Operation Market Garden, is one of the most famous offensives of WWII. The Allied plan for this operation was to land a large amount of paratroopers in a corridor between Eindhoven, Nijmegen and Arnhem in southern Netherlands (Operation Market) and then push towards Arnhem in a ground offensive with the 21st Army Group.
The ultimate goal was to cross the Lower Rhine at Anrhem and push further north, thus going around the strongly fortified German West Wall and pushing into North Germany.
As part of this, the American 101st Airborne Division landed between Eindhoven and Veghel, the American 82nd Airborne Division at Nijmegen and the British 1st Airborne Division, together with Polish paratroopers, landed at Arnhem on September 17th.
In the following days, the Operation Garden, the Allied ground assault, made good progress, however, the Germans ultimately managed to stop the Allied ground attack at Arnhem, where the Allies were unable to establish a bigger bridgehead on the other side of the Lower Rhine at Arnhem, coming under attack of strong German tank and mechanized units. Thus, on September 26th, the Allies decided to abandon their bridgehead on the other side, and therefore ultimatley failing the main goal of the operation.
It mainly failed because the plan was deemed to ambitious, the Allies, especially the British Field Marshal Montgomery considered the German resistance broken, and thus the Allies ignored the known presence of German tank units, specifically the 9th and 10th SS-Tank units, near Arnhem, who were stationed there for re-fitting and were able to inflict heavy casulties on the British paratroopers, who lacked supplies and suitable AT-weapons.
The Allies suffered heavy losses during this Operation,
Despite not reaching its main goal, the Allies still managed to push 97 km into German-held Dutch territory, capturing the cities of Eindhoven and Nimjegen.
Operation Market Garden has been featured in many works of media, most famously the British war movie "A Bridge Too Far" from 1977, directed by Richard Attenborough.
This is footage shown in a German propaganda newsreel from 4th October 1944. It shows the fight against the British 1st Airborne Division at Arnhem, Allied paratroopers parachtuing down, German AA-guns in action, shot down and destroyed glider planes, German infantry advancing, destroyed Allied equipment and British prisoners.
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Subtitles made by me.
