What went wrong with Operation Market Garden?

You can talk about radios not functioning and dropping zones and inflexible reactions and inadequate forces to take Nijmegen Bridge etc etc BUT

Market Garden should never have gone ahead once the Allies realised through Ultra that more German forces were present in the area than had been expected. However, so much had been invested in planning and the expensive resource of an under-utilised elite force, the paratroopers, that Montgomery and (even more culpable) General Boy Browning just crossed their fingers and hoped for the best. Disgustingly, Boy Browning was knighted by the King for this failure!

Definitely not one of Montgomery's better moments and his complaint about the Poles was unforgivable.

 

Did the British have the bridging capability to put up a few of them across the Rhine (at Arnhem or near it) within a day?

 

Yes. They had the equipment, the men and the plans for a Bailey pontoon bridge, a FBE bridge and a Bailey barge bridge. Remember that a 110' Bailey bridge was put up at Zon overnight. The Royal Engineers and the Royal Canadian Engineer, who eventually put a few bridges up at Arnhem, were very quick in building these bridges.

 

Maybe all the supplies should have gone to hodges.?I believe Bradley had a plan to attack through the 1st Army front,?although I can't remember the book,cheers.
Im sorry,I'm off thread again.

 

Um, actually no, they couldn't.
The Rhine at Arnhem is close to 400 meters (over 1,200 feet) which is far, far more that the Zon bailey bridge. The engineers could ferry troops across, but not quickly put a pontoon bridge up against the current of the Rhine.
If they could have done it, they would have at Oostebeek when they held both sides of the river

 

You can talk about radios not functioning and dropping zones and inflexible reactions and inadequate forces to take Nijmegen Bridge etc etc BUT

Market Garden should never have gone ahead once the Allies realised through Ultra that more German forces were present in the area than had been expected.

Have to disagree. If just one thing had been done differently, all the key bridges secured at the outset of the operation, Guards Armoured would have advanced north from Nijmegen on the morning of Sept 19; this is using historical travel times which I can detail if anyone would like. I haven't been able to find exactly what German forces were in "the island" at that moment - anyone? - but it seems likely that the armor would have linked up with 1 A/B Div and advanced across Arnhem railroad bridge that day. How the battle on the north bank between Guards Armoured, 1 Airbourne, and Bittrich's panzers would go could be another dicussion, but that's what it would be.

Incidentally there would be fewer Germans in "the island" in this scenario than historically. Some of the units which defended Nijmegen, such as elements of Grabner's 9th SS reconaissance unit, got there by crossing Arnhem bridge - five hours after the initial Allied landings!

Now that we see what capturing the bridges up front would mean, the obvious question is could it be done? We can't know for sure, but all the evidence is favorable. The one direct attack on a bridge, at Grave by a company of the 82nd, was successful. Even operating the way they did, the Allies secured about half the bridges. Two crucial ones, Son and Arnhem railroad bridge, were blown up in the faces of approaching paratroopers. Pegasus Bridge in Normandy was secured. Even Primasole Bridge in Sicily was taken intact, although it was lost shortly thereafter. No direct attack on a bridge failed (granted it's a small database).

scipio makes a good point about the pressure to use the newly created airborne army, which extended through the chain of command up to Marshall and Hap Arnold back in Washington. People were thinking "How can we use the airborne?" as much as "What's the best way to win the war?" The pace of the advance on the ground "threatened" to carry the front lines beyond the range of aircraft and gliders based in England (it was logistically impossible to establish the airborne forces on the continent at that point). Range also basically dictated that the operation be in Montgomery's sector.

 

Freebird,
Tell that to the engineers who planned the operation that it would not have worked. I guess that you never heard of a Bailey Pontoon Bridge, eh? These were used on the Rhine crossing later on. Also, I can Bailey Barge bridges and Folding Boat Equipment bridges were also put across the Rhine during the same operation. Don't believe me, look at Monty's crossing of the Rhine in early 1945.

 

I think you fellows are talking at cross purposes. The Allies built numerous pontoon bridges across the Rhine, Seine, and other rivers. The issue at Oosterbeek was the unlikelihood of the small airborne perimeter on the north bank holding out long enough for the mass of bridging material to be brought up to the front lines and a bridge constructed. The small size of the perimeter also made it likely that the Germans could bring the crossing/construction site under fire; engineers worked under fire at times, but it was a significant hindrance to say the least.

 

Maybe we are, but I like the fact that the engineers are getting some attention so I will continue...

Because the Germans held the Westerbouwing Heights and were also blocking the Club route, were the main reasons why the bridges were never used. The casaulties to the engineers would have been numerous and I doubt that a bridge could have even been built under those circumstances. When the heights were lost, so was Operation M/G.

