Pete Cooper
Feb 22nd, 2008, 12:01 AM
Back on the old Bunkers and history forums I used to post up essays I had written pertaining to foreign policy or military history. Figured I'd give it another go.
My final essay - my undergrad dissertation on airborne forces warfare. Enjoy the controversy!!
Abstract:
The following dissertation describes the operational experience of airborne forces with a concentration on the two largest operations of the Second World War: Operation MARKET-GARDEN and Operation VARSITY. Operation VARSITY, which featured the largest operational drop of parachute and gliderborne troops in history, is seen by historians to have been the result of lessons directly learned from MARKET-GARDEN’s failures. However, the case is more complicated, as the special circumstances surrounding MARKET-GARDEN make it an anomaly in the wider scope of large-scale airborne operations at the time, and previous operations before MARKET-GARDEN had an equally large part to play in the shaping of wartime airborne forces doctrine.
Contents
Abstract
Chapter 1 – Introduction
Chapter 2 - Airborne Strategy Before MARKET-GARDEN
Chapter 3 – Operation MARKET-GARDEN
Chapter 4 – Operation VARSITY
Chapter 5 – Conclusions
Bibliography
Chapter 1 – Introduction
John Keegan lists the four great airborne challenges of the Second World War as being the invasions of Crete, Sicily, Normandy and Holland . He leaves out one very important operation – Operation VARSITY, the crossing of the River Rhine in March 1945 and the final large-scale airborne operation of the war. To date, this operation is the largest of its’ kind, with over twenty three thousand paratroopers and gliderborne solders released in a single mass drop. The challenges posed to make VARSITY happen were immense – in terms of resources, such an operation would never have been possible earlier in the war, and it was only the collation of aircraft, firepower and resources toward the end of the war that allowed it to happen. Its’ mission was, to much of the eye of history, made redundant by the crossing of the Rhine at Oppenheim by Patton , a general who even today is greatly romanticised. However, this is an operation that needs to be remembered, and its’ nature needs to be researched more thoroughly.
It is common sense to say that VARSITY was naturally the culmination of total operational experience for the Western Allies in airborne warfare; however several have stated that it was the failure of MARKET-GARDEN that really forced the changes that were to occur, and that these changes made VARSITY a complete success without faults . This is far from the case. Many of the transport and support issues that arose in MARKET-GARDEN were the natural result of diverted effort present in strategy at the time, primarily promoted by Eisenhower . The issue of the mass-drop being achieved for VARSITY was not caused by MARKET-GARDEN so much as being facilitated by the continued expansion of transport wings and the intake of new aircraft. The artillery plan was only made possible by the ability to mass supplies before the operation began, something that was made near impossible for MARKET-GARDEN by limited means of transport . Further, to suggest VARSITY was without fault is very unrealistic.
The perception of Operation MARKET-GARDEN in strategic literature often forgets key points about the nature of MARKET-GARDEN and why it took place. Many criticisms are levelled against the operation that seemingly ignores the fact that the operation was one of opportunity as opposed to a set-piece battle. The faltering advance of Montgomery’s units on the Northern flank and the perceived weakness noted by 21st Army Group in the Netherlands at the end of August made the strike necessary, but it was an opportunist gamble. The massive gains made in the space of a week were facilitated by MARKET-GARDEN and MARKET-GARDEN alone .
The study of operations as a whole lack consistency. The losses of MARKET-GARDEN for American units are treated with great negativity since the final objective was not secured , whereas the losses for VARSITY are treated as very light considering the ferocity of combat – even though casualty figures are very similar. The same comparison can be made between Operation FUSTIAN, the airborne component of the invasion of Sicily, and Operation DRAGOON, the invasion of Southern France – where casualty rates for airborne forces were 7% in Sicily , in Southern France they were 10% . However, the perception of these operations is very different in that FUSTIAN is treated as wasteful while DRAGOON is treated as highly successful , mainly because of the mistakes that occurred, even though FUSTIAN was ultimately successful. Operation OVERLORD, too, is treated as incredibly wasteful in relation to US troop carrier misdrops and the resulting casualties that occurred , where daring attacks such as that on Merville Battery that had even greater losses are treated not as wasteful but as gallant actions, even with similar mistakes arising in both . There is no standardisation of figures when comparing airborne operations, and seemingly little objectivity.
The special conditions that arose in September 1944 have been discussed for sixty years, ever since the operation took place. Much debate has continued over errors made, those who should be blamed for them, those who should be exonerated and so on. However, even after going into great detail about these problems and discussing whether or not they could have been avoided or who was most to blame for them, the importance of why they occurred is often forgotten in a sea of blame and criticism.
It is these same conditions that also make the influence of MARKET-GARDEN in modern airborne forces writing overstated in the grander sense of strategy. The interest in the battle of Arnhem and the sentiment towards those lost there perpetuate – that the loss of the 1st Airborne Division was not in vain and that the failures that occurred saved lives later on. However, as will be explained, the situation and the events that unfolded meant that all that was received strategically from MARKET-GARDEN was the reaffirmation several home truths. MARKET-GARDEN was not to the Allies what Crete was in terms of strategic significance to the Germans, and it was previous experimentation and operational experience that had as much of an influence on Operation VARSITY.
Chapter 2 – Airborne Strategy Before MARKET-GARDEN
Early British strategic theory for the use of paratroopers and gliderborne forces reflected to some degree, whether intentional or otherwise, the use of the German Fallschirmjäger in the war in Europe. It was the Fallschirmjäger that brought down the fortress at Eben Emael, which helped bring down the resistance of the Dutch armed forces in the invasion of the Netherlands, which cut down the defence of airfields in Norway, all in small raiding parties . Their role had been devastating, and the grit and determination of German paratroopers left the British both fearful for their use against Britain and perhaps also wanting to emulate them .
Further consideration also had to be taken into account with regards to Britain’s outlets for offence against Germany. Following the retreat from Dunkirk the only options available for attacking mainland Europe were attacks using the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy, and both of these were limited early on in their range, availability and potential. Dunkirk also limited the capacity for war across the entire army – so much materiel was lost in the retreat from France that efforts had to be redoubled just to reach 1939 figures on armaments and equipment . The problem of availability for British airborne troops, their equipment and transport would plague them right up until the end of the war.
The early American experience however was somewhat different, due in part to several key differences in their later entry into the war, the resources available and fundamental differences in the military reasoning of the two armies. Where Britain had much smaller pools of resources, both material and men, America was almost unrestricted in its’ potential - their industry and workforce was ready to take up the strain of wartime industrial output without problems resulting from mass recruitment for military service, and Britain had also spent two years at war by the time America entered, almost a year of which was spent under threat from aerial attack. While this prevented operational experience, this was two years that was spent both rearming and preparing for war – in this case, both raising and training their airborne divisions from the safety of American soil.
