September 17th, 1944 – Operation Market Garden

Conflict: World War II

Combatants: Allies vs. Germans

Location: Holland

Outcome: German victory

One this day in 1944, British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery's bold plan to knock Germany out of the war by Christmas began Allied airdrops at Arnhem, Nijmegen, and Eindhoven in Holland. The intent was to capture three bridges and hold for the advancing ground troops. Although British and American troops secured the bridges after hard fighting, a prompt German response cut off the advancing reinforcements and bad weather prevented reliable resupply. The Operation failed and the Allies lost 7,000 men killed, wounded, or captured.

Operation MARKET-GARDEN - 82nd Airborne near Grave by unknown photographer

Points of Interest:

• About 2,200 British soldiers evacuated Arnhem by boat on the night of September 25th, escaping a German encirclement.

• Operation Market Garden is depicted in Sir Richard Attenborough's A Bridge Too Far (1977) based on Cornelius Ryan's book of the same name.

Bernard Law Montgomery by an unknown photographer

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Sources:

Dupuy, Trevor N., Johnson, Curt, & Bongard, David L. (1992). The Harper's Encyclopedia of Military Biography. New York: Castle Books (HarperCollins).

Dupuy, R. Ernest & Dupuy, Trevor N. (1993). The Harper's Encyclopedia of Military History. New York: HarperCollins.

Eggenberger, David (1985). An Encyclopedia of Battles: Accounts of Over 1,560 Battles from 1479 B.C. to the Present. New York: Dover Publications, Inc.