"Arnhem - Could a US Airborne Division have held out longer?" Topic

Was there anything about the configuration of an American airborne division that would have given them better odds for holding out longer at Arnhem than the British 1st ABD?

Would it have made any difference if the procession of drops had been
British 1st AB – Grave
US 101st – Son
US 82nd – Arnhem
?

I think this thread is going to generate some interesting conversations.

My opinion, the answer is no, all other circumstances and variable remaining the same I can't imagine any other outcome. All the allied troops flown or dropped into action performed in an exemplarly maner in my opinion.

LOL, that was exactly the order we used to use in the 'free setup' option in 'Hells Highway'.

The reasoning was more that 1st AB had a much greater chance of taking and holding both Grave and Nijmegen than the 82nd did as we generally found those were the weakest parts of the corridor. XXX Corps rolling up to find 15th Army dug in at Grave was always a tad depressing.

Put your best division at the critical point, as the main thing in MG is to ensure that Nijmegen falls roughly on schedule and not two days late, at which point the resilience or not of the chaps north of the Rhine is a moot point.

The answer is no. The 1st para leadership did make some mistakes early in the battle but the placement of their drop zone and the bad luck they had early on (and facing armor…) would do in any airborne unit. 101 held at Bostogne but that was with some tank support that went in with them, and the whole division was there.

I don't know if it would have mattered much.

The US divisions had more recent operational experience as both participated in the Normandy drop and had served as complete formations in the field… (had the 1st Airborne done that before Arnhem?), they were larger units (something like 4 or so larger regiments), had more and heavier artillery, and finally Taylor and Gavin were more experienced airborne officers than Urquhart.

But honestly, I don't know how much that would have helped. The basic Arnhem plan generally sucked. Urquhart wasn't given very many helpful landing zone choices… 6-7 MILES from the bridge, he wasn't allowed to launch a coupe de main assault on the Arnhem Bridge itself, and as if that wasn't bad enough, he was handicapped by available transport… and as an additional insult, he had to GIVE UP lift capabilities to transport Browning's HQ! IIRC it was the 2d South Staffordshires who bit the bullet and arrived over two lifts!

So on the 1st lift Urquhart landed with only 5.5 rifle battalions and had to leave 2.5 of them to guard his landing zones. That's just not enough given the OPFOR. So barring more lift assets the US divisions would have been in the same pickle. Now maybe Gavin and Taylor MIGHT have had more "pull" so to speak and they could have gotten some more concessions in regards to lift assets.. but who knows?

All factors being the same (drop zones dispersion on the day so on and so forth) No difference.

I think you have to look at the TO&E for the two units as well. I do not think they were much different.

Remember 30d Corps was British fighting to get to their fellow Brits.

Yes the 82nd was the better fighting unit, but remember the 1st still held the far side of the bridge when the advanced elements reached Arnham. It was a command decision to pull them out and not press the attack.

My two cents.

VR
James Mattes

I expect not.

It was not so much a matter of "a bridge too far" as "too far from the bridge".
Once the bridge was lost, then holding the Oosterbeek perimeter was a gallant irrelevance.

The only difference that might apply would be the larger US unit size.

I think 1st Airborne had seen action in North Africa and Sicily, so there would have been some experience within the division.

I would suggest that Bayonet strength 1st airborne was on par with either 82nd and 101st, The Polish brigade was a part of their TO&E. 17 pounders in the division were also a nice little advantage, as much as once they were in position you really couldn't move them under fire, as 1st airborne had nothing armoured that could tow them. But that was largely the case for all airborne AT artillery, at least 1st AB had some carriers that could be used in this situation with its 6 pounders (in a pinch). I do wonder how the Us formations would've faired against sustained resistance by german KGs backed up with substancial armour.

Counter argument is the US formations had Airlanding 105s.

1st airborne division drop = Sicily.

Key point of thread, No, I Doubt it would've made a lick of difference.

Two things that mattered was lack of importance given to taking Nijmegen bridges and complete lack of strategic reserve ready to throw in to exploit the breakthrough. Was there the resources? probably not.

