James and Al, thank you so much for this series, where you found the perfect balance between the heavy subject matter and the lightheartedness of the dynamic between the two of you. What did surprise me is the apparent debate that still seems to be going on about who, in preparation and during Operation Market Garden, was responsible for the worst decision. I think you can conclude from podcast 7 that that discussion is absolutely not happening here in the Netherlands. Here we owe our deepest gratitude to everyone who took part in the liberation of our nation between 1940 and 1945, regardless of any 'errors of judgment' that may have been made. And that is unique in Dutch culture and history.
I have really enjoyed the series, thank you. Coming from a military background including time as a planner, the more I read and listed about the operation, the more I can understand how the restraints of both staff and time have resulted in a less than a perfect plan; but, a plan that could be implemented. There were 10-days from Ike giving the approval to the first troops landing. The first planning conference was held late on the evening of 10 September. That doesn't leave long to get the majority of the planning done - orders need to be issued in time to be actioned (for example, IX TCC needed to re-activate three airfields in the East Midlands and redeploy three Troop Carrier Groups in order to meet the lift requirements of both 1st and 82nd divisions) and to enable subordinate commanders to undertake their own planning with some feedback to make minor adjustments to things like the 'desired order of arrival' of force elements and for the air elements to identify the escort plan and package for the suppression of the enemy air defences (including targeting individual flak guns). HQ FAAA was, at the time, woefully under staffed. The 1st Airborne Division was split as its glider elements had deployed south for LINNET and COMET whilst their para elements remained at their bases in and around southern Lincolnshire - Urquhart had a small Tac HQ at Moor Park with the rest of his HQ split between Fulbeck and the transit camps around the glider airfields. At the same time HQ IX TCC was in the middle of relocating from Grantham to Ascot (which could explain why they we're happy to delegate the planning for Arnhem to RAF 38 Group as the requirements for the locations of the glider LZs was the greatest influencer on the locations of DZs). So, with very limited staff and needing to get the majority of the plan in place very quickly, I can see how the planners needed to focus their attention on the bits that 'what has changed, and how does that effect my [COMET] plan' element. For MARKET that was a change from a Division+ to three Divisions+ (four divisions if 52nd is included): the new bit was the 101st's area of operations which needed DZs and LZs that hadn't been planned that needed to be done from scratch; for Arnhem, the requirement increased from a Brigade-level operation to a Division+ size, so larger LZs needed to be found to cope with significantly more gliders (I'm still not sure why they created DZ Y for 4 Para Bde - though DZ-X for the first lift became LZ X for 204 gliders on the second lift and it could be to ensure that both their DZ and LZ were both the same side of the railway line for their advance to their planned northern sector of Arnhem that was also to the north of the railway line); whereas at Nijmegen there was sufficient DZs and LZs planned for a Division. So the staff would naturally focus on the gaps first and look to finesse the other plans if they had the time (which they probably didn't). Turning to the question of why the 82nd's second lift didn't go to DZ O for easier access to Nijmegen. I am forming the view that there could be two reasons for this. First, the 82nd's second lift included more gliders than their first and the only Landing Zones for Nijmegen (N and T) were located to the east because that was where the 1st Airborne Division's gliders were planned to land for COMET (1st Airlanding Brigade was tasked with securing the Nijmegen bridge in COMET) while 4th Parachute Brigade was due to land as DZ O - I don't know wether DZ O was found to be unsuitable for a mass glider landing (like DZ K at Arnhem) or wether there wasn't the time/capacity to look at that aspect in more detail (see above) so they went with the information they had. The second element could be that DZ O was only closer to the Nijmegen Bridge if the norther bridges over the Maas-WaalKanaal were capture - this was far from guaranteed and I note that both 1st Airborne (for COMET) and the 82nd (for MARKET) chose to split their forces to each of the bridge in the hope that they would be successful on at least one. As it was, the 82nd was successful in capturing one, (the southern most bridge at Heumen) with the other three blown up by the Germans. Had the Germans been 100% (rather that 'just' 75%) successful in blowing the bridges and the second lift landed at DZ O they would have been physically isolated from Nijmegen and unable to affect the battle there until the arrival on the 2nd Army with its bridging equipment. Whereas this was not a risk for troop landing at DZs/LZs N and T. All of the above is just supposition on my part and are merely ideas that are forming as I dig into the primary source material; and there is a lot of primary source material still to wade through, so my views could well change.
I am increasingly seeing claims being made that the whole point of getting control of the Rhine crossing at Arnhem (from Monty's perspective) was, not to be able to drive eastwards and southeastwards into the Ruhr, but to drive northwards towards the IJsselmeer and *isolate the German 15th Army*, whose defence of the Scheldt estuary was stopping Antwerp from being exploited as a supply port. This was not emphasised after the defeat, because all involved decided that it was easier to 'sell' the idea that 1st Airborne had been destroyed in a noble, near-run effort to end the war by Christmas by grabbing the Ruhr.
