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To: PapaNew
We're just about there. Market-Garden was September 17-25. The airborne troops dropped on the 17th.

Yes, the movie A Bridge Too Far is about the operation. It was based on an earlier book of the same name by Cornelius Ryan. It refers to the fact that of the five major bridges they needed to take to get completely across the Rhine, they took four.

MG had two bad effects (besides cutting up British 1st Airborne pretty badly), it stopped any drive to take the Scheldt immediately, devoting those troops to the MG plan, meaning Antwerp will be useless as a port for some time. And it diverted scarce supplies from the American First and Third Armies, who were gaining ground, and diverted them to the British.

14 posted on 09/11/2014 2:54:50 PM PDT by colorado tanker
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To: colorado tanker; Homer_J_Simpson; Steven Scharf

If I’m reading the map correctly, it looks like the fifth river that was “too far” to cross was Lek River.

I assume that Monty’s idea (hard not to believe he was mentally racing Patton to Berlin for the glory) was that if they had secured the last bridge over the Lek River, he and the British would have had a straight shot over the Northern German Plain to Berlin, beating Patton.


15 posted on 09/11/2014 3:14:39 PM PDT by PapaNew (The grace of God & freedom always win the debate over unjust law & government in the forum of ideas)
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