Market Garden Through The Eyes Of A German War Photographer

[Phil]

The reason MARKET failed lies at the British end. At the strategic level it was due to inept to non-existent leadership at the Corps, Division and vital Brigade level arising largely from inexperience.

 

 

Nothing to do with the limitations of light infantry advancing against even hasty defensive positions?

 

Misreading the strategic situation resulted in the blokes being lobbed in, them being light infantry meant they were more often than not, going to be unable to fight through the forces that simply shouldn't have been there or be able to put up a proper fight.

[BillB]

 

 

Nothing to do with the limitations of light infantry advancing against even hasty defensive positions?

 

No, nothing to do with that because there were no even hasty defensive positions" to go up against for the first 12 - 14 hours after the landing.

 

 

Misreading the strategic situation resulted in the blokes being lobbed in, them being light infantry meant they were more often than not, going to be unable to fight through the forces that simply shouldn't have been there or be able to put up a proper fight.

 

There was no misreading of anything of the sort, as you'd know if your knowledge was anything above the superficial. Again, there were no forces that shouldn't have been there, simply or otherwise. I assume the bit about not putting up a proper fight refers to the 1st Airborne Div.? If so you are displaying the depths of your ignorance. Again.

 

BillB

[BillB]

I think I'd go with the poor understanding of the overall strategic situation, if I were looking for a culprit. Everything else was a consequence of that. Still, I'm not sure why it was such a crime and/or tragedy to lose a single division to gain 50 miles of ground. After all, that ground did come in handy in February, when it came time to mount Veritable.

 

In sociological terms, Market Garden has a lot in common with Jutland -- disappointment at not achieving some desirable, but unreasonable to expected, outcome.

You can go with whatever you like Mr Evans because as you clearly demonstrated in the last thread on this, your knowledge of MARKET is thin to non-existent even after allegedly reading my book.

 

Is that enough to get me another mendacious back-stabbing book review on Amazon?

 

BillB.

[Phil]

No, nothing to do with that because there were no even hasty defensive positions" to go up against for the first 12 - 14 hours after the landing.

 

 

So who were 1 and 3 PARA shooting at as they moved toward the bridge?

 

There was no misreading of anything of the sort, as you'd know if your knowledge was anything above the superficial.

 

 

So the situation on the western front was precisely as the allied leadership believed?

 

I assume the bit about not putting up a proper fight refers to the 1st Airborne Div.?

 

 

No it's a summation of what the Allied leadership believed the state of the German forces to be, both at the strategic level and locally around Arnhem.

 

One can drown in the details but the reality is the Germans weren't as beaten as was believed and light infantry with limited supplies are next to useless against hasty defences when those hasty defences don't represent the final objective and are indeed still some miles from it.

 

Fundamentally the limited combat power of light infantry met German forces which shouldn't have been able to contest the operation and that contesting of the battle-space turned the allied plans up there inside out. Your options are limited when half your limited striking power has to concentrate on force protection whilst the half that you could send to the objective is fragmented, isolated and strung out with virtually no punch - all of it getting weaker and weaker literally by the second with every round expended and every man killed or wounded.

Edited September 21, 2014 by Phil

[Tony Evans]

You can go with whatever you like Mr Evans because as you clearly demonstrated in the last thread on this, your knowledge of MARKET is thin to non-existent even after allegedly reading my book.

 

Sorry, Bill, but disagreeing with your opinion is not evidence of "thin to non-existent" knowledge. Nor is your book of such absolute and timeless authority that reading it should naturally clear up all questions.

 

("[A]llegedly", Bill? You're better than that.)

 

 

Is that enough to get me another mendacious back-stabbing book review on Amazon?

 

 

My opinion is not mendacious. It's what I honestly took from the book. If you don't like that, it's a you problem, not a me problem. As for "back-stabbing", when did I ever owe you a duty of loyalty, for anything?

 

I have had, from time to time, ample reason to be impressed by your hubris and self-absorption, but this sets a completely new standard.

Edited September 21, 2014 by Tony Evans

[Tony Evans]

 

One can drown in the details but the reality is the Germans weren't as beaten as was believed and light infantry with limited supplies are next to useless against hasty defences when those hasty defences don't represent the final objective and are indeed still some miles from it.