30 Corps were ordered not to start earlier, I'm not sure why you are not acknowledging this? But I bow to your superior knowledge James. Read Sebastian Ritchie - Myth and Reality - he clarifies that Zero hour’ for the commencement of the airborne operation on 17th September was set by Brereton for 1300 hours, which was coded ‘H hour’ to indicate when the first paratroopers landed, whereas ‘Z hour’ was defined as the first permitted movement for ground forces, which was explicitly defined as: - “One hour after H hour, not before”. Orders for the battle clearly dictated therefore, that the attack on 17th September was staggered and coordinated. Evidently, 30 Corps couldn’t move until the airborne operation had first of all commenced. Horrocks confirmed: - “The airborne army would go in first. Depending on the weather, zero hour for ground forces was expected to be 2pm.” Of course, this thinking may have been agreed when Operation Sixteen was proposed, with a dawn coup de main. Did the instruction just transfer across to Brereton's timings for the drops without acknowledging the consequence? Indeed, the British 21st Army Group’s official records cover the planning stage, confirming that: - “In order that the airborne troops should start their operations with the advantage of surprise, it was decided that 30 Corps would not advance before the first lift dropped.” In simple terms, it was agreed that 30 Corps would hold back - essentially they were not permitted to commence their move before 1400 hours. Horrocks, leading the Guards Armoured Division at the head of 30 Corps was clearly instructed that he must abide by these timings and instructions, and a clear signal was sent out to all involved. Indeed, Horrocks and Major-General Alan Adair climbed to a vantage point at 1245 hours on the 17th September, to watch the aerial armada pass overhead.
@@nickdanger3802 It really isn't as simple as that. The attacks had to be coordinated. Especially once Brereton changed the timings of the airlifts Nick. The benefit of the broad daylight airlift from an Air Command perspective was that the accuracy of the airlifts were very good but Brereton was adamant that ground forces did not move beforehand so that as high a chance of surprise for the airborne forces was achieved, which was achieved. The Germans obviously knew of the build up of British ground forces but imagine if 30 Corps had set off at 9am for instance? Firstly they would have been deprived of critical Typhoon rocket attacks because of Brereton's stipulation that attack and transport aircraft could not be in the air simultaneously. More importantly perhaps, if 30 Corps had set off earlier and made it anywhere near the drop zones, the transport planes might well have been shot out of the sky. Finally, bearing in mind previous operations had been cancelled at the last minute (in Comet's case with paratroopers actually sat on the plane on the runway), Horrocks needed to be sure they were actually on their way. In a way this is irrelevant anyway because of Brereton's stipulation that H-hour was 1300 and ground forces were given 'Z-hour' to start which was stipulated as being "No earlier than one hour after H-hour". What did you expect Horrocks to do? Make his own rules up like Gavin and Browning did at Nijmegen? We have seen the very-damaging impact of that.
@@OldWolflad "The airborne assault on the bridges was code-named Operation MARKET and the ground follow-up and relief Operation GARDEN. On 14 September, Montgomery issued his ‘Operational Appreciation M 525’ summarising his plan." RAF Museum The Royal Air Force and Operation Market Garden: Chapter 2
@@nickdanger3802 I am totally aware what each section of the operation was called, actually the British called it Operation Number Sixteen. What Montgomery wanted was totally turned on its head by Brereton and Williams.
RAF on Market Garden "In their view the right course was to use all available transport aircraft to maintain supplies to Patton's army, which was the furthest forward, so that he could continue his offensive. It was impossible to do both once the Supreme Commander ruled in favour --192-- of airborne operations." Royal Air Force 1939-1945 Vol III
Has it ever been considered that if XXX Corps had advanced at 0530 hrs maybe the SS Panzers would have been ordered south to meet the threat , leaving Arnhem very lightly defended and the Germans very confused to what was actually going on . Just a thought
One aspect of the reasons behind Market Garden I dont think has been made clearly enough is the "politics" surrounding the Airbourne forces, there was a huge shortage of infantry in NW Europe after the Normandy campaign, with commanders on the ground looking at the man power in the 3 infantry divisions sitting doing nothing in England - that created an urgency within the Airbourne to get into action in a form of "use itr or loose it"
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James and Al, thank you so much for this series, where you found the perfect balance between the heavy subject matter and the lightheartedness of the dynamic between the two of you.
