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Operation Market Garden: History's Greatest Airborne Assault
It was hoped that Operation Market Garden would shorten the war, but the largest airborne operation of World War II failed in its main objectives.
By Colonel William Wilson, U.S. Army (Ret.) 
The 73-day battle of "Hell's Highway" was perhaps the most savagely fought single action in the history of the U.S. Army's 101st and 82nd Airborne divisions -- and the least publicized. It is the story of a road, its bridges, and the men who fought and died to keep it open.
For the airborne troops fortunate enough to return from the assault on Normandy, the rear bases in England were utopia. Most of their buddies had come out on stretchers or were interred in the fertile soil of the French coast. The 82nd and 101st were well known to the British, who realized the sacrifices they had made in Normandy and responded to the survivors with kindness and respect. The troopers were glad to find people they could understand and, after a few days, they swarmed over the island on passes to London, Scotland and the familiar towns they had known before the invasion.
Once the divisions returned to their bases, the re-equipping, reorganizing and training began. All weapons were fired on the range: carbines, M-Is, submachine guns and Colt 45s. New equipment and men joined the units. It was a summer of alerts and dry runs. Troops received rehearsal briefings and assault equipment three times before being moved to a marshaling area. On September 11, 1944 (six days before the invasion of Holland), the unit commanders of the 101st and 82nd Airborne divisions received a briefing on their next parachute assault operation.
The code name of the mission was Operation Market Garden. Early in the hectic week of planning, from September 10 to September 17, Lt. Gen. Lewis H. Brereton, commander of the First Allied Airborne Army, made one bold decision that changed the whole character of the operation. It would be a daylight jump. That was a gamble on Allied superiority in the air. The objective area was northeast of the major Belgian seaport of Antwerp. The airborne effort was designed to assist the advance of the British Second Army into Holland so it could attack eastward over the Neder Rhine River into Germany. It was essential that the British armor advance rapidly. The British would drop their 1st Airborne Division, assisted by a brigade of Polish paratroopers, at Arnhem on the other side of the Rhine. The decision on H-hour was to be made 72 hours after receipt of photographic intelligence.
The major advantage to be gained from the Market Garden operation was apparent. A thrust north across the Rhine River would flank the Siegfried Line and allow the Allies to launch armored assaults across the Westphalia Plain. The British Second Army was not capable of such an offensive at that time. Its supply lines stretched 250 miles from the Normandy ports. Antwerp had been captured but was not operating as an Allied port because German troops still dominated its approaches. All Second Army transport was being used at full capacity in order to sustain the fighting of one corps. General Bernard Montgomery insisted that airborne assistance was essential to the plan. The airborne would initiate the invasion and unroll a security carpet on the road before the advancing ground forces.
It was not a long road in comparison with some of the tremendous distances of the war, running 70 miles through Holland from the Belgian border north to Arnhem. The 101st sector was much shorter: 20 miles or less from Eindhoven through Zon and St. Oedenrode to Veghel. Twenty miles of road is more than a division is supposed to defend, especially when the road is a passageway inviting attack from both sides, a corridor that threatens to cut off a desperate enemy whose available resources of men and material were much greater than those of the Allied forces in Holland. The First Allied Airborne Army was to drop from the skies behind enemy lines and hold that corridor open at all costs. If Operation Market (the airborne part of the overall plan) was successful, the airborne would control the key bridges and strategic points and the British XXX Corps could roll in with maximum speed and complete the Garden (ground) phase of the operation. The British corps had to reach Arnhem in 48 hours, because airborne troops could not be expected to hold out longer than that without standard artillery, tanks and effective resupply.
Far to the north, where the road ran across the Lower Rhine at Arnhem, the British 1st Airborne Division was to drop. To the south, where the road crossed the Waal River at Nijmegen, the American 82nd was to hold. The 82nd, assisted by the Polish Parachute Brigade, was assigned the big bridges over the Maas River at Grave and over the Waal River at Nijmegen, plus a ridgeline to the east that dominated both bridges. The bridge at Nijmegen, well over a mile long, would become a key to the whole Market Garden operation. The 101st's job was in the area behind the German front line at Eindhoven, running north through Zon to Uden. The division was to seize the rail and highway bridges over the Aa River and the Wilhelmina Canal at Zon, the Dommel River at Eindhoven and St. Oedenrode, and Zuit Willemsvaart Canal near Veghel. The troopers were to hold those towns and their crossings. That road later became known as "Hell's Highway."
The flat terrain offered a wide selection of drop zones. General Maxwell Taylor, commander of the 101st Airborne, remembering how his forces were scattered all over Normandy during the D-Day drop, insisted on a high degree of concentration. The 506th and 502nd Parachute regiments were to come down on adjacent drop zones B and C northeast of Zon. The mission given to the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, of which I was a part, was to seize the Wilhelmina Canal bridge at Zon, then move south to take Eindhoven with its four highway bridges over the Dommel River.
The order of battle and points of departure for the 101st Airborne Division were as follows: from Aldermaston, 90 aircraft with the 501st Parachute Regiment less the 3rd Battalion; from Chilbolton, 45 aircraft with the 3rd Battalion of the 501st and 45 aircraft with the 3rd Battalion of the 506th Parachute Regiment, each battalion with a platoon of the 326th Parachute Engineers; from Membury, 90 aircraft with the 506th less the 3rd Battalion; from Welford, 45 aircraft with the 1st Battalion of the 502nd Parachute Regiment, 9 aircraft with the division headquarters; and from Grenham Common, 90 planes with the 502nd less the 1st Battalion.
On September 15, the troops were told they were going to pave the way for the British Second Army to cross the Rhine River. On the 16th briefings were held. Sand tables showing every feature of the terrain around the drop zones were set up in the war rooms. Men were issued two maps each, told everything there was to know about the mission, and given foreign currency and ammunition. The drop was scheduled for 1:30 p.m. on September 17.
The largest airborne operation in history was about to begin. The atmosphere in the C-47 transport planes was tense. I had broken out in a cold sweat. I remembered well the hellfire of D-Day. It had looked like a Christmas tree that night over Normandy as I glanced out the aircraft door: tracers, small arms, flak and the thud of a crashing C-47. God help us if we were flying into another wall of fire, I thought. This time the skies were clear over the English Channel and the Continent as far as I could see, and the C-47s were holding pattern for the drop. Maybe we would make the right drop zone this time.
Taking off from the English airfields, the planes circled into formation and set out along the southern route over Belgium. So vast was the fleet of planes that while lead elements of the sky army were spilling from their aircraft over Dutch soil, the last echelons of the flight were taking off from their fields in England.
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