 

Fundamentally the limited combat power of light infantry met German forces which shouldn't have been able to contest the operation and that contesting of the battle-space turned the allied plans up there inside out. Your options are limited when half your limited striking power has to concentrate on force protection whilst the half that you could send to the objective is fragmented, isolated and strung out with virtually no punch - all of it getting weaker and weaker literally by the second with every round expended and every man killed or wounded.

 

 

I think this answer, though grounded in reality, just isn't satisfactory to a lot of people. They need to make up their own realities, in which the 1st Airborne and the entire operation would have succeeded, if just given the good ol' college try. IOW, the argument is really about the sentiments of the dissatisfied, nothing else.

[firefly1]

.

 

BillB

 

I cannot understand why so much attention is paid to the mess at Arnhem, and less to the overly optimistic plan consisting of too many bridges.

 

The advance was lucky that only the bridge over the Wilhelmina Canal was actually blown (which delayed the advance slightly. By all military common sense the bridge at Nijmegen should have been blown - the Germans had plenty of time to do so.

 

Add in the narrow line of attack all led to taking the Arnhem bridge being impossible.

 

It is not a case of "a bridge too far", but a poor plan and too much time wasted - the Arnhem bridge just wasn't relevant.

 

.

[BillB]

Mr Evans,

 

Sorry, Bill, but disagreeing with your opinion is not evidence of "thin to non-existent" knowledge. Nor is your book of such absolute and timeless authority that reading it should naturally clear up all questions.

 

And that is where you are absolutely wrong. You have no grounds to disagree with my opinion on this topic because as you demonstrated in the other thread, your knowledge is thin to non-existent. This is between informed to the point being widely considered expert opinion on my side versus ego driven uninformed opinion on your side. I know you haven't actually read my book, because you dribble on about stuff that has long been comprehensively disproven by myself and other historians; if you had read it and understood it you wouldn't have come out with the factually incorrect amateur nonsense you did in the other thread. As for the quality of my research, on the one hand I have a sheaf of letters and emails from men who participated in MARKET thanking me for finally producing a work that tells the reality of what happened at Arnhem, and I'm told that copies are routinely passed between veterans attending the commemorations in Arnhem on the same basis. On the other hand we have the opinion of an ego driven intellectual lightweight unacquainted with the concept of objectivity who routinely tries to pass off basic info gleaned from Wiki or similar as deep knowledge by larding it with buzz words, jargon and empty verbiage. Who to believe, that's a tough one...

 

("[A]llegedly", Bill? You're better than that.)

 

Absolutely right Mr Evans, I'm better than you can ever dream of aspiring to, which is what really burns you isn't it. Allegedly is absolutely right, because it is quite clear you never properly read my book. What you did was skim through it looking for something you fondly but erroneously assumed you could pick fault with, and settled on the stuff about Browning even though that is not the main point of the book. The slight problem there is that unlike your stuff, mine is not based on gobbing off on an internet forum or dribbling in unedited internet blogs, it is the result of solid, academically valid research that has been peer reviewed before publication. I spent around a year chasing up and double checking the stuff about Browning's involvement as my research revealed his role, even though it was all verifiable and had been largely hidden in plain sight. My initial draft was rather more circumspect on him than the finished article, and was redone after my evidence had been reviewed by the currently most eminent military historian in the country who told me to tell it as I saw it because the evidence was solid. Again, who to believe, the Chichely Professor of the History of War at Oxford University, or an internet no-mark who decides stuff isn’t valid on no better basis than envy and who routinely postures as an expert by presenting the obvious and well-known as the fruit of deep reading and understanding. Again, that’s a tough one…

 

 

My opinion is not mendacious. It's what I honestly took from the book. If you don't like that, it's a you problem, not a me problem. As for "back-stabbing", when did I ever owe you a duty of loyalty, for anything?

