On the first day of Market Garden, three British paratrooper battalions advanced from the landing areas at Wolfheze to Arnhem. The third battalion under Colonel John Fitch had been ordered to take the road to Arnhem via the Utrechtseweg. The majority of the battalion did not get further than the Hartenstein hotel in Oosterbeek on…
Even before all British troops had landed west of Wolfheze on Sunday, September 17, the troops of the German 9th and 10 SS Armored Divisions had already been alerted. To immediately clear up a major misunderstanding: the two armored divisions stationed near Arnhem had almost no tanks and mechanical artillery. Combined, the two divisions only…
Even before the airborne landings at Wolfheze on the first day of Operation Market Garden had properly started, the Germans were already taking countermeasures. Surprise is an important weapon of airborne troops. But at Arnhem there was no surprise at all. Operation Market Garden started in Arnhem and the surrounding area in the morning. Dozens…
While the British airborne troops advanced to Arnhem after the landings on Sunday, September 17, peace returned to the landing zones west of Wolfheze: twelve kilometers from the Rhine Bridge. Because the Allies had too few aircraft to drop all British and Polish paratroopers near Arnhem in one day, it was forced to choose to…
If everything went as planned, the tanks and ground troops of XXX Corps could advance without any problems from the south over “a carpet of airborne troops” from the Belgian border to the Rhine bridge in Arnhem. At least: that was how the British army leadership had presented the advance of the ground troops to…
On Tuesday afternoon, September 19, around two o’clock in Arnhem, drive over the Rhine bridge to relieve the troops of the British 1st Airborne Division. That was the goal of the ground forces of the British XXX Corps under General Harrocks. At the start of Operation Market Garden, XXX Corps was stationed near the Belgian-Dutch…