There are also more fundamental arguments put forward for the nature of the American airborne experience and how airborne warfare was perceived. It has been suggested that the attritional nature of the US Army at the time (and thus also the US Army Air Force, which was under US Army control for the most part) made the understanding and appreciation of unconventional warfare difficult, the result being that Commando forces were never taken up . As such, where Britain was exploring unconventional possibilities for overcoming the strategic problem for them in Europe, the Mediterranean and the Far East, the American strategic consideration of such warfare was limited and a much grander view of the possibility of airborne forces adopted from the outset. For the US Army, the parachute and the glider was just another means of deploying a Division into a combat zone.
As such, the British formation of the experimental airborne X-Troop at Ringway airfield in 1940 reflected the experimental nature of the airborne mode of warfare, the means of the time and the style of warfare that seemed best suited to the use of airborne forces. The unit was small, a volunteer force recruited from the newly formed British Commandos that were leant a few old converted bombers and RAF parachutes for training . This dictated what their perceived use could be at the time – airborne raiders much akin to those required under Churchill’s mandate of June 1940 for the formation of the regular Commando brigades, intended to attack small yet vital targets deep behind enemy lines, and out of reach of their seaborne comrades or land forces and unsuitable for aerial attack . The ‘Airborne Division’ was far from coming together – the ‘Airborne Commando’ on the other hand had been realized.
American development of airborne forces began within weeks of that of the British, a single infantry platoon being trained in the art of parachuting into combat. By the time of America’s entry into the war in late 1941, this number had increased to four battalions and by the end of 1942, the first airborne divisions were deemed ready for combat, with five divisions slated for establishment . The support structures for airborne units were also more robust in comparison to those of the British at this stage – dedicated transport aircraft were provided that could adequately support both British and American operations where the British relied on the assistance of RAF Bomber Command . However, while the American units had material backing, they did not have the operational experience for their troops or the aircrews that had been attached. This would have significant results.
The first operation for the British, Operation COLOSSUS in February 1941, was considered to be a success – fifty men of X-Troop dropped behind enemy lines to attack the aqueducts of the Tragino valley. Although many of the engineers and tasked with the destruction of the aqueducts and the explosives they carried never made it due to misdrops blamed on poor night navigation, the aqueducts were still damaged heavily and with the loss of only one man in the initial attack (a broken leg incurred on landing) but with all but one of the party seeing the end of the war in prisoner of war camps . This operation was followed a year later by Operation BITING, an operation intended to capture new German RADAR equipment on the French coast before seaborne rescue by landing craft. Fifteen of the one hundred and thirty men were lost - either killed, missing or wounded, and the device they were sent to recover successfully captured . This was another success that again showed the potential of parachute troops, though mainly in smaller groups than in the larger ones seen at the end of the war.
The third of these early raiding expeditions, Operation FRESHMAN, was an outright failure. The raid took place in November 1942 and was instead to be carried out by gliderborne forces in their first foray on the continent. Their target was a heavy water plant in Norway, producing fluids vital to the German attempt to build an atomic bomb. Both gliders eventually crashed without the target ever being found due to heavy snowdrifts, and the few survivors who were too wounded to escape taken into custody by the Gestapo before being executed . At this time, airborne operations in Africa had mixed results – the first and only parachute operation by the Special Air Service in Africa ended badly , while continued experimentation by the fully operational 1st Airborne Division had seen British airborne deployments co-operating with American air crews during the seaborne landings of Operation TORCH, which proved moderately successful. As such, the British experience of airborne warfare and combined operations was mixed. Success had been found, but dangers also, and the shift had begun toward consideration of the airborne soldier in assisting ground actions. In light of these successes, a mandate was set by the British War Office for the formation of a second British airborne division .
The success of the use of airborne troops in Africa spurred on the shift toward thinking in regards the use of airborne forces to assist major ground offensives. The same method would be used in Operation FUSTIAN, the airborne part of the invasion of Sicily, which would be the first operation for the American 82nd Airborne Division. The operation, which was conducted under the cover of darkness, was calamitous in that the inexperienced air crews, suffering with rapidly declining weather conditions and heavy anti-aircraft resistance misdropped many gliders and parachutists in the sea or away from their targets, leading to many unnecessary losses, made worse by friendly fire from naval units in the area . However, the targets were eventually taken. The British parachute attack on Primasole Bridge as part of the coup de main attacks four days into the operation ended badly when, following massive misdrops, the German 1st Parachute Division were dropped onto the British positions in counterattack. With armoured support the bridge was retaken and secured. The main reason losses did not break the expectations of the planners for the operation (25% prediction for losses in an inaccurate drop in comparison to the actual 7% ) was that many of the forces designated for attacks never reached their targets, again put down by the British command to poor navigation and experience . In all, the airborne assault was successful but disastrous, and much thought had to be put into strategic use of the airborne division.
A year passed between the invasion of Sicily and the massive airborne assault that took place in Northern France in Operation OVERLORD. The 82nd Airborne, in their second operation, would be accompanied by the untested 101st Airborne and the British 6th Airborne, some of whom had already seen action in the war by this stage. The planning and training for the operation was intricate and the mixed British-American planning group reflected in the final operation format (the airborne operations, Operations DETROIT, CHICAGO and TONGA respectively, were all planned separately – this is a distinctly British mindset, as indicated in the post-action report from Operation FUSTIAN ). The goals of the airborne were simple – the neutralization of resistance through confusion and the capture of strategic targets, and the capturing of key crossing points to speed up the breakout of allied forces once safely ashore. Limited support craft for the three divisions and for resupply operations meant the number of combat troops was limited to approximately six thousand men in each division, with the rest arriving by sea .
The experience was mixed – many casualties were incurred from flak and misdrops were once again experienced, which due to flooded fields had led to many of the overburdened airborne troops being drowned (this in particular occurring to members of the American airborne divisions) . Even with heavy casualties and confusion from misdrops, however, the airborne troops once again secured all of their positions and completed their objectives even against bitter resistance, with the beachhead being secured within the first day for operations to continue inland.
Operation DRAGOON followed two months later in the south of France. The operation was to be performed by the First Airborne Task Force, a combined American-British force cobbled together from airborne units already present in the sector following fighting in Sicily and Italy announced operational only two months before the operation took place . Planning and training had also been hampered by problems with sourcing maps and reference material, and with training aircraft in short supply after moving the composite division to training airfields in Rome. The format of the operation would be similar to both FUSTIAN and the OVERLORD operations – a pre-dawn initial assault with forces being dropped by parachute and in gliders throughout the day. The goals were very similar also – coup de main style attacks to take major road junctions for the advance of seaborne units with secondary operations geared toward disruption of inland enemy operations .
