How did Market Garden nearly succeed?

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histan
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Re: How did Market Garden nearly succeed?

#16

Post by histan » 19 Nov 2016, 13:12

Sorry Aber

What I meant to say was that as the battle unfolded with 82nd Airborne unable to secure the bridges on 18th September and it taking until 20th September for the Guards and 82nd Airborne to get across the river - then XXX Corps could not reach Arnhem before the troops at the bridge had to surrender.

You are correct, my assessment is that the bridges at Nijmegen had to be captured intact on 17th September for Market Garden to have any chance of success.

If the plan had been for 8nd Airborne to seize them intact on 17th September, the same as the plan had been for 1st Airborne to seize the bridge at Arnhem on 17th September, then, even if their arrival had been delayed until 19th September (which it was), the Guards might have been able to drive straight over and reach Arnhem before 2 PARA had to surrender.

But that wasn't the plan and the Germans were able to reinforce Nijmegen before the 82nd could manage to launch its initial 2 company attack, which stood no chance of reaching the bridge.

A good plan has to be sufficiently robust to cope with what happens when contact is made with the enemy. The Market Garden plan wasn't robust. It was able to cope with the German response at Arnhem, although only a battalion reached the bridge that battalion was able to hold out for longer than the plan had specified. It could be argued that if the whole brigade had got to the bridge they might have been able to hold out for even longer.

The Nijmegen part of the plan was not robust. In failing to plan for the capture of the bridges on 17th September it was vulnerable to a quick German response to reinforcing the town and bridges - which is what actually happened. It was even more vulnerable to a decision by the Germans to blow the bridges, say on the 18th September when the American attacks began.

Failure by the Germans to blow the bridges at Nijmegen gave Market Garden a very slim hope of success.

Regards

John

Aber
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Re: How did Market Garden nearly succeed?

#17

Post by Aber » 19 Nov 2016, 21:52

Agreed.

Two interesting points:

If the Germans had blown the Nijmegen bridges, then the accepted narrative of Market Garden would look very different, with a focus on Nijmegen, not Arnhem.

Some of the planning for the US drops looks as if there was a focus on force conservation, rather than seizing the key objectives e.g. seizing the high ground at Nijmegen, the concentrated drop of the 82nd; which matches the discussions in the background for rebasing the US divisions in France, and using them to support the 12th Army Group crossing of the Rhine.


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Re: How did Market Garden nearly succeed?

#18

Post by Sheldrake » 20 Nov 2016, 12:51

Aber wrote:Agreed.
Some of the planning for the US drops looks as if there was a focus on force conservation, rather than seizing the key objectives e.g. seizing the high ground at Nijmegen, the concentrated drop of the 82nd; which matches the discussions in the background for rebasing the US divisions in France, and using them to support the 12th Army Group crossing of the Rhine.
That is true of a lot of the Op Market Planning with US planners and commanders as culpable as the British.

The decision to avoid a DZ or LZ close to any of the Arnhem or Nijmegen bridges even for a coupe de main force to avoid losses to flak.

The decision to secure the grosebeek heights at the expense of the Nijmegen bridge

The lack of effort by 101 to patrol towards Eindhoven after the son bridge was blown

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Re: How did Market Garden nearly succeed?

#19

Post by Delta Tank » 20 Nov 2016, 19:29

To all,
There are two threads running right now on Market Garden and I think a lot of the participants in the other thread are also on this thread. The other thread is here: http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 1&start=30

Well, to be blunt, Operation Market Garden was just a stupid plan. For it to work every domino had to fall in order and the ground forces had to move with speed. I think that "Victory Disease" had swept into the Allied senior leadership and without any of them voicing this out loud, I believe they though if they got over the Rhine the German Army would collapse.

In this last couple of months I read three more books on Operation Market Garden, and I finally got a pretty good description of the terrain and the single road in the one entitled: “The Devil’s Birthday, The Bridges to Arnhem 1944”, by Geoffrey Powell:

