Operation Market Garden

September 17–25, 1944 · Western Europe Theater

Phases

1. 1Sep 17 — The Airborne CarpetSeptember 17, 1944
2. 2Sep 18–20 — Nijmegen: The CrossingSeptember 18–20, 1944
3. 3Sep 21–25 — A Bridge Too FarSeptember 21–25, 1944

September 17, 1944

Montgomery’s uncharacteristic gamble: drop three airborne divisions in daylight to seize a 64-mile ladder of bridges through Holland — Eindhoven, Nijmegen, Arnhem — and rush XXX Corps up the single road to cross the Rhine before winter and end the war in 1944. The drops are the most accurate of the war. But the last bridge is nine miles from the British drop zones, the radios don’t work, and — dismissed by intelligence — two SS panzer divisions are refitting in the woods outside Arnhem.

• ➤XXX Corps — Up the single road — “Hell’s Highway”
• ●101st Airborne — the Eindhoven bridges
• ●82nd Airborne — Grave and the Groesbeek heights
• ●British 1st Airborne — dropped 8 miles from the Arnhem bridge
• ●II SS Panzer Corps — the divisions intelligence dismissed