 

I would agree with most of what has been posted here but I believe that Monty believed that the Germans were on the ropes and that they would not react fast enough to stop the overland foces that were to link up with the Paras. There was also a major failure in the intelligence aspect on the Allied side. Dropping into the middle of two SS panzer divisions was a major failure of intelligence.

It was a a razor thin timeline and at any point a single failure doomed the operation

 

It wasn't just Monty - at that point of the war ( after the 'rat run' through France and Belgium ) , the Allies believed that the Germans were on the ropes. It's reported in many books that there was a 'war's over' mentality at SHAEF.

 

There is one thing that I do find amusing about this thread, that concerns Monty.

His detractors always say he would never take a risk, he was too methodical (not a bad thing) and planned for a sure win. Now we have an operation that had a chance of success but was risky and yet he is still pilloried but this time for taking a risk (how big a risk depends on your point of view).

 

It's always rather baffled me and I've yet to read a really convincing explanation of this most un-Monty-like decision. But many factors were at play - ' (parachute divisions) burning holes in SHAEF's pockets', get the war over by Christmas, beat the Russians into Germany, the Germans are finished anyway, etc .

To lay the entire blame at Montgomery's door is simplistic and IMPO Eisenhower is to be admired for always agreeing that the final decision was his.

 

Hi. You should try and catch a look at The Pegasus Archive. Type in Battle of Arnhem on Google search and you should be able to find it. It has extensive essays on the battle and unit actions and histories plus llots of photos. Rob

 

Montgomery put his finger on at least one of the crucial shortcomings of the operation. He asked if a second lift could be flown on the first day, but was told by the air transport staff that it was impossible (Buckingham, Arnhem 1944). This would have been the perfect time to say "Make it happen" but apparently he was unwilling to overrule the experts, and of course there was that pervasive attitude that the Germans were on the ropes and a maximum effort wasn't really necessary.....

A second lift would probably be paratroops only, but that would still mean about an additional regiment/brigade in each divisional sector by evening of Day 1. That might also make the commanders more willing to do the one thing that would really have revolutionized the situation, detaching a few companies to land directly on the key bridges at the outset.

Market-Garden was the most misbegotten of military bastards - a daring operation, executed cautiously. They could drop a division sixty miles behind enemy lines, but were unwilling to risk a company six miles from its parent division. The drop zones, the second lift, every decision that doomed Market-Garden was a matter of "playing it safe" from someone's point of view.

Note - the actual mechanism for a second lift would be to split the paratroops between two lifts, using about 700 planes with about 600 making the second trip. Historically 1049 planes dropped paras on Day 1, so this would free up about 350. The principal impact would be to deliver the American glider regiments in the first lift, also the remainder of 2 South Staffs and the glider echelon of 4 Airbourne Brigade.

I had first thought that the glider regiments could be delivered in their entirety, based on one of them using 172 gliders on D-Day in Normandy. However it turns out that was a mix of our Wacos and British Horsas, which had about twice the carrying capacity. For some reason the American airborne commanders disliked the Horsas and insisted on using all Wacos for M-G. It took about 260 Wacos to carry a complete regiment, in which case they would have to defer one battalion per regiment until Day 2 (still a net increase of two battalions per division on Day 1). Or, since the 82nd sector seems to have been considered more critical, it could have its 325th Glider complete and the 101st could get one extra battalion and land the bulk of the 327th on Day 2.

 

Quite a few comments at the beginning of this thread to do with the communications failures. Thought this would interest some.

http://www.ab4oj.com/dl/misc/arnhem_comms.pdf

 

Maybe,instead of searching scape-goats,or culprits,one should look at the obvious explanation for the failure of MG :the Germans,they still were in the war and they caused the failure of MG.

 

Whos looking for scapegoats...My own posts in this thread refer to the Germans all the time as the main reason. But please do point out to us who is looking for scapegoats..Which post would that be? Certainly not mine.

 

Not yours,but
Post 130 :it was Montgomery
132 :Eisenhower
135 :Montgomery
136 :Eisenhower
141:Montgomery
150 :Montgomery
All these posts are starting from the (IMHO unproved) point that MG could succeed,but that there was some one on the allied side who was bungling the whole thing,and,they all are neglecting the fact that the Germans still were there (one exception:some one posted that the paras landed in the middle of 2 SS PzD,which,of course,also is wrong:there was only the remainings of one division,with a few tanks)
The OP (what went wrong with MG?) also starts from this POV.I could ask :was there something that was going wrong with MG ? And,if so,was this causing the failure of MG?

 

I suppose though the authors of those posts could easily state that they are correct if Eishenhower, Montgomery or Private Jones did not consider the full potential of the Germans which we in hindsight do.