DRAGOON’s airborne element, even with the ad hoc nature of the First Airborne Task Force, was massively successful – arguably the most successful of all the airborne operations to take place during wartime in the European Theatre in the face of serious strategic problems. Losses were minimal – a total of 726 Americans and 311 British (a 10% total loss rate, with 283 injuries in the opening stages, amounting to a 2% loss rate from glider crashes and bad parachute landings), with only one aircraft being lost . Overall targets were captured with minimal resistance and with excellent execution.
In summary, the execution of major airborne operations had taken great strides since Sicily in almost every sense. Accuracy of landings had increased with the development of REBECCA/EUREKA equipment that used radio signals to guide aircraft toward landing zones where before Pathfinder units had been issued other forms of signalling devices. Where in BIGOT only 9% of British gliders reached their targets, by DRAGOON accuracy had reached 85% in darkness, and in this sense the problem of concentration of force following a drop had been partially overcome . The advent of ‘Airlanding’ brigades in gliders allowed for the deployment of regular support forces with their equipment loaded with them, facilitating mobile airborne artillery, hospitals and supply . The model for airborne forces doctrine had been set – the coup de main was a vital principle in choosing airborne targets and the securing of paths for the advance of regular troops was of vital importance in airborne thinking . The shock troop role was also promoted, although this also meant that airborne warfare would naturally be very self-destructive.
However, key concerns still remained for the airborne forces in Europe as a result of the operations that had already taken place – primarily those of continuing night time operations and the hazards of dropping airborne forces in darkness or daylight, but also considerations for the security of support craft in major operations, the question of just how far airborne operations could go before they reached their limits (DRAGOON post-action reports suggested the First Airborne Task Force was far from tested ), and the problems of weather and environmental conditions on operations persisted. Some of these were entirely inseparable from airborne warfare – others were problems that were about to rise to prominence.
Chapter 3 – Operation MARKET-GARDEN
It was clear to Field Marshall Montgomery and other military commanders within 21st Army Group, who at this time were pushing along the left flank of the Allied advance across Europe, that by the beginning of September, German control of their forces in the Netherlands was in the midst of a serious collapse . So, under Montgomery’s initiative, Operation COMET and later Operation MARKET-GARDEN were planned in co-operation with members of the First Allied Airborne Army command – COMET cancelled due to a deemed lack of military force to carry it out, as well as continued supply problems caused by Eisenhower’s ‘broad front policy’ which would actually end up hindering both operations .
By the time Operation COMET had been planned, the initiative had already been lost – a fact that military planners did not grasp fully until after the event. The retreat of German troops from the Netherlands began to slow by the 5th and by the 9th, the day provisionally planned for the attack, concentration of force was such that the attack would have been a disaster . In response to the calls for more support in this endeavour, Eisenhower agreed to attach the American 101st and 82nd Airborne Divisions to the airborne operation, as well as increased supplies to carry it out. However, supply lines in the French region had become a mess as the lines of supply had been drawn longer and longer, so material support was always going to be hindered in arriving. Eisenhower’s promised 1,000 tons of supplies a day for the week on the run-up to the operation never materialised – the average material that arrived for use in the operation at the front lines was less than a third of that promised.
The US 101st Airborne would attack bridges at Eindhoven, the US 82nd Nijmegen and the British 1st Arnhem. Coup de main attacks would take place at the former two, but the Arnhem bridge was deemed impossible to take by a coup de main party due to flak problems. However, where aerial support could have facilitated the drop of a complete division in COMET, the continued limited number of aircraft meant that no complete divisions would arrive on the first day of action – instead, assuming no problems with weather, the drops would be completed on the third day. Assuming no problems, the mission could still be carried out. In consideration of the original situation at the start of September, this plan could have been conducted and could have been a major success, and if the operation had been postponed by a week this could also have been the case – however, the situation as already mentioned had shifted and, as well as the retreat being stopped by German commanders, other units had been moved into the Netherlands region of the Western Front – most notably, the 9th and 10th SS Panzer Divisions, based in the Arnhem region, who at the time of the operation were due to have their tanks sent back to Germany for a refit.
From September 17th to September 25th, men of the American 101st and 82nd Airborne Divisions, 1st British Airborne Division and the British armoured XXX Corps fought valiantly to make the push along what would become known as ‘Hell’s Highway’ and to save the British airborne soldiers surrounded just outside the city of Arnhem, and the operation came to an end on September 26th with the retreat of the remnants of the British 1st Airborne, nine days after the operation had begun. The operation’s result, and the gains made, were greeted by commanders with optimism; however, the final objective, Arnhem, was not taken until April 1945 and as such has gone down in history as a glorious failure. All of the units were experienced – each of the airborne divisions had at least one combat jump under their belt and the men of XXX Corps had fought through Africa, Italy, France and Belgium. The troops of VIII and XII Corps were also seemingly very capable. Furthermore, these operations were what airborne forces, certainly in the case of the Americans though less so for the old hands within the British divisions, had been trained to do from start to finish. Why, then, did the operation not end in complete success?
The planners, in contrast to the units involved, are seen to have had a naïve view of airborne operations by historians and participants alike – Montgomery’s military background was as an infantryman, and Lieutenant General Brereton of First Allied Airborne Army was an ex-US Army Air Force commander, who was supposed to deal with transport issues as opposed to ground issues, which were the duty of his subordinate, Lieutenant General Browning. This is not to say that the strategists of the time were all inexperienced or incapable, though – Browning, head of First British Airborne Corps, while an ex-Guardsman had also been an active theorist and planner in airborne warfare for three years and, while not as experienced an airborne officer in comparison to others of the time such as Major General Gale (former commander 1st and 6th Airborne Divisions) or Major General Ridgeway (commander XVIII US Airborne Corps), still commanded respect in the field of airborne strategy – his plans with the First Allied Airborne Army varied from the dull to the daring, but all of his planned operations throughout the period between the OVERLORD operations and MARKET were ones of exploitation .
Ground commanders, too, were on-hand in the formation of strategy, especially in respect to co-operation between ground and airborne forces. Lieutenant General Dempsey, commander of British Second Army, was instrumental in this field, and would play important roles in planning both MARKET-GARDEN and VARSITY. Further, in 1943 Britain and America alike were novices in large-scale airborne operations and the leaps in possibilities for airborne forces had since changed how operations played out – inexperience was relative over the space of a year and a half, and operational research was available to planners to learn from. While this did not stop errors occurring, and MARKET-GARDEN as with any other operation had several, the operation was not brought down by poor planning or poor leadership - it suffered greatly in that many occurrences were hard to anticipate and hard to react to.
The timetable for Operation MARKET GARDEN is very reminiscent of that for the Battle of the Somme – and, in a sense, this can be seen as a criticism of Montgomery who, in his characteristic caution, left strict instructions with very low tolerances for lost time in what was a plan full of daring (and, being a veteran officer of the Somme, perhaps should have learned from experience how dangerous inflexible timetables can be). From the outset it was clear that, for the operation to succeed, the dash by the armoured column would need to be effective and unhindered. Any pause in the column could potentially mean disaster further on down the line, and the stop-start effect of German resistance on Hell’s Highway was nothing but detrimental to both the morale and the general situation in Nijmegen and Arnhem-Oosterbeek further on. Haig’s timetable was as unrealistic as Montgomery’s once the full situation was realised, and the lack of flexibility doomed the operation to difficulty from the start.
