Operation Market Garden - Day 2

Day 2

Leonard Funk

In the early morning of Day 2, the 82nd Airborne drop zone at Groesbeek, an area vital for the re-supply operations, came under heavy fire. Their German attackers had recovered from the initial shock of the paratroop and glider landings. In danger of being completely overrun, 1st Sgt Leonard Funk of the 508 Parachute Infantry Regiment saved the day. He mustered a group of paratroopers and repulsed the German attack, taking many prisoners.

General Maxwell Taylor 101st Airborne

The 101st Abn's 501 regiment came under heavy attack at Eerde, but beat off a determined offensive by the same German paratroopers who had attacked the British armored columns on day one. Holding only a narrow corridor, Allied paratroopers were vulnerable to attacks from the flanks. 

The Germans were using their forces as a 'fire brigade', rushing up and down either side of the highway, attacking at will. General Maxwell Taylor of The 101st Airborne Division described the position as being "like guarding the railroad from Indian attacks in the Wild West."

The 101st Airborne 506th had managed to construct a makeshift walkway across the canal at Son, they had entered  Eindhoven and had met up with the British XXX Corps. A Bailey bridge was requested and the British battled through the cheering crowds to reach Son. They would finally arrive at 23:00.

The 505 and 508 regiments of the 82nd Airborne continued to fight the stubborn Germans in Nijmegen. They were still a way from their objective, the main bridge.

Elements of the British 1st Airborne were locked in deadly combat with the German 9th & 10th SS panzer divisions at Arnhem. They were being decimated.

The Americans on Hell's Highway  is the 2nd part of 'The American Road to Victory' trilogy, which has been broadcast on PBS stations nationwide. It is available on DVD priced $23.95 or $69.95 for the trilogy.

Operation Market Garden - Day 1

 

Operation ‘Market Garden’ is usually considered a complete failure, but was it? Certainly in it’s entirety, the operation, the largest daylight airborne drop ever mounted, failed to achieve it’s overall objective. But American forces, although hampered by setbacks, did secure all the bridges and crossings allotted to them. A substantial German force was also tied up for the remainder of the war.

In our blog series this week, we will seek to explain what happened during 4 crucial days in September 1944.

Unlike D-Day, which was 2 years in the planning, Market Garden was hastily put together in a matter of days. It involved the largest parachute drop of the war. 

Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery

Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery, fresh from his success in Normandy, believed he could 'walk on water', and this buoyed optimism led to an audacious, but hasty and ill prepared operation.

The operations were split into two phases, 'Market' and 'Garden.' 'Market' was the code name given to the massive Allied parachute drop and 'Garden,' the ground offensive. 

Two American Airborne Divisions, the 82nd and the 101st, were to seize bridges and hold road crossings between Eindhoven and Nijmegen, and take control a stretch of highway between the two cities, while the British 1st Airborne were to drop on the Northernmost town of Arnhem and take control. Arnhem was the final barrier to entry into the German industrial heartland of the Ruhr.

As the various airborne divisions landed and took control of their objectives, British XXX Corps an armored and infantry force, waiting on the Belgian side of the Dutch border, were to jump off from their start point, rush up the newly seized highway and cross the Rhine river at Arnhem, opening a spearhead into Germany thus ending the war by Christmas 1944. 

Market Garden Operational Map ©Livingbattlefield.org

As with all hastily planned operations, very little notice was taken of intelligence reports. The Dutch resistance had repeatedly informed the Allies there were German SS panzer divisions resting and re-equipping in the Arnhem and Nijmegen zones. Even RAF reconnaissance had photographed camouflaged tanks, but the line fed to the airborne troops was entirely different. They would be facing a force of "old men, boys and walking wounded" with no stomach for a fight.

 Day 1

The largest allied parachute drop of WWII took place in broad daylight on September 17th 1944. 

101st DZ at Best

Transport aircraft and gliders carried the 502nd and 506th regiments of the 101st airborne to their drop zone in the southern sector, North of Eindhoven, while their sister regiment the 501st were dropped further up the highway at Eerde. It was a beautiful sunny Sunday afternoon when the aircraft roared into view over their respective zones. 

Three regiments of the 82nd Airborne were transported to their zones in the Nijmegen and Grave areas. The British 1st Abn were dropped some 8 miles from their objective at Arnhem. The drops were virtually unopposed, most units landed on target and the Germans were clearly taken by surprise, but they soon regrouped.

Grave Bridge

By the end of Day 1, The 504 82nd Airborne had taken and secured  their objective, the Grave bridge.  The other regiments had landed unopposed on their drop zone at Groesbeek and were making probing attacks towards Nijmegen.

The 101st had achieved mixed results. The 501 had taken their objectives at Eerde, but the 506th and the 502nd had run into stiff opposition at Son and Best.The Son Bridge, vital for the British XXX Corps relief effort, had been blown in their faces.  A British Bailey bridge would be needed to cross the canal at Son, but where were the British armored columns?

British XXX Corps

After crossing the border, XXX Corps had come under heavy artillery fire from elements of German paratroopers and SS artillery, who were well dug in . After a vicious fight the British columns ground to a halt and rested for the night. The operation was already falling behind.

German Paratrooper Eckhert Schucany describes the attack.

Veteran clips

Jacques Reboul's photos for Livingbattlefield

Who better to tell a story than those who were there? We are proud to introduce some of the heroic veterans from The American Road to Victory series.




