Posted on 09/19/2004 7:47:19 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
OOSTERBEEK, Netherlands (AP) - Sixty years ago, the skies above the Dutch countryside filled with the white silk of parachutes of 30,000 Allied troops while tanks rolled up from Belgium along a narrow road that became known as "Hell's Highway." In the legendary "Market Garden" operation, which began Sept. 17th, 1944, a massive force that was supposed to end World War II found it had attempted to go "a bridge too far."
A ceremony Sunday commemorated the heroic but doomed assault with Dutch schoolchildren raising flowers above their heads before laying them on the graves of the 1,750 Allied soldiers - mostly British - buried in Oosterbeek near Arnhem.
The Dutch Queen Beatrix looked on as Britain's Prince Charles kissed a wreath and laid it at the monument remembering British, American and Polish troops who tried to seize a series of bridges near the Dutch-German border to pave the way for a quick thrust into the German heartland.
"We build from the ruins of the twin towers. We build from Iraq. We build from our own errors in life," British Reverend Jeff Cuttell said at the ceremony at Oosterbeek cemetery.
American soldiers of the 101st and 82nd Airborne succeeded in seizing bridges and river crossings at Veghel, Son, Best, Grave, and - after a bloody crossing in flimsy boats under enemy fire - at Nijmegen.
But only one end of the final, crucial bridge over the Rhine at Arnhem was taken by a brigade from Britain's 1st Airborne Division. They held out for days as they were devastated by German troops and tanks. Awaited reinforcements never arrived.
On Sept. 25 the retreat began, and the final defeat of Hitler's army wouldn't come until the following year.
Around 2,900 Allied soldiers who participated in the operation were killed. Nearly half of the 30,000 paratroopers who participated were counted as casualties. The casualties were heaviest among the mostly British soldiers around Arnhem, with 1,400 killed and 6,000 wounded or taken prison.
"It brings out a lot of emotion when I see him because he was born in the same town as me," said veteran Bert Cooper, standing at the grave of soldier Edward Vickers, who died at age 30 never having seen his infant son.
Cooper, 79, was an infantryman with Britain's 5th Battalion who also helped storm the beach at Normandy.
"I'm respectful and thankful," said 11-year-old Dutch student Manno Laan. "I wouldn't be here if it weren't for them." He added that he wanted to parachute from an airplane someday but "not during a war."
Veteran Phil Oades, 90, remembered at the ceremony his jump 60 years ago. It was "just like practice," he said. "It was a perfect sunny day, very peaceful. There was hardly any shooting."
But after that, it was "chaos," Oades said.
Oades, of the 4th Parachute Brigade, spent the next several days fighting his way through a forested area trying to reach the famous bridge at Arnhem that British lieutenant colonel John Frost and his band of 600 holdouts held for 5 days during the operation.
The British 1st Airborne commander Lt. Gen. Frederick Browning is reputed to have predicted Arnhem "might be a bridge too far" before the operation began. Although no one is certain he really said it, the phrase has passed into legend.
Related stories:
Victims of the failed WWII Arnhem operation honoured (I am a child of freedom)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1220532/posts
Netherlands relives largest airborne operation in history
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1220031/posts
Netherlands relives largest airborne operation in history
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1219796/posts
Prince blasts British over Arnhem battle
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1216795/posts
The Battle for Arnhem
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1213885/posts
The FReeper Foxhole Revisits The Waal River Crossing - Sep. 20th, 1944 - July 24th, 2004
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-vetscor/1177567/posts
The Freeper Foxhole Profiles - Major-General Stanislaw Sosabowski - July 31st, 2003
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-vetscor/955644/posts
Thanks!
Here's the links page,, lots of links for 'Market Garden' related sites...
http://www.rememberseptember44.com/links.html
One day I'll become endustrious and figure out how to post photos. I have several photos of Arnhem-Oosterbeek; Waal crossing site; Ooverloon, site of major armored battle; Maargraten Cemetery, where all Americans killed in and over Holland are buried; and Issylstein (sp?), where all Germans killed in Holland are buried.
ping
I remember the 1977 movie inspired me to read the Cornelius Ryan book. '78 - '81 the family was stationed in Bonn, Germany and my mom and my little brother did a camping tour in Holland in the summer of '80 and saw all the WWII sites (all those tulips were a sight, too, by the way). The late Mr. Ryan wrote that the Brits were just too hidebound and inflexible to plan an audacious attack like that one and, while in the planning stages, simply papered over the reconnaissance-photo discovery of the SS Panzer units that had moved into the area. They could have made allowances for the beefed-up German defences but last-minute change was not in their vocabulary so on they ground into their (and our) bloody debacle.
I'm sorry, correction, summer of '79. There was no summer to speak of in Northern Europe in 1980.
Thanks for the ping Valin.
The Foxhole has a thread on Hell's Highway and the 101st soon.
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