The Consequences of The Operation Market Garden

Day 9: Monday, 25 September

At dawn, the 1st Airborne Division received their orders to withdraw across the Rhine. This could not be effected until nightfall, and in the meantime the division struggled to survive. In a departure from their cautious, attritional tactics of the previous days, the Germans formed two potent SS battlegroups and made a significant thrust along a narrow front in the eastern sector. This succeeded in breaking through the thin front line, and for a time the division was in peril. However, the attack met with increasing resistance as it pushed deeper into the British lines, and was finally broken up by a heavy bombardment of the 64th Medium Regiment.

Employing every ruse to give the Germans the impression that their positions were unchanged, the 1st Airborne Division began its withdrawal at 22:00. British and Canadian engineer units ferried the troops across the Rhine, covered by the Polish 3rd Parachute Battalion on the north bank. By early the next morning they had withdrawn 2,398 survivors, leaving 300 men to surrender on the north bank at first light, when German fire prevented their rescue. Of approximately 10,600 men of the 1st Airborne Division and other units who fought north of the Rhine, 1,485 had died and 6,414 were taken prisoner, of whom one third were wounded.

To the south the newly-arrived 50th (Northumbrian) Division attacked the Germans holding the highway, and secured it by the next day. Allied positions in the Nijmegen Salient, as it came to be known, were manned throughout the rest of September and October by airborne units, then handed over to the First Canadian Army in November 1944 and remained unchanged until February 1945 when Operation Veritable was launched on the Rhineland, advancing east instead of north towards Arnhem

Aftermath

Operation Market Garden led to high losses in the elite Allied Airborne units. After the offensive operation was called off, these light units were left holding defensive positions, a role for which they were not equipped. The frontage held by Allied forces along their northwestern front in the Low Countries also doubled, making it difficult to mass forces for vital offensive operations in the area that took place in late 1944, such as the Battle of the Scheldt and Operation Aintree. In order to accomplish these two simultaneous offensives and make up for the heavy casualties that had been sustained during Operation Market Garden, troops were brought in from the front near Aachen and from the Ardennes. The Germans exploited the thin Allied presence in the Ardennes in December 1944 by launching the Ardennes offensive, which resulted in the Battle of the Bulge.

Debate on Allied Strategy and Tactics

Operation Market Garden has remained a controversial battle for several reasons. Both Allied tactics and strategy have been debated. The operation was the result of a strategy debate at the highest levels of Allied command in Europe. Much post-war analysis has thus probed the alternatives that were not taken, such as giving priority to first securing the Scheldt estuary. Military historians have also pointed to the weakened Allied strategic position in the Low Countries as a result of the defeat at Arnhem.

Optimistic planning

Among the controversial aspects of the plan was the necessity of all the major bridges being taken in order for success. Little contingency had been made in the event of blown bridges along the route. The terrain was also ill-suited for the mission of XXX Corps. It is therefore surprising in retrospect that the plans placed so little emphasis on capturing the important bridges immediately with forces dropped directly on them. In the case of Veghel and Grave, where this was done, the bridges were captured with only a few shots being fired.

The decision to drop the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division on the Groesbeek Heights, several kilometers from the Nijmegen Bridge, has been questioned, because it resulted in a critical delay of the capture of the span. Brereton had ordered that the bridges along XXX Corps' route should be captured with "thunderclap surprise". Both Browning and Gavin considered holding a defensive blocking position on the ridge a prerequisite for holding the highway corridor.

Gavin generally favoured accepting the higher initial casualties involved in dropping as close to objectives as possible in the belief that distant drop zones would result in lower chances of success. However, in this case, with the 82nd responsible for holding the centre of the salient, he and Browning decided the ridge must take priority. Combined with the 1st Airborne Division's delays within Arnhem, which left the Arnhem bridge open to their traffic, the Germans were given vital hours to reinforce their hold on the bridge.

