Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    1st Airborne: Market Garden 1944
    1st Airborne: Market Garden 1944
    1st Airborne: Market Garden 1944
    Ebook157 pages32 minutes

    1st Airborne: Market Garden 1944

    By Simon Forty and Tom Timmermans

    3/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    “An interesting introductory read . . . [on] this infamous ‘bridge too far’ division” in the series that brings World War II battles to life (Classic Military Vehicle).

    After being held in reserve during the battle of Normandy and spending three months waiting for action, 1st Airborne played a leading role in Operation Market—the air component of Operation Market Garden, an audacious attempt by the Allies to bypass the Siegfried Line and advance into the Ruhr in September 1944. It was to be 1st Airborne’s last action of the war. Encountering more resistance than expected, including II SS Panzer Corps, the division landed too far from Arnhem bridge, and fought bravely but in vain. Held up en route, particularly at Nijmegen, XXX Corps’ advance to Arnhem stuttered and ran late. After nine days of fighting, 1st Airborne had lost 8,000 men around Arnhem when the survivors retreated across the Lower Rhine to safety. During those nine days, however, they had created a legend: first as the small unit under Lt-Col John Frost held the “bridge too far” and then as the Oosterbeek perimeter came under sustained attack waiting for XXX Corps to arrive.

    The Past & Present Series reconstructs historical battles by using photography, juxtaposing modern views with those of the past together with concise explanatory text. It shows how much infrastructure has remained and how much such as outfits, uniforms, and ephemera has changed, providing a coherent link between now and then.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCasemate Publishers
    Release dateAug 19, 2017
    ISBN9781612005416
    1st Airborne: Market Garden 1944
    Author

    Simon Forty

    Simon Forty was educated in Dorset and the north of England before reading history at London University’s School of Slavonic and East European Studies. He has been involved in publishing since the mid-1970s, first as editor and latterly as author. Son of author and RAC Tank Museum curator George Forty, he has continued in the family tradition writing mainly on historical and military subjects including books on the Napoleonic Wars and the two world wars. Recently he has produced a range of highly illustrated books on the Normandy battlefields, the Atlantic Wall and the liberation of the Low Countries with co-author Leo Marriott.

    Read more from Simon Forty

    Related to 1st Airborne

    Related ebooks

    Wars & Military For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      The Battle Of St Vith

      Feb 26, 2020

      The Battle Of St Vith
      6 min read

    • Article

      Assault On The Reich

      Oct 1, 2021

      Assault On The Reich
      9 min read

    • Article

      Hitler’s Tiger Ace

      Feb 17, 2022

      Hitler’s Tiger Ace
      7 min read

    • Article

      Breaking Rommel’s Siege

      Nov 29, 2018

      Breaking Rommel’s Siege
      11 min read

    • Article

      Ursula And Elna

      May 7, 2021

      Ursula And Elna
      5 min read

    • Article

      Reviews

      Apr 15, 2021

      Reviews
      5 min read

    • Article

      What Happened To All The Toy Soldiers?

      Oct 6, 2023

      It is true that toy figures can be found in the bigger supermarkets and garden centres, but inevitably the theme is either agricultural, wildlife, dinosaurs, or fantastical. The last of these offers a number of medieval knights lacking any historical

      6 min read

    • Article

      M10 & M10A1 TANK DESTROYER

      Mar 18, 2021

      M10 & M10A1 TANK DESTROYER
      3 min read

    • Article

      Royal Bavarian Jagdstaffel 23

      Mar 5, 2019

      Royal Bavarian Jagdstaffel 23
      2 min read

    • Article

      The Arnhem Ambush

      Sep 7, 2021

      The Arnhem Ambush
      7 min read

    • Article

      Death And The Admirals

      Jan 10, 2023

      Death And The Admirals
      10 min read

    • Article

      The Chenogne massacre

      Feb 26, 2020

      The Chenogne massacre
      3 min read

    • Article

      In Deep Water

      Jul 6, 2021

      In Deep Water
      2 min read

    • Article

      The House On Dead Man’s Corner

      Nov 7, 2021

      The House On Dead Man’s Corner
      2 min read

    • Article

      Dukes Of The Frontline

      Jul 24, 2020

      Dukes Of The Frontline
      6 min read

    • Article

      Panzerartillerie Firepower For The Panzer Divisions

      Apr 18, 2019

      Author Thomas Anderson Publisher Osprey Publishing Price £30 As the German Army formed their new doctrine of mobile warfare based around fast moving armoured columns (Blitzkrieg) in the 1930s, it became clear that artillery was going to be a major p

