Market Garden...Was success ever a possibility

[dieseltaylor]

I picked up a second-hand book on Saturday and not read it yet but this is interesting review though I amnot sure of the reviewers real sentiments : )

This review is from: A Magnificent Disaster: The Failure of the Market Garden, the Arnhem Operation, September 1944 (Hardcover)

We have at last, an excellent exposition of the poorly planned/executed Operation Market-Garden. All the key players are examined, warts and all. Thankfully, this book is not a Monty ("it was 90% successful") whitewash. This poorly planned operation was poorly executed by bumbling idiots who passed the buck to Polish General Sosabowski, a handy scapegoat, who early on, questioned the wisdom of the planning. Although I'm usually a Monty devotee, in this case, I must say he was not up to this task that was so quickly and poorly planned. The author reveals the vanity and ineptness of many of the other key players in the Arnhem drama. British General "Boy" Browning, deserves special mention and condemnation, at his collaboration with others in a determined effort to ignore the Dutch intelligence, which revealed a formidable German presence in the area being planned for British operations. It was also Browning who did the dirty work of blaming Sosabowski for Monty's debacle, the only individual who should have taken responsibility. It is now clear that Sosabowski was blamed for not relieving the trapped British airborne division above the Rhine, details how the British botched the relief efforts, while stating afterward that they should have followed Sosabowski's plan, which at the time they very angrily rejected. Just how the 4,500 British paratroopers were evacuated? Well, hidden for a long time, and now revealed: by a single company of Canadian engineers, a fact never fully accepted by British historians. Browning, of course, was taking orders from the vain Monty, who should ultimately be held responsible. But Browning was a devious manipulator and a poor planner; and his attitude toward the Americans was so typical of other senior British commanders: treating them with a patronizing condescension. The author also more fully and correctly presents the U.S. airborne involvement in the operation.

Instead of criticizing this author's book, reviewers should look beyond its title, at the expert evidence presented, and check out the sources presented. As is often the case, critics will take aim at a writer who reveals the truth, which has been encased and enshrined in previous histories as myth.

[Dave85]

But let me take a different view on OMG.

By this point in the war, anything that bled the Germans was going to be a step toward the end of the war.

By that thinking, anything which kept the Allies moving forward, even if they were deluding themselves, helped, as long as they were killing some Germans and did not have catastrophic losses.

Sort of like the situation with Grant near the end of the American Civil War. As long as there was fighting, and dying, in somewhat equal numbers, he was winning. And Grant did not even have something like Spain coming across in huge force from Mexico for the South to also fight against.

Strategically then, OMG a win?

On this subject, does anyone have an accuratee figure for german casualties in the Arnhem area? Wiki states 2500 but Urquart states in his book "the Germans were openly admitting to taking 7500 casualties in the area" the latter figure seems more likely to me considering the 1st AB were a gang of bloodthirsty killers and the Huns were in a race against time to crush the bridgehead

[JonS]

Kershaw (Snows in September) puts the German total as - conservatively - somewhere in the 6-8,000 range across the entire Op M-G area, and 2,500-3,000 for Arnhem alone.

[user38]

I think success could have been possible, but for the Germans.

[dieseltaylor]

Nicked from somewhere elae

I can't lay my hands on the reference at the moment, but I remember reading about comments by Dutch officers after the battle. An assault up the road towards Nijmegen and on to Arnhem was a problem at their staff college. If you assaulted up the main road (as XXX Corps did) you failed the problem. If you used a series of outflanking manoeuvres to lever the defenders out, you passed.

I wonder if it is true?

[Lt Belenko]

MG was nothing more than Ike appeasing Monty's ego.

[StellarRat]

They had very good intel about what was going on in the Arnhem area but chose to ignore it.They knew there was Armour in the vacinity.Monty wanted a narrow front strat in Europe,Ike was all for a broadfront one this was Montys plan to get his own way.

I think they thought XXX Corps would take care of the armour when it got there.When infact it was one of these very panzer divisions that blocked the way after Nijmegen,10th SS,and anyway by Nijmegen Ist Para in Arnhem was doomed by then.After finishing with Frost at Arnhem 10th SS moved over the Arnhem bridge to take on XXX Corps and blocked the way completely.Game over.

Looking forward to the module whenever it comes,should be epic.

I always thought of analysis and deciding what to do with raw intelligence as part of "Intel". But perhaps you could also think if it as poor command decision making. Choosing what intel to ignore or believe has ruined many a plan and in some cases even started wars.