No difference at all except for the lack of classy accents. 8)=

> except for the lack of classy accents

EH!? Brooklyn accents are not classy, watz up wit dat?

Had to have been someone from Boston in the airborne too, going to cross the arnum birdge to cross the riveh…

I'm glad to add to the chorus here, "no"… the problems were not tied to the specific divisions, but rather in the plan itself (and don't forget the sizeable German contribution to the campaign failing).

Paraphrasing from The Good The Bad and The Ugly, "I've never seen so many good men, wasted so badly."

Chalfant

More men might not have made a difference, but I think that Gavin and Taylor would have been able to fight for "better" dropzones.

I`ve got to say guys – I`m impressed this didn`t turn into a Yank Vs brit furball – well done :-)

Studied and read numerous accounts of – Arnhem, the bulge, D-day, Sicily, the north African and southern france drops again and again and again over the years. All of those airborne boys were brave as hell (and mad).

Honestly I think Maxwell Taylor (101) may have done better the Urquhart, he seems to have been pretty good as a divisional commander (I rate him better than Gavin too who is highly overrated IMHO). But I don`t see how the 101 could have done anymore given all the circumstances than did the 1st Airborne.

Think what might have changed if Typhoons and Thunderbolts did low-level "Flak Suppresion" in advance of the drop?

IIRC the planners had a good idea where the flak batteries were.

Did the US radios work better than the ones the 1st AB had? Although it wouldn't have made that much difference.

"Hmm, lots of Jerry tanks coming your way."

neither Gavin nor Taylor would have accepted Lathbury's very weak Brigade plan and used the recce squadron as a recce squadron. If so, there would possibly have been a stronger force at the bridge for the Germans to contend with. Probably neither of them would have gone swanning about the battlefield and become separated from their HQ.

No.

The reason the perimetre at the bridge gave in the end was not the quality of the troops, or the number holding it but the fact they ran out of supply. They had burned through the Grenades, Piat bombs and AT gun ammo, that was the point that the decision to cease fighting was made.

No matter who was in charge, that point would have ended all of them.

Actually at the Bridge, the force under John Frost probably had the most experienced combat parachute commander on the allied side.

Somewhere on the interwebs is an interesting document that I read once, but have been able to find again which outlines the initial plan, this has the 6th Airborne Landing for the bridge immediately south of Arnhem and the southern end of the Arnhem Bridge, which then concertined the 2 American Divisions into holding less ground each.

However this was dropped very early on due to the lack of lift.

the other failure of Market Garden was the weather, in Holland Glorious, inj the UK where the support flights etc were coming from, pretty much every dayt of the op had fog issues at the airfields after the initial drop.

It was a bold attempt that could have worked but didn't

I can't see that it would have made a difference. All of the Airborne forces involved on the Allied side fought with tenacity but there was a limit to what relatively lightly armed troops reliant on supply by air could achieve. I think the big "what if?" is less about who was where than what would have happened if a full attempt had been made on the Nijmegen bridges immediately, when they were only defended by a handful of men. The two days lost there may well have made the difference.

IMHO, a more interesting discussion would be if Patton had been leading the attack up Hells Highway, would he have done better than Horrocks?

Or, if Superman and Mighty Mouse had a fight, who would win?

Yes. To answer the OP directly, the US Divisions were stronger numerically, had more firepower and better communications, so an American division would have held out longer. How much longer is a separate issue.

But really the whole operation was flawed from the start; now imagine the airborne troopers seizing a path through the Siegfried Line for Patton's army…..

number4, so they would have run out of ammunition and AT capability and fresh water (which was the issue at the bridge) faster then?

Patton on Hells Highway, unfair comparison, he commanded an Army, Horrocks commanded a Corps.

Would he have done better, maybe, maybe not. He would have lost more men, but he also had more men to lose.

The problem with launching Pattons 3rd Army is that he doesn't end the war, yeah he hits the line, maybe even bounces the Rhine maybe and then spends the next 6 months in Bavaria.

