80: Market Garden

80 years ago today (September 17, 1944) Operation Market Garden occurred.

Operation Market Garden was an Allied (British, American, Canadian, Free Poles, Free Dutch and the Free Belgian) Military Operation during World War 2 fought in German-Occupied the Netherlands.

(Parachutes open overhead as waves of paratroops land in Holland during operations by the 1st Allied Airborne Army.)

Its objective was to create a 64 mile salient into German Territory and creating an Allied Invasion route in northern Germany.

There were 2 Sub-Operations: “Market” the Air Part and “Garden” the Ground Part.

41,000 Allied Paratroopers landed in German-Occupied the Netherlands where they were supposed to seize and hold 9 bridges.

The Land Forces consisted of 10 Armored and Motorized Brigades with a similar number of Troops.

(Nijmegian civilians ride along on a jeep during the advance on Sept.20th)

The Germans had 100,000 Troops in the area.

Market Garden succeeded in capturing the Dutch Cities of Eindhoven and Nijmegen along with many Towns, and a few V-2 Rocket Launching Sites.

 It failed in its most important objective; securing the Bridge over the Rhine at Arnhem.

On September 28, 1944 the Germans forcibly evacuated 150,000 Residents of Arnhem.

The Germans counter-attacked in the Nijmegen Salient but failed to retake any of the Allied gains.

The Germans then punished the Dutch People by cutting off food shipments to the country and 20,000 Dutch died of starvation (known as the Hunger Winter.)

Arnhem was finally captured by the Allies in April 1945 shortly before the War ended.

500 Dutch were killed.

17,200 Allied Troops were killed or wounded.

(Nijmegen after the battle. September 28,1944.)

The 1977 film “A Bridge Too Far”, based on the 1974 Book of the same name by Cornelius Ryan is about Operation Market Garden. It was directed by Richard Attenborough and stars: Dirk Bogarde, James Caan, Michael Caine, Sean Connery, Edward Fox, Elliott Gould, Gene Hackman, Anthony Hopkins, Hardy Krüger, Laurence Olivier, Ryan O'Neal, Robert Redford, Maximilian Schell and Liv Ullmann.