The intelligence failure for the operation is the one conceivably avoidable problem that occurred during the operation – from planning to execution, worrying information was coming in from many sources that could and indeed should have been reacted to, and the information that was reacted to was incorrect. Information that flak batteries were present near the Southern end of the Arnhem bridge and on the south bank of the Rhine was not up to date by the 17th when the operation began, preventing a swift drive from a southern Rhine deployment to the bridge. However, as aircraft loss rates indicate, just about any deployment after the second day, irrespective of location, would have been disastrous – 48% of all aircraft deployed for the second resupply drop on the 20th September in the Arnhem region alone were damaged by anti-aircraft fire, and this number increased to 61% on the 21st. This number would increase until the end of the operation .
Further, the estimates for capacity of troops within the Arnhem region were wholly incorrect – the intelligence report for 1st Airborne Division stated an expected number of troops at around ten to fifteen thousand , a number left over from the beginning of the month, when by the time of the operation that number had more than doubled with the addition of 2 SS Panzer Corps (though reactions to photographic intelligence from Browning a few days before the operation would suggest that the presence of 9th and 10th SS Panzer was anticipated and that knowledge of the planned departure time of 2 SS Panzer Corps armour around the planned time of the operation was perhaps known – their late departure from Arnhem meant that the airborne troops would face armoured resistance).
The supply problem for the operation was massive – the scale of the operation was simply enormous compared to previous endeavours and right up until the operation, IX Troop Carrier Command were still involved in ferrying supplies rather than training and supplying the airborne units in England . The 101st Airborne were supposed to be resupplied by truck, the result of hold-ups being that many units within the 101st were running very low on supplies, most importantly ammunition . Nijmegen and the 82nd also relied on ground supplies as well as airborne resupply, most notably the requirement of assault boats to make the famous Waal River crossing to capture the Nijmegen Bridge.
The British never managed to take control of their resupply zones as they were occupied by the 9th SS Panzer, and efforts to switch drop zones from outside the Oosterbeek defensive perimeter to areas within the perimeter proved both costly and with limited benefit – it was with luck that containers from the first scheduled resupply drifted in the wind toward British lines, and later successful drops saw massive losses and pressing counterattacks to prevent the collection of supplies . The loss of vehicles over time also prevented both the collection and distribution of the limited supplies received.
However, it must be noted that the plans formed during the Allied advance in their very nature had to be daring and major risks were always involved – where before operations such as OVERLORD and DRAGOON were planned in a reserved and careful manner, these were opening operations for larger offensives, as opposed to operations that were in their very nature opportunistic such as MARKET-GARDEN, and caution was high – especially in the case of OVERLORD, where Eisenhower was dreading massive numbers of casualties which, in the event, did not materialise.
The problem of concentration of force, in the event hindered by lack of aircraft and by poor weather later on, proved significant in places and insignificant in others, and while critics of Browning see the requisition of gliders destined for the Oosterbeek defenders for part of his own headquarters to glide into the Nijmegen sector as highly wasteful, that presumes that the situation in the battle for Arnhem-Oosterbeek was not too grave to be salvaged – would the two companies of the South Staffordshire Battalion left until the second lift have been of that great assistance in the grander scheme of the battle?
Where reports by British officers stating that a drop closer to the bridge could have led to success are in abundance, reports by SS commanders say that even with drops nearer the bridge, they could have led a successful defence and the Arnhem Bridge would have remained in German hands , which while pessimistic, is a fair assessment. Weather was the key factor in preventing over a thousand combat troops from arriving on time, as well as adequate aggressive air support from the RAF – a far greater problem than Browning’s wastage.
The very opportunist nature of the operation meant that preparations had to be both hasty and well-managed, and unfortunately material support for VIII and XII Corps came too late. VIII Corps and XII Corps, as well as XXX Corps, were ordered to advance ‘with utmost haste and speed’ along the left and right sides of the spearhead with XXX Corps in the centre . However, neither unit reached their given targets on the east and west of the Waal river on time and their involvement to date has gone fairly unnoticed, though they faced heavy resistance as they tried to cross the marshes after a late start (mainly caused by a lack of resources reaching them in time for the start of the operation) and suffered as many casualties each as XXX Corps .
Material support for both only arrived on the 16th, a day before the operation, and crossings to facilitate their advance on the first day could not be made in time, meaning that initiative for them was lost as well . This early lack of material assistance, caused by the late support of Eisenhower for the operation (fitting out three airborne divisions and nearly an entire army group in the space of a week, sending supplies from France by truck, was simply not feasible) left the 82nd Airborne overstretched in Nijmegen and left XXX Corps with no effective flanking defence (the natural result being that XXX Corps were perpetually being held up along the way and the battle extended – the British in Arnhem-Oosterbeek fighting for their lives all the while).
In Arnhem-Oosterbeek, where problems with signals, supplies and unanticipated enemy resistance were being encountered, almost all of the specialist jeeps for the 1st Airborne Reconnaissance Squadron had been lost en route and the 4th Parachute Brigade, dropping onto the Ginkel Heath drop zone on the second day, found that the defence of the DZ had nearly failed and without notification to command in England due to ineffective communication lines (which were disrupted by geography and local metal deposits in the soil) – two corners were occupied by the 9th SS Panzer while the other two were occupied by beleaguered members of the British airborne, and remained under attack both during the drop and after as they tried to withdraw, lost and confused. By the time they had made it back to British lines, only a quarter were remaining, and most of them were wounded.
Such events as lost glider cargoes were to be expected in airborne operations, but the loss of a large quantity belonging to a single unit vital to the execution of a plan is sheer unpleasant coincidence. The events that befell Brigadier Hackett’s 4th Parachute Brigade were also very unlucky, and it was not an isolated example in Arnhem-Oosterbeek or indeed in the American sectors. From start to finish, from the border to Arnhem – fate, coincidence, circumstance and the unanticipated conspired against the units in action.
A memorandum from 21st Army Group to 1st Airborne Division collating the report on lessons learned read:
‘It should be noted that the vehicle capacity of the roads which was achieved, was obtained under special circumstances, and is NOT necessarily a guide for all types of operations.’
The operation itself however faced many special circumstances from start to finish. From the failure of radio batteries to the loss of important glider cargo, and from blown up bridges to encroaching weather patterns, Operation MARKET-GARDEN was more a lesson of how bad airborne operations can turn out than in how not to approach an airborne operation. Montgomery himself admitted that there were obvious flaws in the plan in retrospect – however, as events showed, the plan was proved to be feasible even in the face of disastrous problems with the tanks reaching one mile from their target. It was a series of unfortunate events that were the straws that broke the camels back when the plan could have worked.