To win the war meant Berlin, to take Berlin you go across Northern Germany. Now if 3rd Army had been where US 1st Army was or 6th Army, then just maybe launching him stood a chance.

The strategic issue in Sept 1944 was that with the increasing distances from the coast supply was becoming a major issue on the whole front, they had resources to launch and maintain one more offensive at that time.

Patton just stretches those lines even further, he is driving away from supply. The Arnhem thrust, had it worked didn't extend them appreciably, threatened the German 15th Army with encirclement and opened the possibility of supply on the Northern Dutch coast from the sea.

Quick firepower comparison (major items only) -

British Airborne Division (1st Abn specific)

75-mm pack howitzer – 24
6-pr anti-tank – 56 (52 taken)
3-inch mortars – 64 (90 on WEs if MMGs reduced to 24)
MMGs – 48 (24 if Para Bns use two Mortar Pls)
17-pr anti-tank – 16 (not officially part of WE)

US Airborne Division (based on one Glider and two Para Inf Regts)

75-mm pack howitzer – 36
57-mm antitank – 40
81-mm mortars – 36
60-mm mortars – 81 (allowing for three Glider Inf Bns)
.30-cal HMG – 12 (allowing for three Glider Inf Bns)

The US figures are complicated because the T/O summaries are all based on two Glider and one Para Inf Regts, when the reverse was used. Also the above subs the official 37-mm for the 57-mm atk gun (I'm sure R Mark Davies mentioned the continued use of 37-mm guns by some Glider Bns).

Can't see anything in the bald figures that would influence the eventual outcome myself. The 1st Abn Div report noted they had plenty of 17-pr atk ammo left in supplies, what they wanted was more PIAT bombs.

Gary

" (based on one Glider and two Para Inf Regts)"

Yes, but for MG all the US divisions had three parachute and one glider regiment, as did 1st AB (including the Polish brigade).

I have fought the MG campaign endless times using board, computer and miniatures campaigns, and although unit ratings are always somewhat subjective, certainly for Victory Games 'Hells Highway' we found that 1st AB was much better employed in the Nijmegen-Grave area whilst the poor old 82nd usually drew the short straw and got to hav a go at Arnhem. This was partly because it had so many more units (as the glider pilot units were modelled, allowing it to hold the corridor more effectively) but also the stronger US artillery (with the glider arty bns) gave the 82nd more of a chance to hold out north of the Rhine, although it needed more ammo flying in.

In terms of the overall campaign, a coup de main drop vs Arnhem bridge is certainly feasible, but the ground is unsuitable for gliders and the paradrop sites are few and far between and covered by Flak. A bit of a suicide mission really, which inevitably got given to 'Robert Redford' and a couple of doomed battalions of the 82nd while their mates got to land nice and safely west of Oosterbeek then march in the same way Frost did.

It doesn't help to take Arnhem if you don't also take Nijmegen, and Nijmegen is a toughie, key to the whole campaign – which is why the Germans are best advised to do exactly what happened irl and ferry 10th SS panzer over the Rhine and pile every available unit into the Nijmegen. Conversely the Allies need to forget about Groesbeek and pile every unit into Nijmegen, except the can't because of all those pesky Germans coming out of the Reichswald.

I can't see any increase in combat power in a US compared to a British Airborne Div.

What strikes me as incredibly stupid in the M-G planning is the utter arrogance of the planners. The Germans were seen as already beaten and were not expected to resist seriously.

I wonder if the US (Taylor esp) would have been so dismissive – or gone into action with such a bad plan.

I'm not sure how much difference it would have made in the end though. The Germans had too many troops in the area and reacted too rapidly for any AB division to hold long enough. The '2-3 days' timetable was pure fantasy – it rather assumed no opposition.

Something which still annoys me though is how the Germans around Arnhem are talked up perhaps in order to somehow explain away the defeat inflicted on 1st Airborne.

I've heard people who should know better describing the 9th and 10th SS Panzer as having 'lots of tanks' when they could field a handful at best. This misses the point (so often missed IMO) that the real power of a Panzer Division was in veteren well trained and well armed Panzergrenadiers. The tanks more often supported the infantry than vice wersa especially in defensive operations or close terrain.

