Posted on 05/12/2018 10:14:55 AM PDT by DFG
Every time a paratrooper in Britain’s airborne regiments goes to the stores to pick up his parachute as a prelude to going into action, it’s handed over with the same old corny gallows-humour banter — ‘Bring it back if it doesn’t work and we’ll exchange it.’
You could apply the same logic to the Parachute Regiment’s most famous World War II mission: the abortive attempt to capture from the Germans the bridge over the Rhine at the town of Arnhem in the north-east of the Netherlands in the autumn of 1944.
It spectacularly did not work — and, once it got under way, there was no chance of exchanging it for one that did.
In ten days of blood-letting battles along a 65-mile axis, thousands of men needlessly died, were wounded or taken prisoner, while afterwards, the Dutch people, who had aided the British, were savagely punished by their Nazi occupiers with summary executions and deliberate starvation of the entire population.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
“I’ve always said it was a bridge too far”
A bridge too far. All about Monty’s ego.
Arnhem and the Hürtgenwald were not the Allied commanders' finest hours.
Montgomery was the master of the set-piece battle, but when things didn’t go as planned, he was incapable of adapting. A Patton or a Guderian might have been able to pull it off.
Ignoring intelligence that didn’t support the agenda didn’t help.
There really wasn’t a large scale parachute operation in World War II that didn’t turn out to be a disaster, or at best, a failure. The Germans learned their lesson at Crete. The Allies never did.
I’ve not read Beevor’s book, but I don’t agree the mission was doomed from the get-go. Allies had a lot of bad luck. For instance:
1. Radio’s didn’t work for British 1st Airborne when they landed (wrong crystals)
2. Weather delayed the 2nd drop of Polish paratroop re-inforcements
3. German 9th Panzer Division had been pulled off the line and was in Arnhem for rest and refit right at the time of the drops
Any one of these things going the other way might have resulted in a victorious establishment of a bridgehead over the Rhine at Arnhem. The war would have ended sooner, and Monty would have gone down as a hero.
I thought the airborne component of Normandy, though not as planned, was a success due to the confusion is caused.
Monty’s ego cost many their lives.
British prig
Yup. Those forces were so scattered that 'Americans' were be reported as being, 'EVERYWHERE.'
Arnhem was dunderheaded military stupidity fed by arrogance, hubris and overconfidence.
It simply was not attainable and thousands of Allied soldiers died for nothing.
Bridges Too Far was by far the worst military disaster of the Second World War.
It should never have been launched in the first place.
Sometimes a “failure” is a success.
Monty was trying to make up for his disastrous failure in achieving his primary objectives at D-Day. He was hardly a great tactical planner with the ability to adjust, regroup, or change his plan.
He and MacArthur had egos that were out of proportion to their egos. Both sacrifice thousands of troops needlessly in the pursuit of personal glory. Both blamed others for their failures and only took credit for the successes. Both relied on other more competent general officers to build plans that they would take credit for.
“German 9th Panzer Division”
IIRC it was 9th and 10th SS Panzer Divisions (II SS Panzer Corps).
Post event spin, but it's hard to sugar coat Sainte-Mère-Église.
For US airborne operations in Normandy, a total of around 8000 casualties out of about 17000 participants (including the American glider forces). Overall, the glider operations were much more successful than the initial parachute drops.
Now, the small scale British commando raid on what is now called Pegasus Bridge, carried out by glider troops, while touch and go, was an overwhelming success. Even the troops that missed the target managed to get there in time to have an impact. Overall, Britsh airborne casualties were in an acceptable 10% range. Unlike the nearly 50% for the American paratroops. Of course, again a higher percentage for the Paratroops than the glider force.
Having read extensively about the war in the pacific, I have concluded that nothing McArthur did was even necessary.
The Navy and Marines bypassed all that he conquered and that would have withered on the vine
Are we basing on casualties or objectives?
Actually Patton and Montgomery both hit upon the idea of a quick strike into German. They did so at the same time and basically it was what became Arnhem.
There were a bunch of failures, mostly with wrong intelligence. Among them, the ground would only support a single line of vehicles on a road.
Someone else mentioned several other foul ups and they were right. The idea was good and could have ended the war quickly.
Nice to see that some of the Dutch still respect the sacrifices made in this operation, even though it ultimately failed.
Its not a good idea; if you ignore the physical limitations of the ground you are going to conduct your offensive operation over !
Dutch liaison & the Dutch Crown Prince warned the Allies!
And Ike gets the blame for letting himself get talked into it, instead of focusing on clearing the Scheldt Estuary and opening the Port of Antwerp. The supply issue at that time was beyond critical. Had Antwerp been available, the war would have ended by Christmas, IMO. No bulge, the Russians would have been kept out of Berlin, etc.
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