My final essay - my undergrad dissertation on airborne forces warfare. Enjoy the controversy!!
Abstract:
The following dissertation describes the operational experience of airborne forces with a concentration on the two largest operations of the Second World War: Operation MARKET-GARDEN and Operation VARSITY. Operation VARSITY, which featured the largest operational drop of parachute and gliderborne troops in history, is seen by historians to have been the result of lessons directly learned from MARKET-GARDEN’s failures. However, the case is more complicated, as the special circumstances surrounding MARKET-GARDEN make it an anomaly in the wider scope of large-scale airborne operations at the time, and previous operations before MARKET-GARDEN had an equally large part to play in the shaping of wartime airborne forces doctrine.
Contents
Abstract
Chapter 1 – Introduction
Chapter 2 - Airborne Strategy Before MARKET-GARDEN
Chapter 3 – Operation MARKET-GARDEN
Chapter 4 – Operation VARSITY
Chapter 5 – Conclusions
Bibliography
Chapter 1 – Introduction
John Keegan lists the four great airborne challenges of the Second World War as being the invasions of Crete, Sicily, Normandy and Holland . He leaves out one very important operation – Operation VARSITY, the crossing of the River Rhine in March 1945 and the final large-scale airborne operation of the war. To date, this operation is the largest of its’ kind, with over twenty three thousand paratroopers and gliderborne solders released in a single mass drop. The challenges posed to make VARSITY happen were immense – in terms of resources, such an operation would never have been possible earlier in the war, and it was only the collation of aircraft, firepower and resources toward the end of the war that allowed it to happen. Its’ mission was, to much of the eye of history, made redundant by the crossing of the Rhine at Oppenheim by Patton , a general who even today is greatly romanticised. However, this is an operation that needs to be remembered, and its’ nature needs to be researched more thoroughly.
It is common sense to say that VARSITY was naturally the culmination of total operational experience for the Western Allies in airborne warfare; however several have stated that it was the failure of MARKET-GARDEN that really forced the changes that were to occur, and that these changes made VARSITY a complete success without faults . This is far from the case. Many of the transport and support issues that arose in MARKET-GARDEN were the natural result of diverted effort present in strategy at the time, primarily promoted by Eisenhower . The issue of the mass-drop being achieved for VARSITY was not caused by MARKET-GARDEN so much as being facilitated by the continued expansion of transport wings and the intake of new aircraft. The artillery plan was only made possible by the ability to mass supplies before the operation began, something that was made near impossible for MARKET-GARDEN by limited means of transport . Further, to suggest VARSITY was without fault is very unrealistic.
The perception of Operation MARKET-GARDEN in strategic literature often forgets key points about the nature of MARKET-GARDEN and why it took place. Many criticisms are levelled against the operation that seemingly ignores the fact that the operation was one of opportunity as opposed to a set-piece battle. The faltering advance of Montgomery’s units on the Northern flank and the perceived weakness noted by 21st Army Group in the Netherlands at the end of August made the strike necessary, but it was an opportunist gamble. The massive gains made in the space of a week were facilitated by MARKET-GARDEN and MARKET-GARDEN alone .
The study of operations as a whole lack consistency. The losses of MARKET-GARDEN for American units are treated with great negativity since the final objective was not secured , whereas the losses for VARSITY are treated as very light considering the ferocity of combat – even though casualty figures are very similar. The same comparison can be made between Operation FUSTIAN, the airborne component of the invasion of Sicily, and Operation DRAGOON, the invasion of Southern France – where casualty rates for airborne forces were 7% in Sicily , in Southern France they were 10% . However, the perception of these operations is very different in that FUSTIAN is treated as wasteful while DRAGOON is treated as highly successful , mainly because of the mistakes that occurred, even though FUSTIAN was ultimately successful. Operation OVERLORD, too, is treated as incredibly wasteful in relation to US troop carrier misdrops and the resulting casualties that occurred , where daring attacks such as that on Merville Battery that had even greater losses are treated not as wasteful but as gallant actions, even with similar mistakes arising in both . There is no standardisation of figures when comparing airborne operations, and seemingly little objectivity.
The special conditions that arose in September 1944 have been discussed for sixty years, ever since the operation took place. Much debate has continued over errors made, those who should be blamed for them, those who should be exonerated and so on. However, even after going into great detail about these problems and discussing whether or not they could have been avoided or who was most to blame for them, the importance of why they occurred is often forgotten in a sea of blame and criticism.
It is these same conditions that also make the influence of MARKET-GARDEN in modern airborne forces writing overstated in the grander sense of strategy. The interest in the battle of Arnhem and the sentiment towards those lost there perpetuate – that the loss of the 1st Airborne Division was not in vain and that the failures that occurred saved lives later on. However, as will be explained, the situation and the events that unfolded meant that all that was received strategically from MARKET-GARDEN was the reaffirmation several home truths. MARKET-GARDEN was not to the Allies what Crete was in terms of strategic significance to the Germans, and it was previous experimentation and operational experience that had as much of an influence on Operation VARSITY.
Chapter 2 – Airborne Strategy Before MARKET-GARDEN
Early British strategic theory for the use of paratroopers and gliderborne forces reflected to some degree, whether intentional or otherwise, the use of the German Fallschirmjäger in the war in Europe. It was the Fallschirmjäger that brought down the fortress at Eben Emael, which helped bring down the resistance of the Dutch armed forces in the invasion of the Netherlands, which cut down the defence of airfields in Norway, all in small raiding parties . Their role had been devastating, and the grit and determination of German paratroopers left the British both fearful for their use against Britain and perhaps also wanting to emulate them .
Further consideration also had to be taken into account with regards to Britain’s outlets for offence against Germany. Following the retreat from Dunkirk the only options available for attacking mainland Europe were attacks using the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy, and both of these were limited early on in their range, availability and potential. Dunkirk also limited the capacity for war across the entire army – so much materiel was lost in the retreat from France that efforts had to be redoubled just to reach 1939 figures on armaments and equipment . The problem of availability for British airborne troops, their equipment and transport would plague them right up until the end of the war.
The early American experience however was somewhat different, due in part to several key differences in their later entry into the war, the resources available and fundamental differences in the military reasoning of the two armies. Where Britain had much smaller pools of resources, both material and men, America was almost unrestricted in its’ potential - their industry and workforce was ready to take up the strain of wartime industrial output without problems resulting from mass recruitment for military service, and Britain had also spent two years at war by the time America entered, almost a year of which was spent under threat from aerial attack. While this prevented operational experience, this was two years that was spent both rearming and preparing for war – in this case, both raising and training their airborne divisions from the safety of American soil.