I wonder if the US (Taylor esp) would have been so dismissive – or gone into action with such a bad plan.

?? An American did. Brereton was in charge of First Allied Airborne Army which did the planning for Market (the airborne part of the op). It was Brereton who decided against two drops on the first day, which had been done before with Operation Dragoon. Brereton was a USAAF officer and lacked the foot soldiers perspective certainly, but he was Eisenhowers choice. For some reason both Ike, who had overall approval for Market Garden, and Brereton who had prime responsibilty for Market seem to get none of the blame which is heaped on Monty.

I think the American commanders would not have accepted the limitations that Urquhart put up with; the tricky bit on that was why Down, an experienced airborne officer, did not have command but got sent to Asia. There was too little real knowledge of the key elements in airborne warfare in senior British command positions. As a result the plan went ahead without proper attention to the importance of putting the troops down near the objectives and ensuring attacks on both ends of the key bridges.

Patton would have made no difference; the ground troops made a good effort but the key issues were the failures at Nijmegen and Arnhem bridges. Perhaps the real problem was complacent victory disease.

I think the American commanders would not have accepted the limitations that Urquhart put up with

See my post above. This limitations were imposed by an American officer. Why do you think Gavin or Taylor would have got anything better from Brereton than Urquhart did?

Taylor was IIRC on sick leave anyway. It may be that Gavin's greater experience in airborne operations would have led him to reject the operational plan. Urquhart wasn't an experienced airborne commander and may have been content to accept the 'expert' opinion of FAA. Would 'Windy' Gale have accepted the plan?

Would Brereton & the planners at FAA have taken any notice anyway? They don't seem to have been very accepting of advice.

Only if the Yanks could have changed the weather back in Blighty so the second and third waves were on time – oh and made the drop zones closer, otherwise no appreciable difference.
In fact if the 1st and 82nd swapped roles the XXX corps may not have got to Arnhem as quickly as I don't know if the 1st would have made the suicidal river crossing that the 82nd did at Nijmegen ?

It may be that Gavin's greater experience in airborne operations would have led him to reject the operational plan.

But it was Gavin who allocated responsibility for capturing the vital Nijmegen road bridge a single battalion of 508 PIR, with operational orders that no attempt should be made to seize the bridge until he ordered it, despite its paramount importance to the plan:

PDF link

In fact if the 1st and 82nd swapped roles the XXX corps may not have got to Arnhem as quickly as I don't know if the 1st would have made the suicidal river crossing that the 82nd did at Nijmegen ?

I'm not sure what the basis is for that supposition. If ordered to do so, an attempt would surely have made although who can say how it would have turned out. The crossing of the Waal by the 82nd was an act of almost suicidal heroism and showed what could be achieved by determined men against the odds. However, it wouldn't have been necessary if capture of the road bridge had been given the priority it required under the plan.

A platoon sized force wasn't sent out to scout the area until late on D Day (apparently around 1830) with 2nd Battalion 508 PIR only ordered to go for the bridge at 2000, nearly 7 hours after the regiment had landed. The attempt was made by a single company (A Co 2nd Battalion, B Co having failed to arrive at the rendezvous point) by which time the opportunity had been narrowly lost. It seems that for most of the day the road bridge had been defended by only 19 men.

Based on the urgency with which 1st AB Div (one battalion anyway)reached the Arnhem bridge from remote drop zones, it is at least arguable that XXX Corps could have made it to Arnhem if 82nd and 1st AB had been swapped. However, man for man or on TOE I cannot see that the change would have altered the outcome.

hagenthedwarf wrote:

Perhaps the real problem was complacent victory disease.

I reckon there's a lot in that, plus the fact that the 1st Airborne had seen something like sixteen previous planned operations cancelled since D-Day and were gagging for an operation of any kind.

