Market Garden

I enjoyed this piece on Market Garden very much. This guy uses a lot of graphics to clarify the movements and make it more understandable, to me at least. Much of this is probably old news to those who have read a lot on the subject, but to people like me who haven't gone much beyond the Ryan book it brings clarity to aspects of the battle that were murky at best.
I've always blamed Gavin and the 82nd for the largest part of the failure, but they really did have their hands full with counterattacks (and early on, expected counterattacks) from the east, something which is rather glossed over by Ryan. Gavin still failed by not securing at least the southern end of the bridge before the town was occupied by the 10th SS and the Kampgruppe they threw together in support, but one might suppose that he thought (since all of them had been assured by Browning there were no real German troops in the area) that he could snap it up any time fighting against scraped together rear area reserves. This isn't to say that Browning was totally to blame either, just that Gavin's mistakes aren't as bad as I'd always thought. Really, it just adds up to delays in every area and every stage of the battle that when added together just couldn't be overcome. One might blame Montgomery for the entire plan, but I find that hard to do. It was certainly risky, but if XXX Corps had only arrived a bit faster, if any of the delays had not happened, it would have worked, 9th and 10th SS or not.

Anyway, a nice, and somewhat succinct, overview of the battle.

 

You have just opened up an enormous can of worms. Check our sister site, I don't know how many threads they have over there about Market-Garden. It's been over 70 years, and for many (especially the British) the battle is as controversial as ever.

The best concise analysis of the battle, in my view, is given by John Buckley in his excellent Monty's Men, a book which at last does full justice to the British Army's success in the Northwest Europe campaign. Buckley is no blind admirer, though, and his criticism of Market-Garden is very telling. He does fault Gavin for allotting too much strength to the Grosbeek Heights and not enough to accomplish the 82d's primary mission, which was after all the seizure of the Nijmegen Bridge. However, it was up to Browning and Brereton to pass judgment on Gavin's plan, and they approved it. Browning was not the complete fool he has been made out to be but he lacked experience of major operations and had never led a corps in battle before, and he also failed to see the flaws in the even worse plan followed by British 1st Airborne.

The plan for the 82nd was but one of innumerable minor mistakes and missed chances in Market-Garden, all of which added up cumulatively to a major defeat. Buckley points out all these errors without favoring any of the nationalities involved (American, British, Polish). To Buckley, however, all these errors stemmed from the fundamental plan, which was based on false assumptions fueled by an overweening optimism which prevailed at all command levels from SHAEF down. In Buckley's words, Market-Garden was "not on." Germany was not about to collapse in late September, 1944; on the contrary, fierce fighting on the Albert Canal, at Aachen, in the Hurtgen, and elsewhere was already showing that the German Army had recovered. The Soviet offensives in the east were running out of steam at the same time. Market-Garden was so badly flawed, both in its basic concept and in its minor details, that it could only have fully succeeded against a completely routed enemy. In many ways, Market-Garden reminds me of Gallipoli, another battle which some think might have been won but for the many slips between cup and lip, horseshoe nails, etc. Whenever you have so many minor errors which add up to disaster it is a good hint that the basic plan is based on false assumptions and balanced on too fine an edge.

 

Yup. EVERYTHING had to go right for Market-Garden to succeed, yet even with the false optimism of that point in the war one might assume that with the allies in Germany itself that Holland would be let go. And that's probably correct, except there were enough troops already in Holland to break the plan. So, what isn't credited here is the lack of intelligence, or the ignoring of Dutch intelligence which is due to a recent betrayal by some members of the Dutch resistance.
Gavin was a putz and should have been relieved long before this. He had performed poorly in Sicily (and the again in Normandy, though all the Airborne pretty much failed their objectives there), and he was to largely to fail again in the Ardennes, and again squeeze out of the blame by throwing shade on the Infantry on that occasion.
Still, I don't think any of the failures in Market-Garden are solely to blame. You have to add them all up to get failure. It's a shame because if you think about it, as difficult as the narrow terrain was to capture, it would be just as easy to defend and the allies had plenty of troops to do that if the corridor had been opened.

.

 

I think the fundamental problem was the refusal to directly assault the bridges at the outset, as had been done at Pegasus Bridge in Normandy. Colonel Chatterton, commander of the British Glider Pilot Regiment, suggested and offered to lead such a landing on the Arnhem highway bridge but was turned down. The bridges were obvious objectives, not to mention that Germans might need them for their own operations. It was foolish to expect to find them intact and undefended hours after the airborne landings.

