Operation Market Garden (17?25 September 1944) was an unsuccessful Allied military operation, fought in the Netherlands and Germany in the Second World War. It was the largest airborne operation up to that time. Field Marshal Montgomery's goal was to force an entry into Germany and over the Rhine. He wanted to circumvent the northern end of the Siegfried Line and this required the operation to seize the bridges across the Maas and two arms of the Rhine as well as several smaller canals and tributaries. Crossing the Lower Rhine would allow the Allies to encircle Germany's industrial heartland in the Ruhr from the north. It made large-scale use of airborne forces, whose tactical objectives were to secure the bridges and allow a rapid advance by armored units into Northern Germany. Initially, the operation was marginally successful and several bridges between Eindhoven and Nijmegen were captured. However, Gen. Horrocks' XXX Corps ground force's advance was delayed by the demolition of a bridge over the Wilhelmina Canal, as well as an extremely overstretched supply line, at Son, delaying the capture of the main road bridge over the Meuse until 20 September. At Arnhem, the British 1st Airborne Division encountered far stronger resistance than anticipated. In the ensuing battle, only a small force managed to hold one end of the Arnhem road bridge and after the ground forces failed to relieve them, they were overrun on 21 September. The rest of the division, trapped in a small pocket west of the bridge, had to be evacuated on 25 September. The Allies had failed to cross the Rhine in sufficient force and the river remained a barrier to their advance until the offensives at Remagen, Oppenheim, Rees and Wesel in March 1945. The failure of Market Garden ended Allied expectations of finishing the war by Christmas 1944.
Causalties
144 transport aircraft
15,326?17,200 casualties
88 tanks
Combatant
Dutch resistance & RNMIB
Poland
Commander
Bernard Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein
Brian Horrocks
Frederick Browning
Gerd von Rundstedt
Gustav-Adolf von Zangen
Kurt Student
Lewis H. Brereton
Maxwell D. Taylor
Miles Dempsey
Walter Model
Wilhelm Bittrich
Date
1944-09-25
Result
Allied operational failure
Strength
1 armoured brigade
1 armoured division
2 infantry divisions
41,628 airborne troops
Unknown
Comment
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