But, as Gen Sosabowski said, one must also not forget the Germans. Some compacency in victory surely looked wholly justifiable after "Dolle Dinstag", which must have looked very like the beginnings of a collapse. But, as Dave Isby put it, German armies don't collapse, they have to be demolished. To my mind this also changes the emphasis of the usual criticism of Allied intelligence in assessing the German order of battle in the operational area. The astonishing German ability to generate effective fighting units from spare cooks and bottle-washers, training units and remnants of defeated units meant that some of the elements that fought in Market Garden just weren't there yet when the intelligence assessment was made.

All the best,

John.

Such an interesting subject matter. This thread could go on for months and I ssupect it would still be an interesting read.

Thanks for all the answers.

If one of the AB divisional generals had objected strongly to the plan (British or American), wouldn't they have been replaced?

Unlike German airborne ops where everything is tried when the Crap hits the fan. Ju-52s landing on the roads in Holland and on the beach at Crete, the Allies just seem to loose interest in trying. Only Gen Sosabowski wanted to keep the attack going and push a bridgehead across the Rhine. If Ridgeway had been OIC of the Airborne troops I doubt he would have stopped Gavin from trying to take Nijmegen bridge on day 1.

If Ridgeway had been OIC of the Airborne troops I doubt he would have stopped Gavin from trying to take Nijmegen bridge on day 1.

Eh?! No one "stopped" Gavin from taking Nijmegen bridge on day one. That was all his own doing. If he had committed sufficient force to it, which he should have done, it being a major objective then it could have been done. Gavin's effort was a case of too little, too late.

If Ridgeway had been OIC of the Airborne troops I doubt he would have stopped Gavin from trying to take Nijmegen bridge on day 1.

It was Gavin's call – see my previous post. Gavin did try on day 1 but with insufficient numbers and very late in the day after the Germans had reinforced. As a result, the opportunity to seize the road bridge by a coup de main was lost.

See my post above. This limitations were imposed by an American officer. Why do you think Gavin or Taylor would have got anything better from Brereton than Urquhart did?

Brereton was an airman. Americans seemed to have had a more forthright way of expressing themselves. I think they would have been more willing to refuse the operation as unacceptable.

But it was Gavin who allocated responsibility for capturing the vital Nijmegen road bridge a single battalion of 508 PIR, with operational orders that no attempt should be made to seize the bridge until he ordered it, despite its paramount importance to the plan

However, the Nijmegen debacle raises a query on that.Poor planning seems to lie at the root of the problem of the Operation and the key is would a different arrangement given rise to conditions more likely to give victory? I have the impression that had the order been adjusted a better plan would have arisen because airborne voices would have been raised more forcefully. Once the troops are down on the ground nationalities are unlikely to make any difference.

Interesting points re Gavin and the priorety of the Bridge over the Waal. Given Frost's perfomance at Arnhem I have little doubt he would have captured the bridge there fairly quickly in that case, but holding it open until XXX corps reached it is anotnher issue?

Maybe the Poles would have swung the difference there?

That brings us backt to the question of whether the 82nd would have got to and held the Arnhem bridge any better or more effecticely than the 1st?

Again with the same LZ's I doubt it

Poor planning seems to lie at the root of the problem of the Operation and the key is would a different arrangement given rise to conditions more likely to give victory? I have the impression that had the order been adjusted a better plan would have arisen because airborne voices would have been raised more forcefully.

The overall plan was an inevitable compromise, balancing the interests of ground, airborne and air forces as well as two allied nations. For example, I read somewhere (probably in Normandy to the Baltic) that Montgomery favoured Wesel as the final crossing point rather than Arnhem, but Wesel was unacceptable to the airmen as it was covered by the Ruhr flak belt. Brereton's 'casting vote' decision to go with one lift on D Day rather than two (which was what the British wanted) was a further compromise to allow aircrew to recover and carry out maintenance (which the US troop carrier command was insisting on). Although the 82nd and 101st landed with most of their men on D Day, the compromise meant that the 1st AB Div lift was spread over two days. Of course the lift capacity wasted on bringing Browning's corps HQ into the Nijmegen area on the first day didn't help.