Could the bridges have been secured? There's not much of a data base on direct assaults on bridges, but what there is is favorable. Pegasus Bridge of course. The Primosole Bridge in Sicily was captured, although it was subsequently lost. The one bridge attacked at the outset of M-G, at Grave by a company of paratroopers from the 82nd, was taken intact. Even attacking several hours after landing, about half the M-G bridges were taken. Two key bridges, Son and the Arnhem railroad bridge, were blown up just as the airborne forces approached; the British actually saw a German on the railroad bridge apparently fixing charges. As KodiakBeer mentioned, Nijmegen bridge was initially defended by a "battle group" hastily assembled by a German officer after the landings began. With the usual caveat that nothing is certain, it seems likely that the bridges could have been secured at the outset. This was truly a case where a company in the right place at the right time would have been worth more than a brigade trying to get there a few hours too late.

So why wasn't it done? The main reason was the not unreasonable desire to secure the landing zones. German attacks could be expected to develop within a few hours of the initial landings, and even a few companies detached to secure bridges might be sorely missed. The remedy was another measure which was suggested during the planning process, including by Montgomery - landing a second wave on the first day. It probably would not have been possible to stage and fly a second glider lift, but planes carrying paratroopers could probably have managed a second trip, as could their escorting fighters and fighter-bombers.

You may have guessed this a pet speculation of mine, and I could wallow in the details if anyone's interested, but to keep it simple, the initial British landing would have gone much as it did, and the planes which dropped 1 Parachute Brigade would bring in 4 Para Brigade on the second trip.

The American divisions brought in all their parachute infantry in one lift, using 904 C-47s, and this is what I would envision splitting, with approximately 500 planes in the first lift and 400 in the second, to allow for combat or operational losses. This would free up 400 planes to bring in most of each division's glider regiment on the first lift, some of which would attack the bridges and the remainder reinforce the landing zones. There would be slightly fewer troops on the landing zones initially, but by the time German attacks got going, all the American paratroopers would be in place, plus the glidermen.

Final and key question, what would it mean if all the bridges were secured at the outset? Historically, Guards Armoured Division arrived at Son about 1715 on Sept 18, the second day, and had to wait some twelve hours while a Bailey bridge was installed. In our scenario, they would continue advancing through the 101st sector. They might halt for the night, but they would probably send reconnaissance units onward, which would discover that the road for the next ten miles, to the 82nd's position, was clear. The march would resume at daylight, and by midmorning on the 19th, the armour would be ready to advance from Nijmegen to Arnhem. At his point there were few German tanks or guns in the "island", so they would likely reach Arnhem before long and find the bridges in British hands. The railroad bridge might be particularly useful to link up with 1 Airbourne Division.

Getting back to the airborne operations, the second day would be much as it was historically, and most of the troops, artillery, vehicles, etc. would be on the ground. Since 4 Parachute Brigade had already been landed, the Polish Brigade would take its place. On day 3, the planes and crews which had done double on day 1 could stand down; no one would fly more than three missions in three days.

 

The lack of intelligence was a big factor. No Dutch experts were consulted. The Dutch military even had a mock scenario that Market Garden basically followed, in regards to attacking the bridges. The Method/Plan that Monty used was the one that caused the Dutch to fail a person in the mock scenario, for all those reasons that are painfully obvious now. I do wonder that if the Dutch has been consulted, if things may have turned out for the better for the Allied forces and not the disaster it turned out to be in the end. Even so, you'd think they'd know that attacking along a single, raised road would always be disastrous? Doesn't take much thought to figure that out.

 

The final revelation of Englandspiele in the spring of 1944 to SOE put paid to British trust in Dutch agents.

 

True with regard to current intelligence information, but it would not preclude input from Dutch officers on terrain, infrastructure, etc. such as the prewar exercise Mussolini mentioned - attacking from Nijmegen to Arnhem, with the side roads being the right answer.

 

As for not using the Dutch, the Americans did and the Dutch telephone operators already had underground lines all through the Netherlands for resistance work. Both the 101st and the 82nd were calling XXX Corps back down the line and resistance men in those areas were flagging down senior officers for phone calls.
This would have been a Godsend for the British at Arnhem who could not only have communicated from the landing zone to Frost at the bridge, but all the way down to XXX Corps. If I remember correctly (from the Ryan book) the Dutch Resistance at the landing zone were sent packing when they offered to open comms along the line. This, due to a recent betrayal in London by some Dutch resistance which the senior British officers were warned about. The Americans either didn't know about this suspicion of the Dutch, or didn't care and took the Resistance at face value.