There are also more fundamental arguments put forward for the nature of the American airborne experience and how airborne warfare was perceived. It has been suggested that the attritional nature of the US Army at the time (and thus also the US Army Air Force, which was under US Army control for the most part) made the understanding and appreciation of unconventional warfare difficult, the result being that Commando forces were never taken up . As such, where Britain was exploring unconventional possibilities for overcoming the strategic problem for them in Europe, the Mediterranean and the Far East, the American strategic consideration of such warfare was limited and a much grander view of the possibility of airborne forces adopted from the outset. For the US Army, the parachute and the glider was just another means of deploying a Division into a combat zone.
As such, the British formation of the experimental airborne X-Troop at Ringway airfield in 1940 reflected the experimental nature of the airborne mode of warfare, the means of the time and the style of warfare that seemed best suited to the use of airborne forces. The unit was small, a volunteer force recruited from the newly formed British Commandos that were leant a few old converted bombers and RAF parachutes for training . This dictated what their perceived use could be at the time – airborne raiders much akin to those required under Churchill’s mandate of June 1940 for the formation of the regular Commando brigades, intended to attack small yet vital targets deep behind enemy lines, and out of reach of their seaborne comrades or land forces and unsuitable for aerial attack . The ‘Airborne Division’ was far from coming together – the ‘Airborne Commando’ on the other hand had been realized.
American development of airborne forces began within weeks of that of the British, a single infantry platoon being trained in the art of parachuting into combat. By the time of America’s entry into the war in late 1941, this number had increased to four battalions and by the end of 1942, the first airborne divisions were deemed ready for combat, with five divisions slated for establishment . The support structures for airborne units were also more robust in comparison to those of the British at this stage – dedicated transport aircraft were provided that could adequately support both British and American operations where the British relied on the assistance of RAF Bomber Command . However, while the American units had material backing, they did not have the operational experience for their troops or the aircrews that had been attached. This would have significant results.
The first operation for the British, Operation COLOSSUS in February 1941, was considered to be a success – fifty men of X-Troop dropped behind enemy lines to attack the aqueducts of the Tragino valley. Although many of the engineers and tasked with the destruction of the aqueducts and the explosives they carried never made it due to misdrops blamed on poor night navigation, the aqueducts were still damaged heavily and with the loss of only one man in the initial attack (a broken leg incurred on landing) but with all but one of the party seeing the end of the war in prisoner of war camps . This operation was followed a year later by Operation BITING, an operation intended to capture new German RADAR equipment on the French coast before seaborne rescue by landing craft. Fifteen of the one hundred and thirty men were lost - either killed, missing or wounded, and the device they were sent to recover successfully captured . This was another success that again showed the potential of parachute troops, though mainly in smaller groups than in the larger ones seen at the end of the war.
The third of these early raiding expeditions, Operation FRESHMAN, was an outright failure. The raid took place in November 1942 and was instead to be carried out by gliderborne forces in their first foray on the continent. Their target was a heavy water plant in Norway, producing fluids vital to the German attempt to build an atomic bomb. Both gliders eventually crashed without the target ever being found due to heavy snowdrifts, and the few survivors who were too wounded to escape taken into custody by the Gestapo before being executed . At this time, airborne operations in Africa had mixed results – the first and only parachute operation by the Special Air Service in Africa ended badly , while continued experimentation by the fully operational 1st Airborne Division had seen British airborne deployments co-operating with American air crews during the seaborne landings of Operation TORCH, which proved moderately successful. As such, the British experience of airborne warfare and combined operations was mixed. Success had been found, but dangers also, and the shift had begun toward consideration of the airborne soldier in assisting ground actions. In light of these successes, a mandate was set by the British War Office for the formation of a second British airborne division .
The success of the use of airborne troops in Africa spurred on the shift toward thinking in regards the use of airborne forces to assist major ground offensives. The same method would be used in Operation FUSTIAN, the airborne part of the invasion of Sicily, which would be the first operation for the American 82nd Airborne Division. The operation, which was conducted under the cover of darkness, was calamitous in that the inexperienced air crews, suffering with rapidly declining weather conditions and heavy anti-aircraft resistance misdropped many gliders and parachutists in the sea or away from their targets, leading to many unnecessary losses, made worse by friendly fire from naval units in the area . However, the targets were eventually taken. The British parachute attack on Primasole Bridge as part of the coup de main attacks four days into the operation ended badly when, following massive misdrops, the German 1st Parachute Division were dropped onto the British positions in counterattack. With armoured support the bridge was retaken and secured. The main reason losses did not break the expectations of the planners for the operation (25% prediction for losses in an inaccurate drop in comparison to the actual 7% ) was that many of the forces designated for attacks never reached their targets, again put down by the British command to poor navigation and experience . In all, the airborne assault was successful but disastrous, and much thought had to be put into strategic use of the airborne division.
A year passed between the invasion of Sicily and the massive airborne assault that took place in Northern France in Operation OVERLORD. The 82nd Airborne, in their second operation, would be accompanied by the untested 101st Airborne and the British 6th Airborne, some of whom had already seen action in the war by this stage. The planning and training for the operation was intricate and the mixed British-American planning group reflected in the final operation format (the airborne operations, Operations DETROIT, CHICAGO and TONGA respectively, were all planned separately – this is a distinctly British mindset, as indicated in the post-action report from Operation FUSTIAN ). The goals of the airborne were simple – the neutralization of resistance through confusion and the capture of strategic targets, and the capturing of key crossing points to speed up the breakout of allied forces once safely ashore. Limited support craft for the three divisions and for resupply operations meant the number of combat troops was limited to approximately six thousand men in each division, with the rest arriving by sea .
The experience was mixed – many casualties were incurred from flak and misdrops were once again experienced, which due to flooded fields had led to many of the overburdened airborne troops being drowned (this in particular occurring to members of the American airborne divisions) . Even with heavy casualties and confusion from misdrops, however, the airborne troops once again secured all of their positions and completed their objectives even against bitter resistance, with the beachhead being secured within the first day for operations to continue inland.
Operation DRAGOON followed two months later in the south of France. The operation was to be performed by the First Airborne Task Force, a combined American-British force cobbled together from airborne units already present in the sector following fighting in Sicily and Italy announced operational only two months before the operation took place . Planning and training had also been hampered by problems with sourcing maps and reference material, and with training aircraft in short supply after moving the composite division to training airfields in Rome. The format of the operation would be similar to both FUSTIAN and the OVERLORD operations – a pre-dawn initial assault with forces being dropped by parachute and in gliders throughout the day. The goals were very similar also – coup de main style attacks to take major road junctions for the advance of seaborne units with secondary operations geared toward disruption of inland enemy operations .
DRAGOON’s airborne element, even with the ad hoc nature of the First Airborne Task Force, was massively successful – arguably the most successful of all the airborne operations to take place during wartime in the European Theatre in the face of serious strategic problems. Losses were minimal – a total of 726 Americans and 311 British (a 10% total loss rate, with 283 injuries in the opening stages, amounting to a 2% loss rate from glider crashes and bad parachute landings), with only one aircraft being lost . Overall targets were captured with minimal resistance and with excellent execution.