Page 57: “The main problem facing XXX Corps was the flat, low-lying terrain over which it would have to advance. To the north and on the flanks of its bridgehead over the Meuse-Escaut Canal the land was heavily wooded and very marshy, being intersected by dikes, canals and large rivers which made it almost impossible for armour to move off the few roads which traversed the area. It was assumed that any intact bridges would have been prepared for demolition. Moreover, the bridgehead itself was small and served only by two bridges. The combination of adverse terrain and the daily arrival of German reinforcements strengthening the enemy presence meant that the breakout itself would not be an easy task. Horrocks realized that a successful breakout would be heavily reliant on a very heavy artillery concentration and effective close air support.
The route for the advance was the main road which stretched from the canal via Valkenswaard to Eindhoven and then on to Zon, St. Oedenroade, Uden, Grave, Nijmegen and Arnhem. The road varied in width between 20 and 30 feet, increasing to 40 near Arnhem, and was of tarmac or concrete construction except on stretches between Nijmegen and Arnhem where it was composed of rolled cinders. Between Eindhoven and Grave it was in very bad condition, but the final stretch leading to Arnhem was new, as was the bridge over which it crossed the Lower Rhine, and part of it was still under construction. It was considered to be capable of taking tracked vehicles, although those would somehow have to bypass two fly-over bridges.
In several areas, including the initial stage to be covered in the breakout, the road was embanked between four and six feet above the level of the surrounding terrain and was flanked by deep ditches which would make deployment off it impossible: vehicles travelling along it would be clearly silhouetted to make easy targets for anti-tank guns. Furthermore, almost the entire stretch of the road between Grave and Nijmegen was dominated by the high ground of the Groesbeek heights south and east of Nijmegen. “

Then there is this to consider:

Page 29: “When, a few days later, Bradley learned from his liaison officer at 21st Army Group of Eisenhower’s decision to support Montgomery’s plan, he made his objections known very strongly. His opposition to ‘Market Garden’ stemmed not only from the fact that 21st Army Group would be veering off on a tangent,, opening up a gap which his own troops would have to fill, but also because he feared that Montgomery, in his enthusiasm to outflank the enemy, had underestimated the strength and capability of the German forces along the line of the Lower Rhine. Furthermore, he believed that 21st Army Group had insufficient assets and resources at its disposal to carry out such an operation successfully.”

And this makes you wonder how the war was going to end in 1944, if this is in fact true:

Page 17: “Montgomery believed that the capture of the Ruhr would reduce Germany’s capacity to wage war to only six months, so it was likely that the Germans would send all available forces to defend it and thus they would be drawn into an area that favoured the superior mobility of the Allied armoured divisions.”

And this makes you wonder how, if successful the British Army was going to envelope the Ruhr, the real purpose of Operation Market Garden:

Page 224: “With such a vast salient carved out of Holland, one that was too large for the entire British Second Army to hold securely, it was understandable that Montgomery clung on to these fine American divisions for as long as he could.”

And then there is the logistics of the whole envelopment. After a successful Operation Market Garden what is the time line for the envelopment of the Ruhr? How would this envelopment be supported logistically? How long to move the supply dumps forward to support the envelopment of the Ruhr? Could that one road support (logistically) the envelopment of the Ruhr? Were there plans to develop a second route? Air support? Weather during the time frame of the proposed envelopment of the Ruhr would curtail air support to a large extent? Number of divisions required to envelope the Ruhr and defend their lines of communications?

I just don't see how it was going to work, even if Operation Market Garden was successful.

Mike

histan
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Re: How did Market Garden nearly succeed?

#20

Post by histan » 20 Nov 2016, 21:17

Market Garden is covered in a number of threads - there is a lot of discussion, in particular of allied intentions in early September 1944 as outlined in the original documents issued by Eisenhower, Bradley, Montgomery, etc at the time.

The question posed by the original poster was "given that there are a a large variety of reasons given for the failure of Market Garden, why did it come so close to success?"

I think this is an interesting question that has not been discussed in any other threads - so what reasons can others who have studied the operation give as to why on 20th September when the Guards crossed the bridge at Nijmegan was 2 PARA still holding out (only just) at the bridge at Arnhem?
Why given that the operation was "inevitably doomed to fail" has there been a mass of vitriolic opprobrium launched against Peter Carrington (later Lord Carrington) for failing to load his tanks with 82nd Airborne paras and charge up the road?

Regards

John

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Re: How did Market Garden nearly succeed?

#21

Post by Michael Kenny » 20 Nov 2016, 21:43

histan wrote: Why given that the operation was "inevitably doomed to fail" has there been a mass of vitriolic opprobrium launched against Peter Carrington (later Lord Carrington) for failing to load his tanks with 82nd Airborne paras and charge up the road?
It is a pillar of the anti-Eu/4th Reich lunacy.

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Re: How did Market Garden nearly succeed?