.

 

True, but it was current intelligence information that was needed. Yes, the prewar Dutch map exercises concluded attacks up and down the Grift Djik Highway between Nijmegen and Arnhem were problematic, but the real problem was there was no other "right" option. There are no "side roads" on that route through Elst, once the highway bridge is crossed the options are north to Elst, east to Bemmel along the river and then northeast to the ferry crossing well east of the city or west along the river to Ooosterhout then north through country lanes through Valburg-Zetten-Randwijk...where you then have to turn and run east back along the river through Driel to get to Arnhem. Everything else are simply lanes along the polders.

 

I rather like this guy's videos. In this one, he looks at Browning and there is a lot of speculation about the "1000 panzers" in the Reichswald, which is the reason Gavin (and Browning) had prioritized the Groesbeek heights over the bridge on that critical first day. In short, SHAEF had concluded (wrongly) that the Reichswald was a major refitting center for Panzer groups chased out of France. So, even though Gavin is pretty much a turd as a general, you can't really blame him (much) for looking to his flank when he's been told there is a major concentration of Panzer forces a few miles away.



.

 

Nice video...too bad the guy makes an elementary mistake. He assumes the 13 September SHAEF G-2 report describing the possibility of "1,000 Panzers refitting in the Reichswalde" was what led to the decision by 21st Army Group, FAAA, and I British Airborne Corps to direct the emphasis of 82d Airborne Division on the Groesbeck Heights. The problem is, it wasn't, the I Airborne Corps directive was embodied in the 82d Airborne Division Field Order No. 11 of 11 September 1944. It was based upon SHAEF G2 Report No. 98 (1200hrs10 September to 1200hrs 11 September 1944), which estimated German Panzer strength in the entire SHAEF operational area (from Boulogne to south of the Ardennes) as 250, with the "maximum that can be expected in the way of reinforcements is 350 with a possible 15,000 troops, making a total strength in Panzer troops of 600 tanks, and 60,000 men." Nor is it what the estimate in Browning's I Airborne Corps directive identified, which described the total armored strength in the 21st Army Group area of operation as 50-100 tanks.

With or without 600 or 1,000 Panzers...or no Panzers...the analysis, which was correct, was that seizing and holding the bridge was useless without first securing the heights. The actual analysis, word for word, was "The terrain forces an enemy desiring to hold it to heavily organize the NIJMEGEN-GROESBEEK Ridge and the crossings of the three major waterways. The area is in general, decidedly unsuitable for airborne landings from the point of view of good landing grounds, but the obviously key communications and ground warn the defender that it is a tempting target. It Is very easy for him to cover with fire and obstacles the best obtainable LZ's and DZ's in the area..."

Yeah, they did on 13 September, which had little real effect on the orders issued on 11 September...and even less effect on the operation as carried out. Montgomery, Dempsey, Brererton, and Browning all down-played the possible Panzer strength in the area, but still maintained the critical role of the heights to XXX Corps operations.

Given that is your second disparagement of Gavin as a general, I am kind of curious what you base it on? Normandy? The 82d probably did better than it should have, given that the entire operations plan was upended nine days before its execution. Sicily? He was a regimental commander. Ardennes? So what raises your ire?

 

"Given that is your second disparagement of Gavin as a general, I am kind of curious what you base it on? Normandy? The 82d probably did better than it should have, given that the entire operations plan was upended nine days before its execution. Sicily? He was a regimental commander. Ardennes? So what raises your ire?"

In every engagement he tends to perform poorly then blame it on somebody else. In Sicily he armed his troops with M1 Carbines then spent the rest of the war disparaging the carbine and blaming it for his troops poor performance. In Normandy everyone performed poorly, but given the scattered drops I don't blame Gavin in particular. In Market-Garden he failed to secure the bridge. Given, there were "reasons," but a better general would have detailed a Battalion (at least) to secure both ends of the bridge as their prime objective immediately after the drop, despite any orders or intelligence passed to him.
Possibly his worst performance was in the Ardennes where he ordered an idiotic frontal assault against 1st SS armor on the south side of the Ambleve. He lost an entire battalion doing this to no real purpose and then blames the 30th Infantry on the north side of the river for not supporting him, as if they could with a river in between. Then, he orders a retreat without coordinating it with the infantry north of the river and allows Peiper's remaining 800 men to escape through the gap on foot, again blaming the Infantry on the far side of the river for this debacle. The 30th Infantry had completely gutted the 1st SS and badly mauled the 12th SS north of the Ambleve while Gavin says that their commanding general should be relieved and HE should get credit for stopping the 6th Panzer Army...?