In summary, the execution of major airborne operations had taken great strides since Sicily in almost every sense. Accuracy of landings had increased with the development of REBECCA/EUREKA equipment that used radio signals to guide aircraft toward landing zones where before Pathfinder units had been issued other forms of signalling devices. Where in BIGOT only 9% of British gliders reached their targets, by DRAGOON accuracy had reached 85% in darkness, and in this sense the problem of concentration of force following a drop had been partially overcome . The advent of ‘Airlanding’ brigades in gliders allowed for the deployment of regular support forces with their equipment loaded with them, facilitating mobile airborne artillery, hospitals and supply . The model for airborne forces doctrine had been set – the coup de main was a vital principle in choosing airborne targets and the securing of paths for the advance of regular troops was of vital importance in airborne thinking . The shock troop role was also promoted, although this also meant that airborne warfare would naturally be very self-destructive.
However, key concerns still remained for the airborne forces in Europe as a result of the operations that had already taken place – primarily those of continuing night time operations and the hazards of dropping airborne forces in darkness or daylight, but also considerations for the security of support craft in major operations, the question of just how far airborne operations could go before they reached their limits (DRAGOON post-action reports suggested the First Airborne Task Force was far from tested ), and the problems of weather and environmental conditions on operations persisted. Some of these were entirely inseparable from airborne warfare – others were problems that were about to rise to prominence.
Chapter 3 – Operation MARKET-GARDEN
It was clear to Field Marshall Montgomery and other military commanders within 21st Army Group, who at this time were pushing along the left flank of the Allied advance across Europe, that by the beginning of September, German control of their forces in the Netherlands was in the midst of a serious collapse . So, under Montgomery’s initiative, Operation COMET and later Operation MARKET-GARDEN were planned in co-operation with members of the First Allied Airborne Army command – COMET cancelled due to a deemed lack of military force to carry it out, as well as continued supply problems caused by Eisenhower’s ‘broad front policy’ which would actually end up hindering both operations .
By the time Operation COMET had been planned, the initiative had already been lost – a fact that military planners did not grasp fully until after the event. The retreat of German troops from the Netherlands began to slow by the 5th and by the 9th, the day provisionally planned for the attack, concentration of force was such that the attack would have been a disaster . In response to the calls for more support in this endeavour, Eisenhower agreed to attach the American 101st and 82nd Airborne Divisions to the airborne operation, as well as increased supplies to carry it out. However, supply lines in the French region had become a mess as the lines of supply had been drawn longer and longer, so material support was always going to be hindered in arriving. Eisenhower’s promised 1,000 tons of supplies a day for the week on the run-up to the operation never materialised – the average material that arrived for use in the operation at the front lines was less than a third of that promised.
The US 101st Airborne would attack bridges at Eindhoven, the US 82nd Nijmegen and the British 1st Arnhem. Coup de main attacks would take place at the former two, but the Arnhem bridge was deemed impossible to take by a coup de main party due to flak problems. However, where aerial support could have facilitated the drop of a complete division in COMET, the continued limited number of aircraft meant that no complete divisions would arrive on the first day of action – instead, assuming no problems with weather, the drops would be completed on the third day. Assuming no problems, the mission could still be carried out. In consideration of the original situation at the start of September, this plan could have been conducted and could have been a major success, and if the operation had been postponed by a week this could also have been the case – however, the situation as already mentioned had shifted and, as well as the retreat being stopped by German commanders, other units had been moved into the Netherlands region of the Western Front – most notably, the 9th and 10th SS Panzer Divisions, based in the Arnhem region, who at the time of the operation were due to have their tanks sent back to Germany for a refit.
From September 17th to September 25th, men of the American 101st and 82nd Airborne Divisions, 1st British Airborne Division and the British armoured XXX Corps fought valiantly to make the push along what would become known as ‘Hell’s Highway’ and to save the British airborne soldiers surrounded just outside the city of Arnhem, and the operation came to an end on September 26th with the retreat of the remnants of the British 1st Airborne, nine days after the operation had begun. The operation’s result, and the gains made, were greeted by commanders with optimism; however, the final objective, Arnhem, was not taken until April 1945 and as such has gone down in history as a glorious failure. All of the units were experienced – each of the airborne divisions had at least one combat jump under their belt and the men of XXX Corps had fought through Africa, Italy, France and Belgium. The troops of VIII and XII Corps were also seemingly very capable. Furthermore, these operations were what airborne forces, certainly in the case of the Americans though less so for the old hands within the British divisions, had been trained to do from start to finish. Why, then, did the operation not end in complete success?
The planners, in contrast to the units involved, are seen to have had a naïve view of airborne operations by historians and participants alike – Montgomery’s military background was as an infantryman, and Lieutenant General Brereton of First Allied Airborne Army was an ex-US Army Air Force commander, who was supposed to deal with transport issues as opposed to ground issues, which were the duty of his subordinate, Lieutenant General Browning. This is not to say that the strategists of the time were all inexperienced or incapable, though – Browning, head of First British Airborne Corps, while an ex-Guardsman had also been an active theorist and planner in airborne warfare for three years and, while not as experienced an airborne officer in comparison to others of the time such as Major General Gale (former commander 1st and 6th Airborne Divisions) or Major General Ridgeway (commander XVIII US Airborne Corps), still commanded respect in the field of airborne strategy – his plans with the First Allied Airborne Army varied from the dull to the daring, but all of his planned operations throughout the period between the OVERLORD operations and MARKET were ones of exploitation .
Ground commanders, too, were on-hand in the formation of strategy, especially in respect to co-operation between ground and airborne forces. Lieutenant General Dempsey, commander of British Second Army, was instrumental in this field, and would play important roles in planning both MARKET-GARDEN and VARSITY. Further, in 1943 Britain and America alike were novices in large-scale airborne operations and the leaps in possibilities for airborne forces had since changed how operations played out – inexperience was relative over the space of a year and a half, and operational research was available to planners to learn from. While this did not stop errors occurring, and MARKET-GARDEN as with any other operation had several, the operation was not brought down by poor planning or poor leadership - it suffered greatly in that many occurrences were hard to anticipate and hard to react to.
The timetable for Operation MARKET GARDEN is very reminiscent of that for the Battle of the Somme – and, in a sense, this can be seen as a criticism of Montgomery who, in his characteristic caution, left strict instructions with very low tolerances for lost time in what was a plan full of daring (and, being a veteran officer of the Somme, perhaps should have learned from experience how dangerous inflexible timetables can be). From the outset it was clear that, for the operation to succeed, the dash by the armoured column would need to be effective and unhindered. Any pause in the column could potentially mean disaster further on down the line, and the stop-start effect of German resistance on Hell’s Highway was nothing but detrimental to both the morale and the general situation in Nijmegen and Arnhem-Oosterbeek further on. Haig’s timetable was as unrealistic as Montgomery’s once the full situation was realised, and the lack of flexibility doomed the operation to difficulty from the start.