#22

Post by Carl Schwamberger » 21 Nov 2016, 01:31

Reading the quotes from Delta Tanks post reminds me how nearly all the Market Garden discussions have trouble placing it in the Straitigic context of September 1944
Page 29: “When, a few days later, Bradley learned from his liaison officer at 21st Army Group of Eisenhower’s decision to support Montgomery’s plan, he made his objections known very strongly. His opposition to ‘Market Garden’ stemmed not only from the fact that 21st Army Group would be veering off on a tangent,, opening up a gap which his own troops would have to fill, but also because he feared that Montgomery, in his enthusiasm to outflank the enemy, had underestimated the strength and capability of the German forces along the line of the Lower Rhine. Furthermore, he believed that 21st Army Group had insufficient assets and resources at its disposal to carry out such an operation successfully.”

And this makes you wonder how the war was going to end in 1944, if this is in fact true:

Page 17: “Montgomery believed that the capture of the Ruhr would reduce Germany’s capacity to wage war to only six months, so it was likely that the Germans would send all available forces to defend it and thus they would be drawn into an area that favoured the superior mobility of the Allied armoured divisions.”

And this makes you wonder how, if successful the British Army was going to envelope the Ruhr, the real purpose of Operation Market Garden:

Page 224: “With such a vast salient carved out of Holland, one that was too large for the entire British Second Army to hold securely, it was understandable that Montgomery clung on to these fine American divisions for as long as he could.”

And then there is the logistics of the whole envelopment. After a successful Operation Market Garden what is the time line for the envelopment of the Ruhr? How would this envelopment be supported logistically? How long to move the supply dumps forward to support the envelopment of the Ruhr? Could that one road support (logistically) the envelopment of the Ruhr? Were there plans to develop a second route? Air support? Weather during the time frame of the proposed envelopment of the Ruhr would curtail air support to a large extent? Number of divisions required to envelope the Ruhr and defend their lines of communications?
What all this comes back to is the failure to open the port of Antwerp after its capture in the first week of September. The last line in the quote gets to the core of it. Horrocks XXX Corps couldn't do it. Dempseys Army could not do it. A army group might, but the supplies for 40, 30, or 20, divisions & corps/army overhead could not be provided without Antwerp operating at full capacity, and the Franco/Belgian railways back in partial operation. Even if Op MG was 100% sucessfull it would still be only a sucessfull operation & without a adequate Allied supply strategically meaningless.

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Re: How did Market Garden nearly succeed?

#23

Post by histan » 21 Nov 2016, 03:10

Carl and Delta Tank

All of this is well known. There was never any intention by Eisenhower to launch an attack against the Ruhr by 21st Army Group. He approved Market garden as one of a number of attacks to be launched in the autumn as part of his broad front operational plan. He authorized Montgomery to reach the Ijsselmeer after which priority of supply would switch to the US forces and their attacks. There was no plan for advancing beyond the Ijsselmeer. There would be a pause while 2nd Army reorganized and dealt with the inevitable German response. The Americans would at the same time mount their attacks which would lead to a possible future two pronged attack against the Ruhr which would be the decisive battle in which the German army in the West would be defeated.

Another interesting what-if would concern the possible use of the panzer divisions, that Model assembled for his October attack to drive the allies back over the Waal, against XXX Corps Divisions holding the line between Arnhem and the Ijsselmeer.

Still interested in views as to why Market Garden came as close to success as it did.

Regards

John

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Re: How did Market Garden nearly succeed?

#24

Post by Gooner1 » 21 Nov 2016, 13:07

Carl Schwamberger wrote: What all this comes back to is the failure to open the port of Antwerp after its capture in the first week of September.
There was never the remotest possibility of this.

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Re: How did Market Garden nearly succeed?

#25

Post by Gooner1 » 21 Nov 2016, 15:52

histan wrote: If the Brits and the Americans had to build a bridge as well I find it difficult to see how they could have reached Arnhem more quickly.
Agreed. I think the Allies however would have been happy with a blown bridge at Nijmegan for the scheduled arrival of the 1st Polish Parachute Brigade and the 325th Glider Infantry Regiment.

The Market Garden plan was robust enough to cope with blown bridges, it was not robust enough to cope with five days of bad flying weather (or two and a half for Frost's men).

histan
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Re: How did Market Garden nearly succeed?

#26

Post by histan » 21 Nov 2016, 17:29

Hi Gooner1

Interesting. I was focused on the fact that the Germans would be occupying the North side of the Waal at Nijmegen up to the South side of the Rhine at Arnhem. That would make it difficult to get a bridge over the Waal at Nijmegen. But with 1st Polish Parachute Brigade dropping South of the Rhine, they could have been tasked with going to Nijmegen instead of Arnhem to secure the North bank of the Waal to allow a bridge to be built. If 1st Airborne had established a brigade at Arnhem that might have worked.