.

 

I think the key word here might be "first". The quotation puts the ridge and the crossings on an equal basis. I don't think anyone questions that the Groesbeek heights needed to be held, or that would require the majority of the 82nd's forces. The question is whether that precludes having small forces secure the bridges immediately on landing. As we know, the defense or destruction of a bridge could be improvised rather quickly, more so than a major attack on the landing zones.

The 82nd did detach a company to directly attack the Grave bridge, one of the most successful elements of the operation. The 504th was dropped to the west of the Maas-Waal canal, on the opposite side to the Groesbeek heights, to take the bridges over the canal; indeed it had to secure the bridges in order to support the main body of the division on the heights. Maps of the operation also show troops from the heights attacking the canal bridges from their side.

The purpose of securing the heights was to protect Allied control of the bridges. It seems unlikely that detaching a force capable of taking the Waal bridges and holding them for a few hours would have compromised the defense of the heights or the overall operation.

 

Er, em, no, no such thing. You've somehow managed to inflate Gavin's personal dislike of the M1 Carbine into some bizarre vendetta. First, Gavin did not "[arm] his troops with M1 Carbines". He had no ability and/or authority to do so. His 505th PIR was authorized 1093 Carbine Cal. .30 M1, 132 MG, light Cal. .30, 4 MG Cal. .50, 54 SMG Cal. .45, 73 Launcher, AT Rocket, 27 Mortar 60mm, 12 Mortar 81mm, 11 Pistol Cal. .45, 859 Rifle Cal. .30 M1, and 27 Rifle Cal. .30 M1903A4. He had no ability to replace the 859 Garand rifles with carbines and did not do so. However, HE carried an M1 Carbine, which was the personal weapon assigned to him and on his first encounter with an enemy - a 35-man Italian anti-parachute patrol - it immediately jammed. His badly outnumbered 8-man command group, all that he could find at that time, was forced to withdraw, leaving behind two wounded. From that point on he refused to carry a carbine himself and instead exchanged it for a rifle (something he could do).

Really? "Everyone"? Does that broad calumny include the entire invasion force, the allied airborne forces, the American airborne forces, or just the 82d Airborne Division? What poor performance was that? The 101st of course achieved essentially all of its critical D-Day objectives, despite scattered drops. The 82d was unable to establish hold of bridgeheads west of the Merderet or destroy the Douve bridges, but it seized Ste Mere Eglise and improvised a blocking force that protected the Chef du Pont bridge, so through improvisation achieved its critical missions too. I would not call that a poor performance.

Neither a better nor a worse general could have done anything different. The airborne division commanders did not have final say on drop and landing zones, air corridors, allocation of troop carrier assets. A good general, like Gavin, Urquhart, and Taylor in MARKET protested the decisions, but when overruled, saluted and made the best of the situation. Gavin accepted that his mission of seizing the bridge could only be done after securing the Groesbeek Heights. He accepted it could not be seized by the best method - by attacking it from both ends - but then NONE of the MARKET bridge objectives that were successfully captured were attacked by that method, nor was Pegasus Bridge or the Primasol Bridge, which were the earlier examples. In fact, the airborne adage stating that was the "best" way to capture bridges apparently grew out of the MARKET experience, but there was really nothing to indicate prior that an attack on "both ends" was better.

Er, some details please? You seem to be mashing events of 20-21 December, 22-27 December, and 7 January together? The 1st Bn, 504th PIR (-) did attack Cheneaux on the afternoon of 20 December in a very confused situation and suffered heavy casualties (23 KIA and 202 WIA/IIA), but succeeded in taking "14 flak wagons, six half-tracks, four trucks, four 105mm field artillery pieces and one MK VI tank" (the last was probably a Pz-IV). Could you provide details where Gavin "blamed" the 30th ID for that success? Anyway, the withdrawal of the 504th PIR on the night of 24 December that coincidentally facilitated the withdrawal of Peiper's remnants, was ordered by the XVIII Corps, Ridgway, not Gavin was responsible for that and was also responsible for any "coordination" with the 30th ID, although I do not see how "coordination" would have changed anything. Anyway, again it would be nice to get some details of where Gavin said Leland Hobbs "should be relieved and HE should get credit for stopping the 6th Panzer Army"?