 

Ah, the old Evans "honestly held belief" defence, the one you routinely trot out when the vacuousness of your position has been exposed and you are desperately trying to defend the indefensible. Utter horseshite, your "opinion" expressed in that Amazon review is entirely mendacious because it is untrue and fuelled entirely by a combination of spite and envy; if not why sneak off and do it on the sly rather out in the open on here, the only place you and I have had contact? As for the last bit, it’s not about loyalty but plain old fashioned manners. If there was something you disagreed with in my Arnhem book you could have raised it on here in the forums or by PM, and I would have been happy to explain it. Instead you chose to slink off onto Amazon and slyly perform a hatchet job in a forum where I had no knowledge of what you had done or right of reply to defend my professional reputation. At one time I thought *you* were better than that, Mr Evans, until you revealed the small, petty, lying coward that lurks behind your username.

 

BillB

 

[BillB]

.

 

BillB

 

I cannot understand why so much attention is paid to the mess at Arnhem, and less to the overly optimistic plan consisting of too many bridges.

 

The advance was lucky that only the bridge over the Wilhelmina Canal was actually blown (which delayed the advance slightly. By all military common sense the bridge at Nijmegen should have been blown - the Germans had plenty of time to do so.

 

Add in the narrow line of attack all led to taking the Arnhem bridge being impossible.

 

It is not a case of "a bridge too far", but a poor plan and too much time wasted - the Arnhem bridge just wasn't relevant.

 

.

 

Not really. The admittedly ambitious aim of MARKET GARDEN was to outflank the Westwall defences in the Reichswald and open a route into the North German Plain without having to fight through those defences. That was not possible without crossing the Lower Rhine, which made the bridges at Arnhem extremely relevant - with no bridgehead across the Lower Rhine there was point to the operation. With regard to your point about there being too many bridges, I'd also point out that the Germans pulled off near enough the same operation in reverse in May 1940.

 

Ref the MG plan being poor, I'd disagree and point out how close the op came to success; the weak link was the execution of the Arnhem bit and the lack of application by the ground relief force on the way up the Airborne Corridor and after reaching the Lower Rhine near Driel. Your point about wasted time is valid, but even so they came extremely close to pulling it off. I think you are underestimating the forthright character of the senior US airborne commanders involved and the degree to which they could rely on their national chain of command to support them. Unlike their British counterparts, the US commanders were all experienced airborne veterans and if they didn't think the MARKET plan was feasible Ridgway, Gavin and Taylor would not have gone for it, not least because it breached US regulations about putting their people in harm's way.

 

Ref the Nijmegen bridge, the problem there was the inept British leadership at Corps level. Gavin planned on going straight for the bridge immediately on landing but was specifically forbidden from doing so by Browning, who ordered him to secure the Groesbeek Heights south of the town first. Gavin unsuccessfully hinted about going for the bridge sooner to the closest Regi commander (Lindquist IIRC) and then ordered him to do so when he realised the hints had been missed. Even then the 82nd Airborne missed capturing the bridge literally by minutes; the lead US platoon was close enough to the bridge to hear Kampfgruppe Euling disembarking from the trucks that had brought them down from Arnhem. They were lucky Model forbade demolishing the bridge tho.

 

BillB

[Tony Evans]

And that is where you are absolutely wrong. You have no grounds to disagree with my opinion on this topic because as you demonstrated in the other thread, your knowledge is thin to non-existent. This is between informed to the point being widely considered expert opinion on my side versus ego driven uninformed opinion on your side. I know you haven't actually read my book, because you dribble on about stuff that has long been comprehensively disproven by myself and other historians; if you had read it and understood it you wouldn't have come out with the factually incorrect amateur nonsense you did in the other thread. As for the quality of my research, on the one hand I have a sheaf of letters and emails from men who participated in MARKET thanking me for finally producing a work that tells the reality of what happened at Arnhem, and I'm told that copies are routinely passed between veterans attending the commemorations in Arnhem on the same basis. On the other hand we have the opinion of an ego driven intellectual lightweight unacquainted with the concept of objectivity who routinely tries to pass off basic info gleaned from Wiki or similar as deep knowledge by larding it with buzz words, jargon and empty verbiage. Who to believe, that's a tough one...

Wow...really? You're relying on the good opinion of men whom you have told what they want to believe about themselves and their service? That's about as meaningful as every other piece of alleged history that has done the same thing.