The intelligence failure for the operation is the one conceivably avoidable problem that occurred during the operation – from planning to execution, worrying information was coming in from many sources that could and indeed should have been reacted to, and the information that was reacted to was incorrect. Information that flak batteries were present near the Southern end of the Arnhem bridge and on the south bank of the Rhine was not up to date by the 17th when the operation began, preventing a swift drive from a southern Rhine deployment to the bridge. However, as aircraft loss rates indicate, just about any deployment after the second day, irrespective of location, would have been disastrous – 48% of all aircraft deployed for the second resupply drop on the 20th September in the Arnhem region alone were damaged by anti-aircraft fire, and this number increased to 61% on the 21st. This number would increase until the end of the operation .
Further, the estimates for capacity of troops within the Arnhem region were wholly incorrect – the intelligence report for 1st Airborne Division stated an expected number of troops at around ten to fifteen thousand , a number left over from the beginning of the month, when by the time of the operation that number had more than doubled with the addition of 2 SS Panzer Corps (though reactions to photographic intelligence from Browning a few days before the operation would suggest that the presence of 9th and 10th SS Panzer was anticipated and that knowledge of the planned departure time of 2 SS Panzer Corps armour around the planned time of the operation was perhaps known – their late departure from Arnhem meant that the airborne troops would face armoured resistance).
The supply problem for the operation was massive – the scale of the operation was simply enormous compared to previous endeavours and right up until the operation, IX Troop Carrier Command were still involved in ferrying supplies rather than training and supplying the airborne units in England . The 101st Airborne were supposed to be resupplied by truck, the result of hold-ups being that many units within the 101st were running very low on supplies, most importantly ammunition . Nijmegen and the 82nd also relied on ground supplies as well as airborne resupply, most notably the requirement of assault boats to make the famous Waal River crossing to capture the Nijmegen Bridge.
The British never managed to take control of their resupply zones as they were occupied by the 9th SS Panzer, and efforts to switch drop zones from outside the Oosterbeek defensive perimeter to areas within the perimeter proved both costly and with limited benefit – it was with luck that containers from the first scheduled resupply drifted in the wind toward British lines, and later successful drops saw massive losses and pressing counterattacks to prevent the collection of supplies . The loss of vehicles over time also prevented both the collection and distribution of the limited supplies received.
However, it must be noted that the plans formed during the Allied advance in their very nature had to be daring and major risks were always involved – where before operations such as OVERLORD and DRAGOON were planned in a reserved and careful manner, these were opening operations for larger offensives, as opposed to operations that were in their very nature opportunistic such as MARKET-GARDEN, and caution was high – especially in the case of OVERLORD, where Eisenhower was dreading massive numbers of casualties which, in the event, did not materialise.
The problem of concentration of force, in the event hindered by lack of aircraft and by poor weather later on, proved significant in places and insignificant in others, and while critics of Browning see the requisition of gliders destined for the Oosterbeek defenders for part of his own headquarters to glide into the Nijmegen sector as highly wasteful, that presumes that the situation in the battle for Arnhem-Oosterbeek was not too grave to be salvaged – would the two companies of the South Staffordshire Battalion left until the second lift have been of that great assistance in the grander scheme of the battle?
Where reports by British officers stating that a drop closer to the bridge could have led to success are in abundance, reports by SS commanders say that even with drops nearer the bridge, they could have led a successful defence and the Arnhem Bridge would have remained in German hands , which while pessimistic, is a fair assessment. Weather was the key factor in preventing over a thousand combat troops from arriving on time, as well as adequate aggressive air support from the RAF – a far greater problem than Browning’s wastage.
The very opportunist nature of the operation meant that preparations had to be both hasty and well-managed, and unfortunately material support for VIII and XII Corps came too late. VIII Corps and XII Corps, as well as XXX Corps, were ordered to advance ‘with utmost haste and speed’ along the left and right sides of the spearhead with XXX Corps in the centre . However, neither unit reached their given targets on the east and west of the Waal river on time and their involvement to date has gone fairly unnoticed, though they faced heavy resistance as they tried to cross the marshes after a late start (mainly caused by a lack of resources reaching them in time for the start of the operation) and suffered as many casualties each as XXX Corps .
Material support for both only arrived on the 16th, a day before the operation, and crossings to facilitate their advance on the first day could not be made in time, meaning that initiative for them was lost as well . This early lack of material assistance, caused by the late support of Eisenhower for the operation (fitting out three airborne divisions and nearly an entire army group in the space of a week, sending supplies from France by truck, was simply not feasible) left the 82nd Airborne overstretched in Nijmegen and left XXX Corps with no effective flanking defence (the natural result being that XXX Corps were perpetually being held up along the way and the battle extended – the British in Arnhem-Oosterbeek fighting for their lives all the while).
In Arnhem-Oosterbeek, where problems with signals, supplies and unanticipated enemy resistance were being encountered, almost all of the specialist jeeps for the 1st Airborne Reconnaissance Squadron had been lost en route and the 4th Parachute Brigade, dropping onto the Ginkel Heath drop zone on the second day, found that the defence of the DZ had nearly failed and without notification to command in England due to ineffective communication lines (which were disrupted by geography and local metal deposits in the soil) – two corners were occupied by the 9th SS Panzer while the other two were occupied by beleaguered members of the British airborne, and remained under attack both during the drop and after as they tried to withdraw, lost and confused. By the time they had made it back to British lines, only a quarter were remaining, and most of them were wounded.
Such events as lost glider cargoes were to be expected in airborne operations, but the loss of a large quantity belonging to a single unit vital to the execution of a plan is sheer unpleasant coincidence. The events that befell Brigadier Hackett’s 4th Parachute Brigade were also very unlucky, and it was not an isolated example in Arnhem-Oosterbeek or indeed in the American sectors. From start to finish, from the border to Arnhem – fate, coincidence, circumstance and the unanticipated conspired against the units in action.
A memorandum from 21st Army Group to 1st Airborne Division collating the report on lessons learned read:
‘It should be noted that the vehicle capacity of the roads which was achieved, was obtained under special circumstances, and is NOT necessarily a guide for all types of operations.’
The operation itself however faced many special circumstances from start to finish. From the failure of radio batteries to the loss of important glider cargo, and from blown up bridges to encroaching weather patterns, Operation MARKET-GARDEN was more a lesson of how bad airborne operations can turn out than in how not to approach an airborne operation. Montgomery himself admitted that there were obvious flaws in the plan in retrospect – however, as events showed, the plan was proved to be feasible even in the face of disastrous problems with the tanks reaching one mile from their target. It was a series of unfortunate events that were the straws that broke the camels back when the plan could have worked.