[Aragorn2002]

Some time ago I did watch a documentary about Arnhem and the stories of aerial pictures of German tanks and other heavy equipment in the days before the landings. There are still hundreds of thousands of photos that have to be checked in the archives and til now very, very few pictures have been found on which German tanks are clearly visible. Apart from that, the paras did have anti-tank guns and were considered to be able to hold their ground against enemy tanks to a certain extent.

I must say I'm also pretty excited about the Market Garden module.

[Dave85]

Ok so the general consensus seems to be that OMG was a fairly harebrained scheme relying to heavily on too many uncertainties. So what about the alternatives? What if all available resources had been diverted to Pattons third army to continue his hitherto unstoppable rampage across western Europe? Could the war have been shortened considerably?

Although many British and some US commanders viewed Patton with a degree of scorn, many of their German counterparts had him mdown as one of, if not the, outstanding panzer army commander of the war (a subject on which the Germans were undoubtably the better authority)

[YankeeDog]

Ok so the general consensus seems to be that OMG was a fairly harebrained scheme relying to heavily on too many uncertainties. So what about the alternatives? What if all available resources had been diverted to Pattons third army to continue his hitherto unstoppable rampage across western Europe? Could the war have been shortened considerably?

Although many British and some US commanders viewed Patton with a degree of scorn, many of their German counterparts had him mdown as one of, if not the, outstanding panzer army commander of the war (a subject on which the Germans were undoubtably the better authority)

It's true that, in hindsight, there was very little the Germans had in place that could have stopped Patton's 3rd Army from advancing across Alsace-Lorraine and breaching the Siegfried line. The battle of Arracourt took place almost concurrently with Market Garden, and the reason why the Germans felt it necessary to counterattack here was that they hadn't yet manned the Siegfried line in front of Patton's forces yet -- they had to do *something* to slow the 3rd Army down, to give them time to get the Siegfried line defenses operational.

As it was the battle of Arracourt was a tactical defeat for the Germans -- the 5th Panzer Army definitely came off the worse for it compared to the 3rd Army, once all was said and done. But it was a Strategic success -- as a result of the strong German forces encountered, the 3rd Army pulled up to refit and resupply, concerned about what other strong German forces might lie in their path. So while the Germans' losses were much heavier than the Americans, they accomplished what they had set out to do.

Had the Allies actually known how few German forces in good order were between the 3rd Army and the Siegfried line after Arracourt, and if the Allies had not "blown their wad" on Market Garden, they might have been been able to make something of this. But this is, again, working with facts that the Allied commanders did not have at the time.

Actually, given what the Allied commanders knew at the time, IMHO the better approach was a more conservative one -- to focus limited resources on clearing the banks of the Scheldt so that the port of Antwerp could be used. Which is, of course, exactly what the Allies did after Market Garden failed. Had they not put so much time and effort into Market Garden, they might have been able to get shipping into Antwerp several weeks earlier, and this I think would have had a measurable effect on the remainder of the war. Not huge, but measurable.

[Pak40]

Some time ago I did watch a documentary about Arnhem and the stories of aerial pictures of German tanks and other heavy equipment in the days before the landings. There are still hundreds of thousands of photos that have to be checked in the archives and til now very, very few pictures have been found on which German tanks are clearly visible. Apart from that, the paras did have anti-tank guns and were considered to be able to hold their ground against enemy tanks to a certain extent.

I must say I'm also pretty excited about the Market Garden module.

It Never Snows in September is probably the best source of info on the German OOB. It has a few pictures taken from one of the members of a training unit in their MkIII tanks.

I've also had this site bookmarked for a few years now:

http://www.defendingarnhem.com/

[Michael Emrys]

Nicked from somewhere elae

I wonder if it is true?

That was in Ryan's book and he makes a big deal of it. Whether the "left turn" that was the correct solution in the staff exercises would have made any great difference in the battle, I have not been able to determine. But surely it would have avoided the hold-up on the elevated highway of "the island".

Michael

[Michael Emrys]

MG was nothing more than Ike appeasing Monty's ego.

Well, there was more to it than that. Among the Allied military leaders, it was widely felt the the German army in the West was broken in Normandy and could offer but little resistance to a quick strike into the homeland.