 

Here's a news flash, Bill, just because I don't agree that you or other historians have proven something doesn't mean I haven't read your book. It just means that I wasn't impressed by it.

 

 

Absolutely right Mr Evans, I'm better than you can ever dream of aspiring to, which is what really burns you isn't it. Allegedly is absolutely right, because it is quite clear you never properly read my book. What you did was skim through it looking for something you fondly but erroneously assumed you could pick fault with, and settled on the stuff about Browning even though that is not the main point of the book. The slight problem there is that unlike your stuff, mine is not based on gobbing off on an internet forum or dribbling in unedited internet blogs, it is the result of solid, academically valid research that has been peer reviewed before publication. I spent around a year chasing up and double checking the stuff about Browning's involvement as my research revealed his role, even though it was all verifiable and had been largely hidden in plain sight. My initial draft was rather more circumspect on him than the finished article, and was redone after my evidence had been reviewed by the currently most eminent military historian in the country who told me to tell it as I saw it because the evidence was solid. Again, who to believe, the Chichely Professor of the History of War at Oxford University, or an internet no-mark who decides stuff isn’t valid on no better basis than envy and who routinely postures as an expert by presenting the obvious and well-known as the fruit of deep reading and understanding. Again, that’s a tough one…

 

 

I'm sure you believe that. Too bad its self-congratulatory nonsense. When "[P]roperly" reading a book consists only of agreeing with the author in every respect, we kind of know what's going on, don't we?

 

Ah, the old Evans "honestly held belief" defence, the one you routinely trot out when the vacuousness of your position has been exposed and you are desperately trying to defend the indefensible. Utter horseshite, your "opinion" expressed in that Amazon review is entirely mendacious because it is untrue and fuelled entirely by a combination of spite and envy; if not why sneak off and do it on the sly rather out in the open on here, the only place you and I have had contact? As for the last bit, it’s not about loyalty but plain old fashioned manners. If there was something you disagreed with in my Arnhem book you could have raised it on here in the forums or by PM, and I would have been happy to explain it. Instead you chose to slink off onto Amazon and slyly perform a hatchet job in a forum where I had no knowledge of what you had done or right of reply to defend my professional reputation. At one time I thought *you* were better than that, Mr Evans, until you revealed the small, petty, lying coward that lurks behind your username.

 

I happened to read your book during my enforced absence, Bill. I decided that there was only one real place to respond to it, since I had no guarantee that I would ever return to participate here. And I didn't do a "hatchet job" on you, Bill. I wrote what I think fellow readers need to know to decide whether or not to purchase the book. If that impugns your professional reputation, how much of a reputation is it, really?

 

Also, since I've been back, that review was posted here, by another person. Obviously you have read it, since you seem to know something about what it says. I would post it here, right now, but I am sure that you would accuse me of spitefully and enviously piling on. If you give me your leave, I will copy it over. Or you can do so yourself. You know where to find it, and I'm certainly not afraid of what it says.

 

Finally, Bill, in the interest of avoiding derailing another thread, let's understand once and for all that the motivations you ascribe to me may have meaning in your world, but in mine they're complete, worthless shit. I'm totally uninterested in your life or your perceived reputation. I just don't agree with what you have to say.

Edited September 22, 2014 by Tony Evans

[BillB]

Phil,

 

 

 

So who were 1 and 3 PARA shooting at as they moved toward the bridge?

 

Well 1 & 3 PARA weren't shooting at anyone as they didn't exist and as the 1st Parachute Battalion was not tasked to move to the bridge but an area of high ground to the north of Arnhem, I think you mean the 2nd & 3rd Parachute Battalions. That aside, at risk of repeating what I've already said above and you have missed or ignored, the 2nd Parachute Battalion moved off from DZ X just after 15:00 and arrived at the Arnhem road bridge at c.20:00. During the intervening period they performed a hasty ambush on Bataillon Krafft's motorised recce element, fought a brief skirmish with and saw off a small German force near the north end of the Heveadorp ferry, lost a man to a sustained burst of MG fire in the southern outskirts of Oosterbeek, had the railway bridge blown literally in C Company's face, fought a short and inconclusive skirmish with a German armoured car just east of the Oosterbeek Laag railway underpass which ended when the armoured car withdrew and performed a company attack to prevent German troops in the parkland atop the Den Brink feature harrassing traffic through the Oosterbeek Laag underpass while the remainder of the Battalion and the Brigade HQ column passed on into Arnhem and the bridge. Mebbe you could point out the bits where Frost's men ran into German defensive positions, hasty or otherwise?

