Posted on 02/12/2004 12:00:13 AM PST by SAMWolf
LOL. That's allright Matt, as long as it's a Foxhole thread I'm sure to be found!
Hi Sam. I aim to please!
But that is another story
And a sad one it is. What a fiasco that operation of Montgomery turned out to be.
The 1ST Polish Independent Parachute Brigade was formed in England and was originally intended for use in support of the Polish Underground during its uprising. Before the Warsaw Uprising, in the summer of 1944, the British felt that they would be unable to support the brigade once it was dropped into Poland and insisted that the brigade be used to support operations in western Europe. The Poles had little choice but to accept. It was decided that the parachute brigade would drop during Operation Market-Garden {Arnhem) in September 1944. Yet it should be mentioned that the Polish commander of the brigade, General Stanis³aw Sosabowski, was aghast when informed of the details of the British drop; he felt that Operation Market-Garden was too hastily planned and poorly conceived.
The plan called for the Polish brigade to be dropped on day D+2 to support the British 1ST Airborne Division which was assigned to capture the bridge over the Lower Rhine at Arnhem. The American 82ND and 101ST airborne divisions were dropped south of Nijmegen and north of Eindhoven. The Dutch Underground had not been informed of the drops, and therefore could not help by way of intelligence and support. The Polish brigade's drop was postponed for three days because of bad weather. Finally, in the late afternoon of September 21, the Polish brigade was dropped near the village of Driel, on the south side of the Lower Rhine - not on the side where the British 1ST Airborne was holding the bridgehead. The drop itself was a disaster. One battalion of the brigade was ordered back to England because of bad weather. There was no air cover for the Dakotas carrying the paratroopers, and twenty-five German Messershmitt fighters were blasting the defenseless transport planes out of the sky with complete impunity. To make matters worse, the Germans had tracked and timed the formations as they flew from Dunkirk, and now, with reinforcements, the area bristled with firing anti-aircraft guns. In the Oosterbeek perimeter of the British-held bridgehead 2.5 miles away, the drop caused a momentary halt in the battle: every German gun was now concentrated on the swaying Polish paratroopers. Though shocked by the savagery of the combined air and antiaircraft fire, most of the Polish brigade miraculously made the drop zone. Even as they landed, flak and mortar shells fired from the German tanks burst among them. Disregarding the fire, Dutch Red Cross teams ran to help the wounded Poles.
According to the plan, the brigade was to cross the Rhine by ferry to get to the British; but, the ferry had been destroyed in the fighting. Therefore, the Poles attempted to cross the 400-yard river at night, under the cover of darkness, in four rubber dinghies on a hawser. Each dinghy could accommodate up to six men at a time. Under German fire, the Poles were slowly getting across, but were suffering heavy casualties. At 3:00 A.M. the operation was stopped. Only fifty men had been ferried across the river. At midnight on September 23, under heavy fire and suffering heavy casualties, some of the Polish paratroopers crossed the river in sixteen boats left over from the 82ND United States Division assault on the Waal River. Only 250 Poles made it to the northern bank, and 200 reached the beleaguered British 1ST Airborne Division at Arnhem. The Polish remnants withdrew together with the remnants of the British 1ST Airborne Division. The lost battle and heavy casualties were particularly hard on the survivors: they knew that the Warsaw Uprising, which had began on August 1, was dying and they could do nothing to help.
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