Posted on 01/08/2006 8:34:50 AM PST by lizol
Why Bridge Too Far attempt was doomed
MURDO MACLEOD
IT WAS the Bridge Too Far which was the last British defeat of the Second World War. The audacious attempt to race through the Netherlands from Arnhem and sweep into Germany failed to shorten the war and cost 8,000 Allied lives.
But today Scotland on Sunday can reveal the secret which doomed some of Britain and Poland's finest soldiers and gave rise to a series of myths about the ill-fated battle.
High levels of iron in the soil around the Dutch town of Arnhem and its infamous bridge caused radio interference and prevented the beleaguered Allied soldiers from communicating with their headquarters. Previously it was though the problem was caused by faulty radios.
That meant vital supplies fell into German hands and Allied soldiers were killed or captured because they had run out of ammunition.
Operation Market Garden, the Battle of Arnhem, took place in September 1944, following the June invasion of Normandy, and involved parachuting thousands of British and Polish troops deep into occupied Holland.
The Allies by this time had advanced deep into Belgium almost to the Dutch border but the advance suddenly slowed due to their out-running supply lines. Supplies were still being transported from the Normandy beachheads, 500 miles away.
The plan involved dropping paratroopers at strategic bridges in the Netherlands such as The Son, The Grave, Nijmegen, and the main prize, Arnhem.
This was to be taken and held by elite British paratroops and once all the bridges were captured, the British 1st Army would be able to drive up the road linking them, providing a springboard to the Rhine and Germany.
Had the plan succeeded, the war might have been over by the end of 1944. But unexpectedly strong German resistance, including the presence of Nazi Panzer divisions, meant the Paras were surrounded and defeated before the Allied ground forces could reach them.
The heroic attempt was immortalised in a 1977 film directed by Richard Attenborough and starring Sean Connery and Michael Caine.
The geological secrets which doomed the British operation were discovered by chance by a local historical expert, Adrian Groeneweg, who helps run the Dutch museum related to the battle, the Airborne Museum Hartenstein.
Groeneweg said: "We have been involved in studying every aspect of the battle and why the Allied forces had such problems. A friend told me that from medieval times there was a large iron-ore industry in the area and there was a lot of iron in the soil and that got me thinking. Then someone else told me that even today our army's signal units cannot communicate by radio from one end of the area to the other when they are on exercise here.
"We decided to conduct some tests using the same type of radios as they had at the time and sure enough, the interference was so strong that they were unable to communicate."
In September 1944, the radio interference meant the scattered British units could not tell their commanders that the areas where their supplies were dropped were under Nazi control. All the supplies were falling into the hands of the Germans, meaning the Allies soon ran low on ammunition.
The Germans co-ordinated attacks on the Paras using tanks and artillery and called in extra soldiers.
In desperation, the stranded British sent messages by carrier pigeon or by runners who risked death or capture to get messages through enemy lines.
But the Allies could not hold out long enough for their main army to relieve them. The Battle of Arnhem was lost.
In the aftermath of the battle a host of myths emerged about the radios, including the suggestion that they had the wrong kinds of crystals or faulty batteries.
Groeneweg said: "One of the problems was that the British troops and their weapons were dropped in three initial phases, meaning they had to wait for all their equipment to arrive, which meant they lost that element of surprise.
"It doesn't take away anything from the heroism and bravery of the men. And in the Netherlands today we are very thankful for their sacrifice."
Laurie Milner, a senior researcher with the Imperial War Museum and an expert on Arnhem, said: "Everything that could go wrong did go wrong. The plan was full of flaws. [Generals] Eisenhower and Montgomery failed to agree and failed to kick it off until it was almost too late. The two German SS Panzer divisions which had been moved into the area meant that the parachutists were pinned down. And to make matters worse they had been dropped into an area regularly user by the Germans for training and so the German commanders knew the place very well."
The doomed mission meant that the British lost some of their finest troops. Milner said: "In the run-up to Arnhem they scoured the army for the best soldiers they could find."
The film, A Bridge Too Far, was the only one to deal with the failed strategy to liberate the Low Countries. It had a galaxy of stars including Dirk Bogarde as General "Boy" Browning.
It was General Browning who is reputed to have uttered the immortal line about Arnhem, saying, "But sir, I think we may be going a bridge too far" when he met the Allied top brass to oversee the plan which he had to execute.
BS.....revisionism at its very worst.
A Bridge Too Far details Montie's failure in extreme detail and the radio problem was not all of the problem.
Further, if the communications among the allies was so badly affected, why did it not also affect German communications?
Well, one of the problems is that the Alliees did not take the Dutch reports seriously. The Dutch underground did in fact warn the allies repeatedly that there were Nazi panzer divisions in the Arhnem area, but this was discounted by the British and they went ahead with the attack.
Three reasons. First is typical smug Brit arrogance - didn't want to consult or trust the Dutch (Prince Bernhardt had lots of contacts with the Dutch underground and tried to pass on intel to Monty but was ignored). Second, Monty was in a battle of egos with Patton and Ike, and was blind to any problems that cropped up because he wanted to "win" the war all on his own. Third, earlier in the war the Brits had learned (the hard way) that some of the cells of the Dutch underground were heavily penetrated by German counter intel - for almost all of 1943, every agent and supply drop was intercepted. So the Brits were wary of what they heard, even without (1) and (2) above.
I was a bit amused by the Scotsman's failure to mention either that (1) 60% of the paratroops involved were American, and (2) most of the stars of the movie were American. Guess we can forgive them that, as they had the worst time in Arnhem.
It failed because it was a Monty plan, not a Patton plan!
A movie details the actual history better than historians? Oh come on.
Or how about the stubborn British refusal to stage ANY operations (for the subsequent waves) in the fog? Surely SOME kind of safety protocol could have been devised to get flights out even in the fog.
But ultimately, it was Monty's overreach. How did he get so much latitude? I can't help but wonder if it wasn't pressure from Churchill, who owed Monty badly for the victory at El Alamein, which happened to come just before a vote of confidence in the House that Churchill might well have lost.
The Attenborough film on this operation, btw, is one of the finest war epics ever made.
Montie and Ike were both pathetic bureacrats. Had FDR put the war into Patton's hands it would have ended by Christmas of 1944, and the Soviets would have been repelled from seizing the "Iron Curtain". The "Bridge" and "Bugle" were both bungled horribly and showed the inferior grasp of tactics that Ike and Montie both shared. WWI had no more brilliant tactician than Patton. The Wehrmacht's intelligence files show the Germans believed that was true as well, and could not fathom why the U.S. didn't put Patton in charge.
I would have thought iron in the soil would improve ground conductivity and hence improve radio signals.
""It failed because it was a Monty plan, not a Patton plan!"
I 100% agree.
Does the presence of two German panzer divisions suggest the possibility of a leak?
The Dutch underground was thorougly infiltrated, for example.
Monty was perhaps the Worst General of WWII. His win in Africa was inevitable in the Germans had no supplies but he still let them escape, he stopped to have tea and not take Caan on DDay, and then you know the rest of the story. In a fight I'd take Patton anyday.
Agreed. I thought the source of the radio problem was clear: trees, ground clutter and the wrong crystals.
I'm sure there are multiple reasons, but I don't think "high levels of iron in the soil" is one of them.
The early scene with the artillary walking in on the German positions is really good. Rarely is the effect of artillary shown in movies.
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