 

Similarly, the 3rd Parachute Battalion left DZ X at 15:10 and met no resistance during the first two hours of the advance apart from one man killed by a sniper. At c.17:00 B Company's lead platoon shot up a camouflaged Citroen car that emerged from a side road and killed the Stadtkommandant of Arnhem, Generalmajor Friedrich Kussin. At c.17:15 B Company fought a ten to fifteen minute action against a half-track and a group of German infantry in the western edge of Oosterbeek which ended when the Germans withdrew. At 18:30 elements of Bataillon Krafft attacked A Company at the tail of the Battalion column with small-arms & mortars from the woods north of the Battalion's route. As the column was actually starting to move at that point A Company would likely have advanced away from the fire but Brigadier Lathbury intervened and ordered the Company commander to attack into the woods, sparking a two-hour fight that cost him two dead and eighteen wounded before the Germans withdrew. Meanwhile the head of the column had pushed unopposed into Oosterbeek to the vicinity of the Hotel Hartenstein until ordered to halt for the night by Brigadier Lathbury at 19:30. The 3rd Battalion was not in contact at that time apart from A Company's fight back near the road junction where Kussin had been killed, and remained unmolested through the night. Again, mebbe you could point out the bits where Fitch's men ran into German defensive positions, hasty or otherwise?

 

Here's the thing Phil. You witter on about getting bogged down in detail, whereas it's clear you have an imperfect grasp of the detail and the bigger stuff. I, on the other hand, have already had one well regarded work on Arnhem published in two editions and have spent the last five years assembling, reading and cross referencing over a hundred primary source documents including reports from all levels from SHAEF down, plans, orders and unit War Diaries and getting on for two hundred secondary sources ranging from official histories, general accounts and participant memoirs. Based on that I'm about two-thirds to three-quarters of the way and well over 200,000 words into the largest, most thoroughly researched and analysed account of MARKET to date including the US divisions and including the GARDEN ground element. In short Phil, I've likely forgotten more about MARKET GARDEN than the sum total of your knowledge whether you like it or not. So feel free to carry on spouting your ill-informed battlespace buzz word bingo bollocks if you must, but if you were less gobby and more listeny you might actually learn something.

 

BillB

[Tony Evans]

Oh. Brother.

Edited September 22, 2014 by Tony Evans

[Colin]

My knowledge is pretty limited, I understand from "Silent wings" that the communication equipment and specialists in the first wave did not arrive into the LZ/DZ's and they were unable to report back about the conditions on the DZ''s and objectives. Coupled with this was low cloud and fog delaying the follow on glider serials and then having them come in late to contested LZ's.

[Tony Evans]

My knowledge is pretty limited, I understand from "Silent wings" that the communication equipment and specialists in the first wave did not arrive into the LZ/DZ's and they were unable to report back about the conditions on the DZ''s and objectives. Coupled with this was low cloud and fog delaying the follow on glider serials and then having them come in late to contested LZ's.

 

There were a lot of ways in which the operation failed simply because the Allies couldn't help themselves around obstacles imposed by chance. Or, to put it another way, the Allies failed to make a robust enough effort to withstand such exigencies. I understand the desire to wish upon the Allies better leadership and better "application". The problem is that if we could wish all of that on the Allies, we need only wish one single better choice on the Germans to make the whole thing fall apart -- the prudent and timely destruction of the Nijmegen bridges (or the Arnhem road bridge; either would have done). If the Allies could be argued to help themselves to so much more, some of it questionably within their grasp, certainly the Germans could be argued to help themselves to so little, unquestionably within their power.