Drop zones were chosen largely on the basis of what the airmen would agree to given expected flak opposition. I doubt that paratroops are any more willing to be blown out of the sky while sitting helplessly in a slow moving transport plane than the pilots themselves and am not sure that airborne voices could or would have insisted on closer drop zones against the recommendation of the airmen.

The context of the operation must be remembered by those who argue it was doomed to fail from the start. There was considerable pressure, much of it from the US, to find further use for the airborne forces which were expensive to train and maintain. A number of airborne operations had been proposed and cancelled at short notice in the weeks before Market Garden as the pace of the German retreat made them redundant. Planning had to be completed in just three days (from memory). Although this seems too little, I think the view after the event was that 3 days was adequate. There were also expectations that a German collapse was imminent (the victory disease that others have mentioned), which was an intelligence failure at SHAEF level. Finally, the operation involved risks judged to be acceptable by those in command at the time, none of whom had the benefit of being able to compare boardgame style attack and defence factors, terrain modifiers etc to compute odds with mathematical certainty.

Had Market Garden achieved all of its objectives, there is a good chance it would have ended the war quickly, saving Allied and also German lives. A lot of things had to go right for this to be possible, but it only took a few to go wrong for the operation to stall. And it certainly didn't come down to anyone stopping for a cup of tea, whatever some seem to believe.

However, the Nijmegen debacle raises a query on that.Poor planning seems to lie at the root of the problem of the Operation and the key is would a different arrangement given rise to conditions more likely to give victory? I have the impression that had the order been adjusted a better plan would have arisen because airborne voices would have been raised more forcefully. Once the troops are down on the ground nationalities are unlikely to make any difference.

So how should the order have been adjusted? First Allied Airborne Army did the planning for Market – the airborne part of the op and the individual divisions the planning for their sectors. Are you saying that knowing what was coming Gavin & Taylor just sat back and said nothing to Browning or Brereton? If they did that's a serious accusation! Or maybe they just misjudged things like several others did.
There was a lot of pressure come from the political side too. Monty was being pressured by London for an advance into Holland to clear V2 launch sites and put the rockets out of range of London. Ike was being pressurised ny Washington to make use of the expensively trained and equiped airborne divisions. Notthe first time or the last that political pressure has lead to lesthen ideal military plan.

Having done real world operational planning, some of which was actually implemented, I would never claim that our games are entirely accurate. But the best of them do illustrate some is the issues. In this case even knowing the entire situation, terrain and forces look how many mention what a tough nut MG is to crack even with freedom to change unit areas.

Military planners usually over design a plan if possible and try to anticipate the worst case scenario. There are usually also plan B and if lucky C should A go south. MG counted on everything going right. Anything that would upset the initial assumptions were, as we now know, ignored. And it really was one cast of the die with no real plan B.

The units involved, whether airborne or ground forces, were arguably some of the finest units the allies fielded at that point in the war. To answer the original question, no, would not have made any appreciable difference.

All other things being equal, I believe the US divisions would have been pretty much in the same boat as 1st airborne. There were few units in the world at that time that could have done even as good, let alone better than what the 1st AB boys managed to do under the circumstances.

Not without air support. By the way where was the air support? Bad weather over England? If you could fly C47s, tow planes and gliders. Why not Typhoons and Thunderbolts?

Gary,

Robert Morgan (327th GIR), in his book 'Fighting With the Screaming Eagles', mentions company-level 37mm guns in addition to the battalion-level 57mm guns. However, this was when they were fighting on 'The Island' in late September/early October, so it's probable that these arrived with the 'Sea-Tail'.

Rallynow,

The close air support aircraft were with 2nd TAF in Belgium. These were fogged in for several days after D-Day, while the UK-based Troop Carrier Command aircraft were not.

So how should the order have been adjusted? First Allied Airborne Army did the planning for Market – the airborne part of the op and the individual divisions the planning for their sectors. Are you saying that knowing what was coming Gavin & Taylor just sat back and said nothing to Browning or Brereton? If they did that's a serious accusation! Or maybe they just misjudged things like several others did.

