion by glider, which was a unit within 1st Allied Airborne Army, to repair a runway at Deelen in order to bring in two brigades of the British 52nd (Lowland) Infantry Division (air transportable and another 1st AAA unit) to reinforce 1st Airborne Division, after XXX Corps had advanced across the Arnhem bridge, cleared Deelen, and proceeded on to Apeldoorn and the Zuider Zee (Ijsselmeer) coast to complete the operation. The third brigade of 52nd Division was in the XXX Corps column moving up from Belgium behind 43rd (Wessex) and 50th (Northumbrian) Infantry Divisions, but obviously this plan could not be carried out.
Some parts of the AFDAG (Airborne Forward Delivery Airfield Group) was flown into the grass airstrip at Keent, west of Grave, which was discovered by a patrol from Grave to be an emergency satellite grass field to Volkel, but not used much by the Germans because the Dutch engineers they used to drain the land to make the strip usable had used their knowledge to make the worst possible job of it. The strip was not too waterlogged in September to be used by the Allies to fly in some Corps units, such as the 1st Airborne Light Anti-Aircraft Battery and to evacuate wounded and 1st Airborne personnel back to England. Operation MARKET ended officially on 26 September not because that was the date of the 1st Airborne evacuation from Oosterbeek as many believe, but because the last flights in support of the operation were conducted on that date from Keent.
I have several questions, I understand delaying a week would have been impractical but a couple of days would have
1) given time to make sure everyone fully understood their objectives.
2) it would have allowed to better plan how 2nd tactical airforce integrated with transport command.
3) who was in charge of transport command? He is not mentioned in Wikipedia
1) not sure if a couple of days would have made a difference with Lindquist - he had been a poor field officer since June in Normandy. The first Field Orders were issued on 13 September and final briefings on 15 and 16 September. Considering 1st Allied Airborne Army commander Lewis Brereton wanted to launch LINNET II on 36 hour's notice without maps to brief the troops, I think MARKET had plenty of time with a week.
2) the problem was 1st Allied Airborne Army did not notify 2nd TAF when the transports were delayed by bad weather in England, and the tactical air support could have flown from Belgium to the Netherlands in clear skies instead of waiting while grounded. Again, this is on Brereton.
3) USAAF Major General Paul Williams was commander of transport forces in 1st Allied Airborne Army and of US IX Troop Carrier Command, he also had RAF 38 and 46 Transport Groups attached.
I would add:
4) another day and 9.SS-Panzer-Division 'Hohenstaufen' would have completed its move back to Germany.
5) Horrocks said he didn't like operations that started on a Sunday, as in his experience they were not successful.
Oldest pub in the netherlands, nice mr Landlord
Love the series but the sound on this episode is terrible.
Even Cornelius Ryan in the book that gave rise to the popular impression of this battle as "A Bridge Too Far" concedes at the end that for all the blunders, how close they came to success.
Out of the two main ideas out there, only Market Garden was worth doing. Patton's lunge into central Germany was insane and would make the looming supply situation worse, not better.
For me the big question of Market Garden is this: Why not Walcheren?
Montgomery requested an airborne operation called INFATUATE on Walcheren on 4 September and Brereton rejected this on the grounds of Flak and his fear that his own airmen would drop American paratroopers (this was during the planning for COMET which tied up British and Polish units) into the North Sea or flooded areas of the island. INFATUATE was later revived as an amphibious operation in November.
Why not Walchern? Eisenhower was fixated in gaining a bridgehead over the Rhine and had ordered both Montgomery and Bradley in late August to gain them as soon as possible. Montgomery’s response was Operation Comet which morphed into Market Garden.
At the time 21st Army Group had the Canadian Army all along the channel coast fighting to clear ports and other elements pushing against the 15th Army south of the Scheldt,.
All of which was in part to help with the delivery of supplies for the 21st Army Group as per the original plan developed prior to Normandy. The 21st Army Group were to be supplied through the channel ports and the US initially through Cherbourg and then the French Atlantic ports in Brittany. The fact the ports in Brittany held out for so long and the destruction of the French transport system and the inability of the allies logistics plan to keep up with where the ground troops were on the ground verses the logistics schedule ( when Market Garden started the allied schedule said it would be May 1945, the logistics were still at September and trying to rebuilt railways etc which is why the red ball express and the British equivalent became key).
Eisenhower even said in his memoir that he should have prioritised Antwerp but was fixated on the Rhine.
Basically it was all down to resources and priorities. When you have a finite amount of resources in this case divisions and a list of priorities it becomes a huge juggling act and Eisenhower as the Allied Land Forces Commander a role (he took on as well as being Supreme Allied Commander) from Montgomery on 31st August was the juggler.
The Germans were very good in “mission command”. This is where initiative is encouraged by lower command such as junior officers and NCOs. This is especially more important when orders from staff level is slow to come down especially when at staff level they need time to understand what was going on and this would have been the case during the initial parachute landings. Had, the operation been against the Italian army (hypothetical scenario), Market Garden although poorly planned would have succeeded.
If history was taught in schools the way that you both explain and present it then god only knows the kids would be better educated, why... because they would be interested and really drawn in. You should go on a national school tour!!
Will you do escape from coldiz
First they have to successfully escape from a pub in order to be sent to Colditz...