 

To reasonably mitigate that one capital risk, the Allies would have had to land many more troops a lot closer to the bridges, in order to take them quickly and decisively at the beginning of the operation. But I think we all know that that was simply not within the capability of the 1st Airborne Army, no matter how well led, given all of the other responsibilities assigned that formation. Instead the Allies trusted to luck that the Germans would miss on that most obvious of expedients while the British airborne worked its way to the Arnhem bridge and the US Airborne secured the Groesbeek heights (freeing up more than the single battalion that was actually earmarked for capturing the bridge).

 

This is illustrative of the level of unreality that permeated the entire operational concept. The operation's overall success was totally dependent on good luck, and a lot of it. That was the kind of luck that the Allies had no reason to believe in at that point in the war, certainly not when dealing with the Germans in the field. Yet they talked themselves into believing in it.

Edited September 22, 2014 by Tony Evans

[Phil]

 

 

My knowledge is pretty limited, I understand from "Silent wings" that the communication equipment and specialists in the first wave did not arrive into the LZ/DZ's and they were unable to report back about the conditions on the DZ''s and objectives. Coupled with this was low cloud and fog delaying the follow on glider serials and then having them come in late to contested LZ's.

There were a lot of ways in which the operation failed simply because the Allies couldn't help themselves around obstacles imposed by chance. Or, to put it another way, the Allies failed to make a robust enough effort to withstand such exigencies. I understand the desire to wish upon the Allies better leadership and better "application". The problem is that if we could wish all of that on the Allies, we need only wish one single better choice on the Germans to make the whole thing fall apart -- the prudent and timely destruction of the Nijmegen bridges (or the Arnhem road bridge; either would have done). If the Allies could be argued to help themselves to so much more, some of it questionably within their grasp, certainly the Germans could be argued to help themselves to so little, unquestionably within their power.

 

To reasonably mitigate that one capital risk, the Allies would have had to land many more troops a lot closer to the bridges, in order to take them quickly and decisively at the beginning of the operation. But I think we all know that that was simply not within the capability of the 1st Airborne Army, no matter how well led, given all of the other responsibilities assigned that formation. Instead the Allies trusted to luck that the Germans would miss on that most obvious of expedients while the British airborne worked its way to the Arnhem bridge and the US Airborne secured the Groesbeek heights (freeing up more than the single battalion that was actually earmarked for capturing the bridge).

 

This is illustrative of the level of unreality that permeated the entire operational concept. The operation's overall success was totally dependent on good luck, and a lot of it. That was the kind of luck that the Allies had no reason to believe in at that point in the war, certainly not when dealing with the Germans in the field. Yet they talked themselves into believing in it.

Indeed. I think the operation would be more interesting had it succeeded. How did a light infantry force behind enemy lines meet the dilemma of force protection versus striking the objective behind enemy lines and succeed against a reasonably competent and vigorous enemy?

 

The failures were latent, not active. Arnhem didn't succeed not because someone went left instead of right or got a brew on when they should have kept going, it failed because there was not the resilience or capacity in the force to compensate for the above inevitable frictions.

 

We must understand the risk perceptions at the highest levels to understand why it was thought worth it to launch an operation which people knew would be operationally compromised because it was knowingly based on so many dilemmas.

 

The moment 1st airborne got into trouble the reality of a strung out force unable to be mutually supportive and with limited supplies and with units moving about with no anchor points and poor communications became apparent.

 

I think many military scientists or strategists would never have been surprised that Arnhem went the way it did. 3 light infantry battalions with an 8 mile line of communication and a 2-3 day window of vulnerability before it is supposed to reach its final defensive disposition.

[firefly1]

.

 

BillB

 

What effect would it have had if the British/Polish troops had taken Arnhem bridge and held it for, say, 2 weeks ? As far as I can tell, none. It was, only due to other failures, a sideshow - heroic, but of no real consequence.

 

What really was important was the slowing down of the ground thrust and the delay around Nijmegen bridge - so Browning's decision re. that should really be the nub of the issue.

[T19]

 

 

My knowledge is pretty limited, I understand from "Silent wings" that the communication equipment and specialists in the first wave did not arrive into the LZ/DZ's and they were unable to report back about the conditions on the DZ''s and objectives. Coupled with this was low cloud and fog delaying the follow on glider serials and then having them come in late to contested LZ's.