Do you think that a blown bridge at Grave would have been easier to cope with? I am still thinking the the priorities for 82nd Airborne might have been wrong. Or would a concentration on trying to capture the bridge at Nijmegen potentially have led to two blown bridges - one at Grave and one at Nijmegen?

Too many what ifs I know.

Regards

John

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Re: How did Market Garden nearly succeed?

#27

Post by MarkF617 » 21 Nov 2016, 18:58

Hello,

I think both the Nijmegen bridge and the Groesbeek heights were vital. If you go for the bridge it's going to be difficult to shift the Germans off the heights and they can shell anything going along the road thus closing the road. If you go for the heights you lose the bridge as actually happened. according to Gavin he gave Colonel Lindquist(?) verbal orders to attack the bridge, Lindquist say's he never received these orders so waited hours before moving on the bridge. If he had attacked towards the bridge as soon as the heights were occupied he may have captured it before it was re-enforced. The obvious solution is 2 drops a day but this was denied them by General Williams. I have a book (will look up the title when I am home) written by an engineer who says XXX Corp had enough bridging gear to cross every river/canal if necessary and wonders why they wasted time capturing the Bridge at all when they could move along the river and just build one. I'll have another read and get back with some details.

Thanks

Mark.
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Re: How did Market Garden nearly succeed?

#28

Post by Kingfish » 21 Nov 2016, 19:34

MarkF617 wrote: I have a book (will look up the title when I am home) written by an engineer who says XXX Corp had enough bridging gear to cross every river/canal if necessary and wonders why they wasted time capturing the Bridge at all when they could move along the river and just build one. I'll have another read and get back with some details.
Just a guess on my part, but given the distance and time factors it stands to reason that capturing an intact bridge that is already part of the road network is preferably to waiting for one to be built further downstream
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Aber
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Re: How did Market Garden nearly succeed?

#29

Post by Aber » 21 Nov 2016, 19:44

Delta Tank wrote: Then there is this to consider:

Page 29: “When, a few days later, Bradley learned from his liaison officer at 21st Army Group of Eisenhower’s decision to support Montgomery’s plan, he made his objections known very strongly. His opposition to ‘Market Garden’ stemmed not only from the fact that 21st Army Group would be veering off on a tangent,, opening up a gap which his own troops would have to fill, but also because he feared that Montgomery, in his enthusiasm to outflank the enemy, had underestimated the strength and capability of the German forces along the line of the Lower Rhine. Furthermore, he believed that 21st Army Group had insufficient assets and resources at its disposal to carry out such an operation successfully.”
Is a source given for this, as the bolded sound like criticisms with the benefit of hindsight?

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MarkF617
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Re: How did Market Garden nearly succeed?

#30

Post by MarkF617 » 22 Nov 2016, 00:04

As promised:

The article (too short to be a book really) was called The missed Waal crossing: An engineer's perspective by John Sliz.

His introduction states:

It would have been better for the success of Operation Market Garden if the Germans had blown the two bridges at Nijmegen on the first day of the operation instead of leaving them intact. If the Germans had blown the bridges then this would have changed the mindset of the Allied Generals and forced them to revert to the backup plan, which was the engineer's plan to bridge every waterway along the path of the advance. In doing so, this would have moved the Generals' attention from the battle of attrition in the downtown core of Nijmegen towards the open area along the banks of the Waal river where 30th Corps' engineers had the resources to mount an assault across the river. If executed correctly-and there was no reason why it shouldn't have been-the result would have meant that 30th Corps would have gotten to the British 1st Airborne Division sooner.

General Horrocks has been quoted as saying that he was too focused on the bridges of Nijmegen to mount a river assault with 43rd Wessex Division downstream. He added that the river should have been bridged and the 43rd Wessex Division would have then made a left hook against the German forces on the Western edge of the Airborne perimeter. I agree with him. The Allies should have by-passed Nijmegen and performed a river assault to the west.

To mount a river assault the specialised river crossing equipment of the Special Bridging Force would have been called for right away and they would have been able to get up the corridor before the Germans cut it. I will examine, from an engineering point of view, exactly how the crossing would have been accomplished . To do this we need to study the orders for the 1st Canadian Army Group Royal Engineers and the units assigned to them.

He makes good arguments for the actual bridging but makes assumptions about the 43rd getting into position quickly along with all of the Canadian equipment including the powered storm boats (where were they when the 82nd crossed the river?) and that the crossing would meet light opposition. I am also unsure about the terrain once across. Was there a road or would any tanks that crossed just sink? It reads like the rest of the Market Garden, that if everything went as planned it would work but there are many ways it could fail.

Mark.
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