The actions of XXX Corps have also been questioned. Their advance was characterized by what was widely perceived, at the time, as a lack of drive. For example, XXX Corps did not jump off until midafternoon of the first day and were delayed by pockets of German resistance and the need for engineers to replace the bridge destroyed at Son. They arrived at Nijmegen on September 19 when the plan called for them to be in Arnhem by that afternoon. Their major unexpected delay arose from the need to support the 82nd's assaults on Nijmegen and its bridges. After the river had been crossed, the Guards allegedly waited 18 hours to resume their advance; in the words of Colonel Reuben Tucker (commander of the 504th) the Guards "...stopped for tea". While not literally true, Tucker's statement summed up the view some U.S. troops had of the XXX Corps units. Ridgway added that he was "much dissatisfied with the apathy and lack of aggressiveness of the British forces".

However, one cannot shift all the blame to the British forces for the operation's failure (in the words of Montgomery: Seemingly, every allied victory is an American success, every Allied defeat is a British failure), as the American commanders decision to fly just one drop a day instead of two greatly reduced the amount of troops and equipment on the ground. Also, some have blamed the American pilot's lack of co-ordination, as in Normandy, some units landed off target. There was also some dissension between British and American forces and resistance forces in the Netherlands as well as lack of proper intelligence, adequate equipment, a breakdown in communications and a total underestimation of the German forces in the area.

Priority of operation

Several weeks prior to the plan taking shape, the British had captured Antwerp and its all-important port facilities. This action had the potential to greatly shorten the Allies' supply lines and trap Gustav-Adolf von Zangen's 15th Army of 80,000 men on the south side of the Scheldt Estuary. Instead, Von Zangen's men, with most of their heavy equipment including their artillery, escaped by boat to the South Beveland peninsula. In September, the peninsula could have been sealed by a short advance of only 24 km (15 miles) past Antwerp. Instead, because priority on supplies went to Market Garden, the First Canadian Army paused at Antwerp and then fought the Battle of the Scheldt in October at the cost of thousands of casualties. In the aftermath of Market Garden, Antwerp was not made operational until November 28. By October 1, over 240 Allied supply ships were waiting, unable to unload their cargo because of the limited port facilities on the continent.

Unseized tactical initiative

Arnhem bridge was not the only available Rhine crossing. In fact, had the Market Garden planners realized that a ferry was available at Driel, Frost's paratroops might well have secured that instead of the Arnhem bridge, making a profound difference in the campaign because at a shorter distance away from their western drop and landing zones--the whole of the 1st Brigade could have concentrated to hold the Osterbeek heights instead of just one battalion farther away at the road bridge. In this case, Arnhem was "one bridge too many". At a minimum, had XXX Corps pushed north, they would have arrived at the south end and secured it, leaving the way open for another crossing to the north at some other point. There was the smaller possibility of arriving with Frost's force intact. This perceived "lack of guts" caused some bitterness at the time.

The commander of XXX Corps advocated another course of action. About 25 km (16 miles) to the west was another bridge similar to Arnhem, at Rhenen, which he predicted would be undefended because of all the efforts being directed on Oosterbeek. This was in fact the case, but the corps was never authorised to take the bridge; if they had, it is almost certain they would have crossed unopposed into the rear of the German lines. By this time, it appears that Montgomery was more concerned with the ongoing German assaults on Market Garden's lengthy 'tail'.

Despite the heroism, bad choices were made throughout, and opportunities were ignored. The commander of the Glider Pilot Regiment had asked for a small force with gliders to land on the southern side of the bridge at Arnhem to quickly capture it, but he was denied.

This was surprising in light of the fact that in Normandy, the British 6th Airborne Division had used such coup-de-main tactics successfully to take smaller bridges. In Britain, the commander of the British 52nd (Lowland) Infantry Division, whose troops were slated to fly into a captured airfield, pleaded with his superiors to allow a brigade to fly in with gliders to assist General Robert Elliot Urquhart's trapped forces; this was also denied, though under the circumstances probably sensibly, as glider landings on undefended landing zones before the eyes of an alert enemy could have resulted in catastrophe. However, there was another airfield near Grave, and if the 52nd Lowland had been landed there, they might have freed up British units supporting the 82nd Airborne, and might have allowed them to reach Arnhem sooner. Polish 1st Parachute Brigade commander General Stanisław Sosabowski was prepared to try a dangerous drop through the fog which held up his deployment but again was refused.