The strategic question was where? The part of the front covered by 21st. AG had several advantages. It more directly threatened important strategic targets such as the Ruhr and once the Rhine was crossed the terrain was somewhat more conducive to the rapid movement of mechanized armies and the rapid development of a general offensive.

As it turned out, the Germans had quite a bit more fight left in them. The escape of command echelons from the Falaise Pocket meant that they were able to reorganize and establish an adequate defense quickly.

There were a great many factors that led to the failure of the operation, too many to go into in this post. The fact that stands out in my mind is the extent to which the Allied leadership had fallen victim to "victory disease" and underestimating their adversary.

Michael

PS: I agree with YD in that with hindsight it's clear that a much more profitable use for the resources at hand to the Allies would have been the prompt clearing of the Scheldt Estuary. In the event, the Allies were to be strapped for supplies all through that fall and most of the winter. Not all of that was due to the delay in bringing Antwerp into operation, but it certainly did not help.

[MikeyD]

I wonder how much the decision to go for Market Garden was simply psychological, generals frustrated by Ike's go-slow rolling front approach, the huge waste of time grinding down Brest in that same timeframe. They wanted to do 'something' bold. Plus I get the impression Monty really wanted to out-Patton Patton in his gambit, trump his rival in audacity. Lord save the common soldier from generals with egos.

[Michael Emrys]

I wonder how much the decision to go for Market Garden was simply psychological, generals frustrated by Ike's go-slow rolling front approach, the huge waste of time grinding down Brest in that same timeframe. They wanted to do 'something' bold. Plus I get the impression Monty really wanted to out-Patton Patton in his gambit, trump his rival in audacity. Lord save the common soldier from generals with egos.

I tend to agree that that was a factor, but I wouldn't make too much of it.

BTW, I think what you say about Ike's go slow is wide of the mark. Everybody, including Eisenhower had been frustrated by the delays in expanding the Normandy lodgment and breaking out from it, but the armies had just completed an exhilarating month long chase through France and Belgium. The desire was to keep rolling all the way to Berlin.

Michael

[Sailor Malan2]

My favourite quote about Market Garden (any Montgomery):

In fact, Montgomery's decision to mount the operation…. was as startling as it would have been for an elderly and saintly Bishop suddenly to decide to take up safe-breaking and begin on the Bank of England.

[Michael Emrys]

I had to laugh when I read Monty's metaphor for the proposed operation: That he was going to strike like an angry rabbit.

Michael

[LongLeftFlank]

Had the Germans deployed the 9th and 10th SS to rest and refit somewhere other than Holland (and not replaced them with comparable formations), would that have allowed success? Or would Volksgrenadiers with StuGs have contained and made equally short work of the Red Devils after their initial surprise?

[mjkerner]

I had to laugh when I read Monty's metaphor for the proposed operation: That he was going to strike like an angry rabbit.

Michael

Anticipating a Monty Python movie by about 30 years, no doubt

[JonS]

Had the Germans deployed the 9th and 10th SS to rest and refit somewhere other than Holland (and not replaced them with comparable formations), would that have allowed success? Or would Volksgrenadiers with StuGs have contained and made equally short work of the Red Devils after their initial surprise?

Despite everything 1st AB held the bridge at Arnhem for about as long as they were required to by the Op M-G plan. 10th (or was it 9th?) SS were pretty much out of the picture anyway, as they were in the process of decamping to the Ruhr for a thorough refit.

The real damage to Op M-G was done by as the piddly little heer KGs between Arnhem and Eindhoven continually attacking and holding XXX Corps ups, although the long defence at Nijmegan when 82nd AB finally got around to trying to take it was dependant in part on SS troops sent down from Arnhem.

So, sans II SS Pz Korps, it's likely that Op M-G would still have been in trouble. the difference is that the airborne guys would have had a larger margin of error. By that I mean that without II SS PzK then presumably more British troops would have gotten to the Bridge, and they would presumaby have been able to hold it for a day or two longer, possibly providing XXX Corps enough time to arrive by land.

OTOH, when Op M-G was launched the German Staff reacted astonishingly rapidly, and sucked in forces from all over the place to contain the airborne forces and block XXX Corps. With that in mind it seems that almost regardless of where II SS PzK were sent to refit in early Sept, it's likely they would have been sent to Holland post haste anyway.

[LongLeftFlank]

Good insights, thanks. Plugging unexpected holes posthaste with ad hoc forces was a German strong suit of course; to wit, Anzio... And Normandy for that matter. Of course the Russian front had given them several years of practice at that,as far back as Demyansk 1941.