Why were there no paratroops on the north and south side of the Arnhem and Nijmegen bridges within hours of the landings? At Arnhem the landings were miles away and at Nijmegen one battalion were assigned and arrived in the evening of the first day. I would consider it a rather lacklustre performance and that at Nijmegen rather undermines my suggestion that a reshuffle in command would have brought better results. I do think that not to get men on the ground near the bridges on both sides of the river suggests some poor decision making. The airman seemed very concerned over flak belts and tired aircrew but the objective was to get men on the ground and seize those bridges, not to ensure light casualties amongst the aircrews. With the Germans having been on the run it all looked too easy but it was not.

Ok let me have a try! You drop forces either side of Arnhem Bridge say a battalion, those on the South get hit by Graebners SS on way back from Nijmegan. Those on the North get hit by 10th SS and KG Knaust as 2 Para did, excpet there is probably one company less on North side as this will be on South side or visa versa. US have big guns but as Brits found when supply drops are falling into German hands no real use. US have no heavy hitting A/Tk A.K.A 17Pdr
but as all the Heavy stuff was around the bridge area anyhow and the 506 couldnt negociate the roads of Oosterbeek not a problem.

Its all swings and round abouts, the one unit i believe could of made a difference was 1st Polish brigade but due to some political reasonings were not used properly. With them North of the River as originally planned we would have had a stronger Oosterbeek perimeter around the Ferry site which was lost by the Border Regt due to lack of man power.
With this Ferry site complete more forces could of got a foot hold. The Bridge was still lost but we would of been across. the bridge gave up not just because of the ammo situation but due to the fact that the bridge perimeter buildings ceased to exist after being pummelled by the German artillery. Just look at after battle photos to see how much was reduced to dust.

i dont think it would make a difference who did the Arnhem drop it wa sjust to far for resupply and reinforcements to reach. 6th A/B were close enough to beaches for forces to reach them for reinforcing tehbridgehead BUT would of come unstuck if dropped further away say capriquet say?

What if the US Engineers who were supposed to drop with 1st A/B did get the emergency strip built, could we have got the Lowland Division ferried in?

What if they were allowed to do a coup de main on the airfield North of Arnhem, further away and closer to the German reinforcements coming South, relieves Airborne bridgehead but lose an Infantry Div in process?

Nijmegan was the key capture that a day early then what you still have to force a crossing of the Rhine and get troops across the bridge which was under fire from the Germans from the factories to the East.

Sorry not beinge exact as at work and dont have my notes with me.

Too many problems to overcome, another thought occured to me why didnt teh Airborne Corps go by road with 6th A/B LAA Btty (40mm) this would of released several hamilcars and Horsas to 1st A/B. Would be nice idea to use the Tetrarchs of 6th A/B as the coup de main party, if they could of got off the drop zone.

IMHO airborne drops of large size were the flavour of the day and with the troops available they were going to be used one way or another. The commanders were all enthusiasts and wanted to try their new toys. This despite the evidence from German and earlier Allied drops that casualties would be horrendous and the airborne forces have to be supported VERY quickly by heavy ground forces. Large airborne ops don't work, only small stealthy ones.

Never thought to look at the post battle pics from around the bridge at arnhem. Makes you realise what Frost's boys did. Fantastically brave, inspirational soldiers.

I don't think it would have made any difference unless the Americans could have altered the weather so as not to disrupt re-supply & reinforcement, or persuaded the German to not have the remnants of 2 Panzer divisions in the area

Red Baron hits the nail on the head!

I think all three divisions were excellent fighting formations, with plenty of experience.

1AD has taken part raiding missions in France and Norway (including the famous Bruneval raid). In the Sicily they made a divsional drop, were landed by sea during the Avalanche Landings in southern Italy and fought their way up to Foggia, taking on the German 1st Para. One brigade was airdropped as part of Operation Dragoon in southern France.

52nd Lowland had recently been converted into an air-landing division (from a mountain division)and 6th airborne, which had just (early September) been taken out of the 1 Corps line on the Seine to refit (but was short of men) was also available, but there was no lift to use them as a strategic reserve.