The Dutch resistance was ignored by the British forces at Arnhem, although they worked with the U.S. airborne divisions. There was a very good reason for this: Britain's spy network in the Netherlands had been thoroughly and famously compromised — the so-called England game, which had only been discovered in April 1944. Perhaps assuming that the Dutch resistance would be similarly penetrated, British intelligence took pains to minimise all civilian contact. U.S. units, without this bad experience, made active use of Dutch help. As things turned out, the simple knowledge of the Driel ferry, or of the underground's secret telephone network could have changed the outcome of the operation, especially since Allied radio equipment was malfunctioning, having to rely on messengers. The latter was very important: it would have given the XXX Corps and Airborne High Command knowledge about the dire situation at Arnhem.

After the war, claims arose that the Dutch resistance had indeed been penetrated. One high-ranking Dutch counterintelligence officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Oreste Pinto, published a popular book, "Spy Catcher", part-memoir and part counterintelligence handbook. In it, he claimed that one of the leading figures in the Dutch resistance, Christiaan Lindemans ("King Kong" to his men) had been a German agent and had betrayed Operation Market Garden to the Germans. Lindemans was arrested in October 1944, but committed suicide in his cell in 1946 while still awaiting trial. In 2004, a book was published in the Netherlands claiming that Lindemans had in fact been a double agent.

Market Garden was a very high-risk plan that required a willingness to take risks at the tactical, small-unit level. Unfortunately, the detailed planning and leadership required at that level was not always present. The 1st Airborne Division, the least experienced working as a whole division, was given the most difficult, distant objective. XXX Corps was also criticized for its inability to keep to the operation's timetable. Its lead unit, the Guards Armoured Division, was led by a commander (Allan Adair) whom Montgomery had sought to remove prior to D-Day. This action was blocked due to Adair's popularity. Gavin, commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, regretted giving his division's most critical tasks (Groesbeek ridge and Nijmegen) to the 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment rather than his best regiment, Tucker's 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment.

Allied Reflections

Eisenhower believed until his death that Market Garden was a campaign that was worth waging. Even so, Cornelius Ryan quotes Eisenhower as saying, "...I don't know what you heard in Britain, but the British have never understood the American system of command... I never heard from the British any golden paeans of praise. And you're not going to hear it now, particularly from people like Montgomery." But Eisenhower kept these views to himself, not revealing them until long after hostilities had ended.

For his part, Montgomery called Market Garden "90% successful" and said:
In my prejudiced view, if the operation had been properly backed from its inception, and given the aircraft, ground forces, and administrative resources necessary for the job, it would have succeeded in spite of my mistakes, or the adverse weather, or the presence of the 2nd SS Panzer Corps in the Arnhem area. I remain Market Garden's unrepentant advocate. Seemingly, every Allied victory is an American success, every Allied defeat a British failure.

Dutch Prince Bernhard stated directly to Cornelius Ryan:

My country can never again afford the luxury of another Montgomery success.

Allied Operations in the Netherlands in the aftermath of Market Garden
After Operation Market Garden failed to establish a bridgehead across the Rhine, Allied forces were forced to launch offensives on two fronts in the south of the Netherlands at the same time. To secure shipping to the vital port of Antwerp they advanced northwards and westwards, taking the Scheldt estuary in the Battle of the Scheldt. Allied forces also advanced eastwards in Operation Aintree in order to secure the banks of the river Meuse as a natural boundary for the established salient. This attack on the German bridgehead west of the Meuse near Venlo was for the Allies an unexpectedly protracted affair, which included the Battle of Overloon.

In February 1945, Allied forces in Operation Veritable advanced from the Groesbeek heights which had been conquered during Market Garden into Germany, crossing the Rhine in March during Operation Plunder. However, the Allied forces had by then shifted to a broad front strategy, having crossed the Rhine days earlier much further south at Remagen and at Oppenheim. As a result of Operation Plunder, the city of Arnhem was finally liberated by I Canadian Corps on 14 April 1945 after two days of fighting. A surrender of the remaining German forces in the west of the Netherlands was signed on May 5.