Commemoration and partial re-enactment of the failed Allied Operation Market Garden, 75 years later. Vintage arms and armor are there from all over the world as well as military and civilian remembrance and re-enactment bodies.
British General Bernard Montgomery was too clever by half and got a *lot* of Allied elite troops killed for nothing. The Dutch still remember the sacrifices made in an effort to liberate them.
I don't know why they would want to reenact such a debacle.
I studied a little about that. It was another Montgomery disaster - Monty wanting to get some glory that was going to Patton and the Americans at the time.
Operation Market Garden, the Charge of the Light Brigade - those and others are examples IMO of the history of flawed and aloof British command.
If it weren't for down-to-earth American command and resources, the world as we know it would not exist.
Market -Garden was an absolute horror show that ended up getting a large number of Allied troops needlessly killed and did nothing to shorten the war. Montgomery called it ‘’an unqualified success’’. The Dutch people suffered horribly at the hands of the SS because of it leaving the then 33 year old Dutch regent-in-exile Prince Rupert to say “My country can never again afford the luxury of a Montgomery success’’.
You know, history tends to portray Montgomery as this great tactician, but from D-day forward most everything he was involved in was an unmitigated disaster. Considering his earlier successes that puts his batting average at about .500 . Not great stats for how he is portrayed.
CC