Today in 1944 began Operation Market Garden, one of the great battles in World War II. It is the greatest airborne operation in history.
The purpose of this campaign was to occupy the Netherlands and hence
outflank the German's Siegfried Line to quickly end the war.
Market-Garden had two components: The first, named "Market" consisted
of dropping four airborn divisions onto German occupied territory in
Holland: The US 101st and 82nd divisions, the British 1st Airborne, and
the Polish 1st Parachute brigade. These divisions were to hold several
key bridges so that the British X X X ("thirty") Corps would break
through German defenses and advance north to relieve the airborne
troops. The advancement of the ground forces was the "Garden" component
of the campaign. The British 1st Airborne was to drop and hold Arnhem,
the ultimate destination for the army to reach in order to secure
victory. If any of the the other two airborne divisions failed to
secure the bridges and surrounding area south of Arnhem, then the X X X
Corps would not be able to advance in time to relieve troops further
north.
September 17 was the first day of the operation, on which the 82nd,
101st and 1st divisions landed in their respective locations, and so
the battle began... By the ninth day, the X X X Corps was unable to
break though to relieve the British troops in Arnhem, resulting in the
destruction of the the 1st Airborne Division. Thus, the Operation was a
failure and the war could not be ended early.
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