[acehammer]

I think the allies may have been lucky that it all fell apart so quickly. I agree with the Pole, Whose side you on? This had no real chance, one corridor? all those choke points?

30 Corps on a airborne tether? Did Monty really think they were going to be able to run amuck in the Rhur valley? This was not going to be a game over, they are lucky they didnt end up back in Paris .Can you think of what might have happened with 30 Corps cut off in Germany. I belive Patton was right on this one.

[Dietrich]

Off topic but this question burns to be answered: Where did the whole "Hun" thing get started, anyway?

As per Wikipedia (FWIW):

On July 27, 1900, during the Boxer Rebellion in China, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany gave the order to act ruthlessly towards the rebels: "Mercy will not be shown, prisoners will not be taken. Just as a thousand years ago, the Huns under Attila won a reputation of might that lives on in legends, so may the name of Germany in China, such that no Chinese will even again dare so much as to look askance at a German."[48]

This speech gave rise to later use of the term "Hun" for the Germans during World War I. The comparison was helped by the Pickelhaube or spiked helmet worn by German forces until 1916, which was reminiscent of images depicting ancient Hun helmets. This usage, emphasising the idea that the Germans were barbarians, was reinforced by Allied propaganda throughout the war. The French songwriter Theodore Botrel described the Kaiser as "an Attila, without remorse", launching "cannibal hordes".[49]

The usage of the term "Hun" to describe a German resurfaced during World War II. For example Winston Churchill referred in 1941 to the invasion of the Soviet Union as "the dull, drilled, docile brutish masses of the Hun soldiery, plodding on like a swarm of crawling locusts."[50] During this time American President Franklin D. Roosevelt also referred to the German people in this way, saying that an Allied invasion into the South of France would surely "be successful and of great assistance to Eisenhower in driving the Huns from France."[51] Nevertheless, its use was less widespread than in the previous war. British and American WWII troops more often used the term "Jerry" or "Kraut" for their German opponents.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hun#20th_century_use_in_reference_to_Germans

[JonS]

they are lucky they didnt end up back in Paris. Can you think of what might have happened with 30 Corps cut off in Germany.

You know, there's a saying that runs something like 'better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.'

The plan wasn't to lauch XXX Corps unsupported into Germany. The plan was for XXX Corps (and 1st AAA) to secure a launching pad.

Hopefully you can perceive the subtle difference there.

I believe Patton was right on this one.

FSM give me strength

[Brindlewolf]

Despite everything 1st AB held the bridge at Arnhem for about as long as they were required to by the Op M-G plan. 10th (or was it 9th?) SS were pretty much out of the picture anyway, as they were in the process of decamping to the Ruhr for a thorough refit.

The real damage to Op M-G was done by as the piddly little heer KGs between Arnhem and Eindhoven continually attacking and holding XXX Corps ups, although the long defence at Nijmegan when 82nd AB finally got around to trying to take it was dependant in part on SS troops sent down from Arnhem.

So, sans II SS Pz Korps, it's likely that Op M-G would still have been in trouble. the difference is that the airborne guys would have had a larger margin of error. By that I mean that without II SS PzK then presumably more British troops would have gotten to the Bridge, and they would presumaby have been able to hold it for a day or two longer, possibly providing XXX Corps enough time to arrive by land.

OTOH, when Op M-G was launched the German Staff reacted astonishingly rapidly, and sucked in forces from all over the place to contain the airborne forces and block XXX Corps. With that in mind it seems that almost regardless of where II SS PzK were sent to refit in early Sept, it's likely they would have been sent to Holland post haste anyway.

Just a point here,there were no piddly units holding XXX Corps up.3 weeks to prior to the start of OMG.The germans formed a unit called Kampfgruppe Walther these were mainly crack SS units and fallschirmjager troops bolstered by luftwaffe troops to make the numbers up.These were additionally bolstered by contributions from 10th SS by way of grenadiers,jagdpanthers and 105s.

Walthers job was to stop any advance over the Belgian border at Joes Bridge by the allies.XXX Corps had numerous skirmishes with these guys weeks before OMG.So they knew it wouldn't be easy.

Easy to say in hindsight but the Top Brass knew what they were taking on,they knew fine well they wouldn't be taking on old men and boys.Think with the numbers involved on the allied side,they thought they'd steam roller their way through.Crack troops or not.