There were a lot of ways in which the operation failed simply because the Allies couldn't help themselves around obstacles imposed by chance. Or, to put it another way, the Allies failed to make a robust enough effort to withstand such exigencies. I understand the desire to wish upon the Allies better leadership and better "application". The problem is that if we could wish all of that on the Allies, we need only wish one single better choice on the Germans to make the whole thing fall apart -- the prudent and timely destruction of the Nijmegen bridges (or the Arnhem road bridge; either would have done). If the Allies could be argued to help themselves to so much more, some of it questionably within their grasp, certainly the Germans could be argued to help themselves to so little, unquestionably within their power.

 

To reasonably mitigate that one capital risk, the Allies would have had to land many more troops a lot closer to the bridges, in order to take them quickly and decisively at the beginning of the operation. But I think we all know that that was simply not within the capability of the 1st Airborne Army, no matter how well led, given all of the other responsibilities assigned that formation. Instead the Allies trusted to luck that the Germans would miss on that most obvious of expedients while the British airborne worked its way to the Arnhem bridge and the US Airborne secured the Groesbeek heights (freeing up more than the single battalion that was actually earmarked for capturing the bridge).

 

This is illustrative of the level of unreality that permeated the entire operational concept. The operation's overall success was totally dependent on good luck, and a lot of it. That was the kind of luck that the Allies had no reason to believe in at that point in the war, certainly not when dealing with the Germans in the field. Yet they talked themselves into believing in it.

So tony. What are your bonnafides on this topic? Have you written a paper for university? Are you a reccongmised expert in the topic?

 

Cause my read of your posts indicate a very thin understanding of the OP but you seem to want people to think your an expert. So other than reading the Coles notes versions. What are your bonnefids on this topic ?

[Tony Evans]

 

So tony. What are your bonnafides on this topic? Have you written a paper for university? Are you a reccongmised expert in the topic?

 

Cause my read of your posts indicate a very thin understanding of the OP but you seem to want people to think your an expert. So other than reading the Coles notes versions. What are your bonnefids on this topic ?

 

 

I'm sorry -- when did I ever claim to be an expert? Please don't confuse Bill's ranting about my motives and objectives with my actual motives and objectives. I claim absolutely no bonafides. Just like everyone else, I'm simply offering my opinion.

 

Also, let's not confuse reasoned disagreement with a "thin understanding". I'm not saying anything that hasn't been said by many people you would probably call "recognized expert". I'm certainly not the first one to point out that the operation conducted on the basis of poor intelligence analysis and wishful thinking. I'm certainly not the first person to recognize that the airborne portion of the operation was too thin on the ground for all of the objectives assigned to be secured before the Germans could do something about it. I'm certainly not the first person to suggest that the operation was flawed from the start in its reliance on the Germans somehow missing their chance to destroy just one pair of road and railroad bridges. It doesn't take bonafides to learn and understand those things, and integrate them into an opinion that the operation was fundamentally mistaken in its foundation.

Edited September 22, 2014 by Tony Evans

[Phil]

Phil,

 

So feel free to carry on spouting your ill-informed battlespace buzz word bingo bollocks if you must, but if you were less gobby and more listeny you might actually learn something.

 

BillB

 

Crikey Bill do you want some salt and vinegar to go with those chips?

 

Good luck with the book, I am sure it will be an interesting repository of information. However, as I have said I believe that the failure of Market Garden was systemic and structural in nature and you'll not find any real insights at the tactical level as to why it didn't work.

 

And from my research, as I have argued before, "poor decisions" and "incompetence" are phrases bandied about but often a deeper look at perceptions and the context at the time shows that decisions might have been bad in hindsight with hindsight bias, but were more often than not sensible and justifiable at the time from the PoV of the decision maker, or at best as good a course of action as any other.

 

Had it all worked then the tactical level might be more interesting because then we'd be looking into how the blokes managed to polish a turd.

 

The whole operation was so tightly coupled that once that first cog flew out of the machine that was it - game over against the Germans. There was simply never going to be enough capacity in the operation to ensure resilience against plans going wrong. It was too taut, too tightly coupled with next to no margin for contingency.