      1 min read

    • Article

      Sturmpanzerwagen A7v

      Apr 19, 2018

      Sturmpanzerwagen A7v
      4 min read

    • Article

      Jagdpanz er 38

      Aug 5, 2021

      Jagdpanz er 38
      3 min read

    • Article

      Enter The Afrika Korps

      Oct 2, 2017

      Enter The Afrika Korps
      11 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for 1st Airborne

    3/5

    1 rating0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      1st Airborne - Simon Forty

      Introduction

      W

      E’VE ALL SEEN THE MOVIE

      , and as is so typical of any Hollywood blockbuster, it has defined the battle for many people. Relying heavily on a few vocal sources, it had to find a villain and he was provided by someone who could not defend himself: Boy Browning was dead. The willful supression of the intelligence of two crack SS-Panzer Divisions; the wrong crystals taken for the radios; the tardiness of the British armor at Nijmegen—in the end, the power of mass-market cinema has helped obscure the reasons for the failure of Operation Market Garden, a daring attempt to use the First Allied Airborne Army to end the war by Christmas.

      In fact, as Martin Middlebrook so succinctly outlines in the final section of his book on the Airborne battle, the real reasons behind the failure of the plan have been identified, with—on the Allied side— the air plan being pivotal. The inflexibility of Maj-Gen. Paul Williams, commander of IX Troop Carrier Command, meant that the British troops were dropped over three days, miles from the bridge, without the sort of coup de main operation that had proved so successful on the Orne on D-Day. The German assessment of the battle suggested the Allies’ chief mistake was this protracted, three-day landing. Added to this, no ground-support missions could be flown while the air drops were taking place, and that included Flak suppression.

      It seems incredible but the man in charge of close air support over the Arnhem area—the commander of 2TAF, AM Sir Arthur Coningham—was not invited to attend any of planning meetings until the day before the operation, when the weather was too bad for him to attend. This meant that the first ground-support mission flown directly in aid of the Paras in the front line was not till September 24.

      The ground-support missions weren’t helped by the fact that the US Air Support Signals Team, the 306th Fighter Control Squadron which accompanied the Paras in four Wacos from Manston, had been given the wrong crystals and were unable to make contact with their air assets. Apart from this, the problems with radio communication, so often alluded to (not least by Maj-Gen. Roy Urquhart), were not down to poor or inadequate equipment but basic procedural errors.

      Dropped so far from the bridge over a three-day period, the division needed to protect the LZs and DZs against enemy interference, thus reducing significantly the number of troops heading for the bridge and speed with which they traveled. This, in turn, meant that the immediate German response to the airborne operation—ad hoc groupings of whatever troops were to hand, not the reaction of heavily armed crack SS troops, which were anyway at only 20–30 percent of their established strengths—was remarkably effective, in a way that would have almost certainly not been the case in the face of larger numbers of troops. Without the blocking action of KG Krafft, the Airborne Recce Sqn jeeps may well have reached the bridge; without the actions of KG Spindler on September 17–18, Frost’s 2nd Para Battalion would have received vital reinforcements and ammunition.

      Robert Kershaw’s brace of Arnhem books supply a lucid account of the German side of the operation and highlight this speedy response to the arrival of 1st Airborne. As he says in his assessment, too often Allied historians have tended to blame mistakes rather than effective countermeasures. The speed of the German reaction was crucial to their success. On September 7 six British battalions landed near Arnhem. By midnight—less than twelve hours after the first Para had dropped—there were between ten and eleven German battalions opposing them, their troop movements having taken place without harassment by Allied close air support. By September

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1