What did surprise me is the apparent debate that still seems to be going on about who, in preparation and during Operation Market Garden, was responsible for the worst decision. I think you can conclude from podcast 7 that that discussion is absolutely not happening here in the Netherlands. Here we owe our deepest gratitude to everyone who took part in the liberation of our nation between 1940 and 1945, regardless of any 'errors of judgment' that may have been made. And that is unique in Dutch culture and history.
I have really enjoyed the series, thank you.
Coming from a military background including time as a planner, the more I read and listed about the operation, the more I can understand how the restraints of both staff and time have resulted in a less than a perfect plan; but, a plan that could be implemented. There were 10-days from Ike giving the approval to the first troops landing. The first planning conference was held late on the evening of 10 September. That doesn't leave long to get the majority of the planning done - orders need to be issued in time to be actioned (for example, IX TCC needed to re-activate three airfields in the East Midlands and redeploy three Troop Carrier Groups in order to meet the lift requirements of both 1st and 82nd divisions) and to enable subordinate commanders to undertake their own planning with some feedback to make minor adjustments to things like the 'desired order of arrival' of force elements and for the air elements to identify the escort plan and package for the suppression of the enemy air defences (including targeting individual flak guns). HQ FAAA was, at the time, woefully under staffed. The 1st Airborne Division was split as its glider elements had deployed south for LINNET and COMET whilst their para elements remained at their bases in and around southern Lincolnshire - Urquhart had a small Tac HQ at Moor Park with the rest of his HQ split between Fulbeck and the transit camps around the glider airfields. At the same time HQ IX TCC was in the middle of relocating from Grantham to Ascot (which could explain why they we're happy to delegate the planning for Arnhem to RAF 38 Group as the requirements for the locations of the glider LZs was the greatest influencer on the locations of DZs).
So, with very limited staff and needing to get the majority of the plan in place very quickly, I can see how the planners needed to focus their attention on the bits that 'what has changed, and how does that effect my [COMET] plan' element. For MARKET that was a change from a Division+ to three Divisions+ (four divisions if 52nd is included): the new bit was the 101st's area of operations which needed DZs and LZs that hadn't been planned that needed to be done from scratch; for Arnhem, the requirement increased from a Brigade-level operation to a Division+ size, so larger LZs needed to be found to cope with significantly more gliders (I'm still not sure why they created DZ Y for 4 Para Bde - though DZ-X for the first lift became LZ X for 204 gliders on the second lift and it could be to ensure that both their DZ and LZ were both the same side of the railway line for their advance to their planned northern sector of Arnhem that was also to the north of the railway line); whereas at Nijmegen there was sufficient DZs and LZs planned for a Division. So the staff would naturally focus on the gaps first and look to finesse the other plans if they had the time (which they probably didn't).
Turning to the question of why the 82nd's second lift didn't go to DZ O for easier access to Nijmegen. I am forming the view that there could be two reasons for this. First, the 82nd's second lift included more gliders than their first and the only Landing Zones for Nijmegen (N and T) were located to the east because that was where the 1st Airborne Division's gliders were planned to land for COMET (1st Airlanding Brigade was tasked with securing the Nijmegen bridge in COMET) while 4th Parachute Brigade was due to land as DZ O - I don't know wether DZ O was found to be unsuitable for a mass glider landing (like DZ K at Arnhem) or wether there wasn't the time/capacity to look at that aspect in more detail (see above) so they went with the information they had. The second element could be that DZ O was only closer to the Nijmegen Bridge if the norther bridges over the Maas-WaalKanaal were capture - this was far from guaranteed and I note that both 1st Airborne (for COMET) and the 82nd (for MARKET) chose to split their forces to each of the bridge in the hope that they would be successful on at least one. As it was, the 82nd was successful in capturing one, (the southern most bridge at Heumen) with the other three blown up by the Germans. Had the Germans been 100% (rather that 'just' 75%) successful in blowing the bridges and the second lift landed at DZ O they would have been physically isolated from Nijmegen and unable to affect the battle there until the arrival on the 2nd Army with its bridging equipment. Whereas this was not a risk for troop landing at DZs/LZs N and T.
All of the above is just supposition on my part and are merely ideas that are forming as I dig into the primary source material; and there is a lot of primary source material still to wade through, so my views could well change.
Thank you al and James.
Brilliant stuff as always chaps always very interesting and makes you think 🤔
I love "what if's". Works the grey matter into exhaustion
I am increasingly seeing claims being made that the whole point of getting control of the Rhine crossing at Arnhem (from Monty's perspective) was, not to be able to drive eastwards and southeastwards into the Ruhr, but to drive northwards towards the IJsselmeer and *isolate the German 15th Army*, whose defence of the Scheldt estuary was stopping Antwerp from being exploited as a supply port. This was not emphasised after the defeat, because all involved decided that it was easier to 'sell' the idea that 1st Airborne had been destroyed in a noble, near-run effort to end the war by Christmas by grabbing the Ruhr.