 

As for gobby? That seems to include anyone with a different opinion than you on the matter. I am simply looking at it from a different perspective than you and applying some theories of risk perception and organisational behaviour to the situation. But you'll probably throw rocks at the words you don't understand I imagine.

Edited September 22, 2014 by Phil

[Ken Estes]

??? Every military operation has essential elements that must be executed on time and with effect, otherwise chaos and even collapse occurs. The risk that such might occur should not be so overwhelming that no action is taken, however. The Western Allies were facing the prospect of a difficult winter with few options unless the evident weakness of the Germans post-Normandy were to be exploited. There were many proposals involving the use of 1st Airborne Army in order to unhinge the German defenses of the Reich and continue the exploitation that had taken them to the frayed limits of supply lines. The risks remained great but if the Germans could be turned again out of their positions the gains more than offset them. Crossing the Rhine was unavoidable and it had to be done somewhere, sometime and the sooner the better.

 

WWII was not won by looking for the easy way. The airborne forces did prove themselves again with Operation Varsity in the 21st AG Rhine crossings. These were also fraught with considerable risk, errors were made but their accomplishments invaluable to the overall effort.

 

We should not be beguiled by A Bridge too Far and other notions that presume a flawed plan. Every plan has flaws yet to be revealed, and these can and will be exposed upon contact with the enemy. The Allies held numerous advantages over the Germans in September and the enemy was still in the field and had to be defeated.

[Phil]

The more you stack the deck Ken the more you can withstand set-backs. Plenty of mistakes were made by the Germans around May 1940 at the beginning of their invasion of France especially around Sedan etc but they had sufficient power and mass to absorb a lot of mistakes. The more taut your plan the fewer mistakes and unfortunate happenings your force can tolerate.

 

That is especially so when the enemy realises your intentions and is vigorous and aggressive in their response.

[Colin]

The plan also was to reduce the Germans command of the entrances to Antwerp as well, correct?

[T19]

 

 

So tony. What are your bonnafides on this topic? Have you written a paper for university? Are you a reccongmised expert in the topic?

 

Cause my read of your posts indicate a very thin understanding of the OP but you seem to want people to think your an expert. So other than reading the Coles notes versions. What are your bonnefids on this topic ?

 

I'm sorry -- when did I ever claim to be an expert? Please don't confuse Bill's ranting about my motives and objectives with my actual motives and objectives. I claim absolutely no bonafides. Just like everyone else, I'm simply offering my opinion.

 

Also, let's not confuse reasoned disagreement with a "thin understanding". I'm not saying anything that hasn't been said by many people you would probably call "recognized expert". I'm certainly not the first one to point out that the operation conducted on the basis of poor intelligence analysis and wishful thinking. I'm certainly not the first person to recognize that the airborne portion of the operation was too thin on the ground for all of the objectives assigned to be secured before the Germans could do something about it. I'm certainly not the first person to suggest that the operation was flawed from the start in its reliance on the Germans somehow missing their chance to destroy just one pair of road and railroad bridges. It doesn't take bonafides to learn and understand those things, and integrate them into an opinion that the operation was fundamentally mistaken in its foundation.

Thanks for the clarification This allows me to take what you say in the proper context. Your not an expert or someone who has done concider able research into the subject just an observer like the rest of us. Your posts left the impression that you where an expert

[Tony Evans]

 

Thanks for the clarification This allows me to take what you say in the proper context. Your not an expert or someone who has done concider able research into the subject just an observer like the rest of us. Your posts left the impression that you where an expert

 

 

I can't imagine how, but okay...

[baboon6]

The plan also was to reduce the Germans command of the entrances to Antwerp as well, correct?

AFAIK that was a separate operation which started at about the same time and to a large degree involved Canadian troops.

 

http://www.canadaatwar.ca/content-47/world-war-ii/the-battle-of-the-scheldt/

 

http://www.veterans-uk.info/pdfs/publications/comm_booklets/scheldt.pdf

 

Though I suppose success in one of the operations especially Market Garden could aid the other. Presumably German troops which could have been sent to the Scheldt had to go to Arnhem/Nijmegen instead. How much of a difference this made I don't know as the Scheldt estuary battles went on until November and involved an amphibious landing by British troops at Walcheren.