 

While that is true, the second part of the equation was the defenses anticipated in and around Nijmegen. "Units put down near Nijmegen on D-day might suffer heavily from flak on the way in, would be quickly engaged by fairly strong enemy forces, and would have to deal with those forces for many hours in isolation from the rest of the division. Furthermore, without the ridge and crossings over the Maas and the canal, the Nijmegen bridge would be worthless." (Airborne Operations in World War II, p. 93.) If sufficient force was allocated to ensure seizing the bridge at Nijmegen, then there could not be sufficient force to ensure the seizure of the other two bridges and the heights. Like the 1st Airborne Division plan, competing objectives and limited capability meant compromises had to be made. Now if there were sufficient troop carrier lift to say add an attached regiment from the 17th Airborne, then it could have been done...but then you might as well postulate enough lift to bring in all three brigades as well as the Poles with the 1st Airborne Division on 17 September. Except the additional troop carrier assets simply weren't there.

 

Nobody performed perfectly, but as I said it's hard to blame Gavin or anyone else since the drops were scattered.

Oh, Gavin's blame throwing was widely reported since the newspapers loved the Airborne. I've come across it over and over again researching the 30th ID. I don't think he specifically names Hobbs, but seems to think the one company south of the river represents Peiper's entire Kampfgruppe and thus he should get credit for attacking them and then retreating later on. Of course, Peiper was north of the Ambleve and the small group that he attacked changed nothing and thus the heavy losses the 82nd took in that engagement were a waste of good men.

.

 

I'm sorry, but that still doesn't make much sense. How much more perfect a performance could you achieve given the woefully scattered drops? You want perfection in an imperfect situation?

Sorry, but if it was so "widely reported" how come I'm having so much trouble running across such a mention? So if you ran across it so many times researching the 30th ID, could you give some references so I can follow up on them?

BTW, the "small group" attacked at Cheneux were elements of the leichte Flak-Abteilung 84. and II./SS-Panzergrenadier Regiment 2, which likely outnumbered and certainly out-weaponed the two parachute infantry companies in the initial attack. When Cheneux was taken the Germans were further reinforced by the III./SS-Panzergreandier Regeiment 2, but nevertheless, when Gavin committed the rest of the 504th to the attack the next morning they drove the Germans back to the north side of the river at Monceau. It was the later American withdrawal from Monceau, ordered by Ridgway due to the German advances further south, which enabled Peiper to withdraw, crossing the Ambleve at the old viaduct at La Venne and then on to the second bridge at Grand Coo, which turned out to be blown, forcing him south, skirting Brume (still occupied by Company A, 504th PIR) to the west, to his eventual crossing of the Ambleve at Henri-Moulin. If Monceau, Cheneux, and Brume had all been held in strength by the 504th, it is unlikely that Peiper could have escaped.

 

No. I just said I don't blame Gavin or anybody else for that.

I ran across the Gavin/Hobbes, 82nd/30th Ambleve brouhaha several times researching the 30th ID. It's not a big deal, just seemed like typical Gavin to blame somebody else for his poor tactics. He doesn't seem to appreciate that the bulk of the 1st SS were north of the Ambleve and that he was just dealing with outliers. The infantry, at least the experienced divisions like the 30th, viewed Airborne troops as part-time soldiers by this point in the war. The Airborne fought for a couple of weeks in each engagement and then were withdrawn for months at a time, while for the infantry it was one long dirty fight without reprieve from Normandy on.

.

 

If I may interject something here, everyone is blaming the various allied generals for screwing up M-G. The fact is that the Germans WON that battle! They took a front that was totally shattered and in chaos, and pieced together a defense using scattered remains of units, kampfgruppen made up of untrained soldiers, training cadres, plus whatever floatsam and jetsam could be scraped up and denied Monty and the Allies a significant victory. As far as I can tell it was the last success of German generalship in the war. Their ability to improvise was outstanding and really hasn't been given the credit that is deserved.

 

Very true. I'm reminded of Confederate General George Pickett in the Civil War, discussing the failure of Pickett's Charge: "I think the Yankees had something to do with it."

I think most people here are cognizant of the Germans' achievements; that "goes without saying", and maybe that's unfortunate. But it also means there is not much to discuss about what the Germans could or should have done differently. On the other hand, there are some things the Allies might have done that might have made a difference, so that tends to be most of the conversation.

p.s. One thing on the German side was the insistence on not trying to blow the Waal highway bridge until the last minute, which ended up allowing the Allies to capture it intact. This got me thinking about the railroad bridge, which as I understand it had already been captured. So even if the highway bridge was blown, the Allies would still have had a bridge over the Waal. Granted a rail bridge is not as convenient, but it can be used by troops or vehicles, and if materials are available it can be made more passable for wheeled transport.