30 Corps were ordered not to start earlier, I'm not sure why you are not acknowledging this? But I bow to your superior knowledge James.
Read Sebastian Ritchie - Myth and Reality - he clarifies that Zero hour’ for the commencement of the airborne operation on 17th September was set by Brereton for 1300 hours, which was coded ‘H hour’ to indicate when the first paratroopers landed, whereas ‘Z hour’ was defined as the first permitted movement for ground forces, which was explicitly defined as: - “One hour after H hour, not before”.
Orders for the battle clearly dictated therefore, that the attack on 17th September was staggered and coordinated. Evidently, 30 Corps couldn’t move until the airborne operation had first of all commenced. Horrocks confirmed: - “The airborne army would go in first. Depending on the weather, zero hour for ground forces was expected to be 2pm.”
Of course, this thinking may have been agreed when Operation Sixteen was proposed, with a dawn coup de main. Did the instruction just transfer across to Brereton's timings for the drops without acknowledging the consequence? Indeed, the British 21st Army Group’s official records cover the planning stage, confirming that: - “In order that the airborne troops should start their operations with the advantage of surprise, it was decided that 30 Corps would not advance before the first lift dropped.”
In simple terms, it was agreed that 30 Corps would hold back - essentially they were not permitted to commence their move before 1400 hours. Horrocks, leading the Guards Armoured Division at the head of 30 Corps was clearly instructed that he must abide by these timings and instructions, and a clear signal was sent out to all involved. Indeed, Horrocks and Major-General Alan Adair climbed to a vantage point at 1245 hours on the 17th September, to watch the aerial armada pass overhead.
XXX Corps answered to Montgomery
@@nickdanger3802 It really isn't as simple as that. The attacks had to be coordinated. Especially once Brereton changed the timings of the airlifts Nick. The benefit of the broad daylight airlift from an Air Command perspective was that the accuracy of the airlifts were very good but Brereton was adamant that ground forces did not move beforehand so that as high a chance of surprise for the airborne forces was achieved, which was achieved.
The Germans obviously knew of the build up of British ground forces but imagine if 30 Corps had set off at 9am for instance? Firstly they would have been deprived of critical Typhoon rocket attacks because of Brereton's stipulation that attack and transport aircraft could not be in the air simultaneously. More importantly perhaps, if 30 Corps had set off earlier and made it anywhere near the drop zones, the transport planes might well have been shot out of the sky. Finally, bearing in mind previous operations had been cancelled at the last minute (in Comet's case with paratroopers actually sat on the plane on the runway), Horrocks needed to be sure they were actually on their way. In a way this is irrelevant anyway because of Brereton's stipulation that H-hour was 1300 and ground forces were given 'Z-hour' to start which was stipulated as being "No earlier than one hour after H-hour".
What did you expect Horrocks to do? Make his own rules up like Gavin and Browning did at Nijmegen? We have seen the very-damaging impact of that.
@@OldWolflad "The airborne assault on the bridges was code-named Operation MARKET and the ground follow-up and relief Operation GARDEN.
On 14 September, Montgomery issued his ‘Operational Appreciation M 525’ summarising his plan."
RAF Museum The Royal Air Force and Operation Market Garden: Chapter 2
@@nickdanger3802 I am totally aware what each section of the operation was called, actually the British called it Operation Number Sixteen. What Montgomery wanted was totally turned on its head by Brereton and Williams.
RAF on Market Garden "In their view the right course was to use all available transport aircraft to maintain supplies to Patton's army, which was the furthest forward, so that he could continue his offensive. It was impossible to do both once the Supreme Commander ruled in favour
--192--
of airborne operations."
Royal Air Force 1939-1945 Vol III
Has it ever been considered that if XXX Corps had advanced at 0530 hrs maybe the SS Panzers would have been ordered south to meet the threat , leaving Arnhem very lightly defended and the Germans very confused to what was actually going on . Just a thought
One aspect of the reasons behind Market Garden I dont think has been made clearly enough is the "politics" surrounding the Airbourne forces, there was a huge shortage of infantry in NW Europe after the Normandy campaign, with commanders on the ground looking at the man power in the 3 infantry divisions sitting doing nothing in England - that created an urgency within the Airbourne to get into action in a form of "use itr or loose it"
That's a good point Dave
Is there a book on 30 Corp just trying to get to the bridges .or could that be a next book Al.
up to this episode this series has been balanced, not well balanced but balanced, only to fall back on the Brit mantra of "blame the Yanks"