 Veteran Earl Norwood, of North Carolina, recalls sobering memories in the film, The Americans on D-Day, airing on PBS stations across America this summer. He was seventeen years old as he piloted a landing craft off Omaha Beach, on D-Day. Earl came in on the second wave of the landings.

“When the transport door dropped I watched two men get cut in half by machine guns firing from the beach. During the invasion I made so many trips in and out. Then once I was done putting them off on the beach I patrolled the waters to pick up dead bodies. As a 17-year-old kid, it’s etched in my memory.”

 South Carolina native, Carl Beck, now lives in Atlanta. No shrinking violet, Carl tells it like it was. Carl annually visits a French family who helped him after he parachuted into an area heavily occupied by the Germans. Following D-Day and the fight in Normandy, Carl went on to battle up Hell's Highway, participating in the largest airborne drop ever attempted in broad daylight. While in Holland, Carl came up against a  Tiger tank, which he describes in this clip from The Americans on Hell's Highway.

More discussion on Sherman tanks can be found in Tank Warfare post.

Hero of the last allied bayonet charge of WWII and survivor of the massacre at Rochelinval (The Bulge), Col Doug Dillard, 551st P.I.B (rtd), appears in The Americans in The Bulge, airing across America this summer.

“When we finally took Rochelinval, we sent a runner down to bring up the guys, who were trapped in the valley.” There is no point, Sir” he said “They are all dead . . . . That earned us the name 'the Lost Battalion'."

Col Dillard went on to fight in Korea and Vietnam and then to work for the CIA. He has written a book about special ops in Korea, and continues to travel frequently around the world.

Patton in the dog house

In the weeks before arriving in Normandy, General Patton had prepared what he called his 'Opus No 1,' a bold plan for a U.S army breakout and the complete liberation of France. He had passed this plan on to his Boss, General Omar Bradley.  Bradley had shown little interest  and as far as Patton was concerned, it had been filed away.

Patton had an intricate knowledge of the Norman countryside, having spent part of his second honeymoon touring the area in 1917.  He is reputed to have said, "We're going to have to fight a war here one day, so I might as well get to know the terrain."

Camp Patton, 2011

While continuing to 'cool his heels' in the apple orchard at Nehou, Patton was invited to the odd conference with Bradley and other Generals.


As U.S forces became progressively more bogged down in the hedgerow fighting, Bradley came up with a plan, 'Operation Cobra'. Patton could see that this plan was a virtual copy of his very own 'Opus No 1', but nowhere near as bold or ambitious: Nonetheless, it was for all intents and purposes, a plagiarized version of the Patton plan.  Ever generous of spirit, Patton preferred to believe that 'Cobra', had evolved from suggestions he had made.

Bradley, Patton and Montgomery

Although the plan was considered 'Top Secret', Patton decided to brief 

his senior aides in the strictest of confidence. 

Cobra plan

His public relations officer, Colonel Charles C. Blakeney, could see that Bradley's Cobra plan was plagiary, and shared his convictions with embedded journalists in an adjoining orchard - before Bradley had revealed anything about 'Cobra' to his own press corps. The men from the Patton camp let it be known that they had information on an impending action and the whole matter exploded. Once again Patton was in the 'dog house': However it did not prevent him from begging Bradley to make his Third Army operational immediately.


No go. It would be a while longer before the Patton 'Blitzkrieg' would get the thumbs up. He would have to content himself with the tranquility of the orchard at Nehou, as the front moved ever farther away. July 20th was a dark day for Patton. The bomb plot against Hitler caused him to worry that he would never get into the fight before it was all over.

Waiting proved a bitter pill for the man who said,

"Battle is the most magnificent competition in which a human being can indulge. It brings out all that is best; it removes all that is base..."

A Sad Tale.

In 2008, as part of our Honoring Veterans Project, we made a short film about Howard Manoian, who was a semi-permanent resident of Normandy. For 35 years Howard, an intrepid member of the 505 p.i.r 82nd Abn, regaled visitors and locals with his stories of D-Day. He described in minute detail how he had landed by accident in the cemetery of Ste Mere Eglise and stealthily avoided certain death. Local dignitaries described him as 'Our Veteran,' never tired of buying him drinks and listening to his tales. In 2009, perhaps on account of the imminent release of this short tribute to him, Howard's life began to unravel.

On June 6th, during the 65th anniversary celebrations, just as Howard was receiving France's highest award, The Chevalier de La Legion d'Honneur, the Boston Herald printed an article entitled Phoney Paratrooper Feted by The French. He had never been a paratrooper at all! He was a veteran, but of a chemical decontamination company that came over Utah Beach on the afternoon of D-Day. The evidence, produced by investigative journalist Tom Farmer and supported by a forensic historian, Brian Sidall, was incontrovertible.

As daily we are losing WWII veterans at an alarming rate, it is sad that this old soldier, who passed away in 2011, will be remembered as a fraud rather than what he was, a real Hero of D-Day.

Wereth 11

On this our 100th post, we wanted to pay tribute to a group of brave soldiers who have become known as the Wereth 11.

 

Having finally won the right to fight during 'The Battle of The Bulge,' a group of African American artillerymen were captured, tortured and murdered by the SS at Wereth in Belgium. Here is a clip from our film, The Americans in the Bulge, that describes their fate.