A Bridge Too Far

by Cornelius Ryan

  Colonel Chatterton Glider Pilot Regiment commander, who pressed for a daring glider coup-de-main on Arnhem bridge. Had his plan been adopted, the bridge might have been taken within hours. Instead, Chatterton was called “an assassin and a bloody murderer” for suggesting the idea.

  In his division’s last stand at Oosterbeek, Major Cain though wounded again and again, continued to fight back against enemy tanks. · Miss Clair Miller of London’s Hobson & Sons Ltd., made Browning’s Pegasus flag, contrary to the Arnhem myth that it was the work of his wife, novelist Daphne du Maurier. Miss Miller also sewed 500 tiny compasses into troopers’ uniforms, which later aided many in making an escape. · Major Lonsdale whose “Lonsdale Force” held out to the very end.

  In the Anglo-American attack on Nijmegen bridge, 82nd Airborne’s Major Cook led the unprecedented crossing of Waal River to seize bridge’s northern end. · Simultaneously Lieutenant Colonel Vandervoort together with British forces, attacked southern approaches.

  Military Cross winner Lieutenant Gorman had his “doubts” about the entire operation. He felt that no one was moving fast enough to rescue Frost’s men on Arnhem bridge. · Lieutenant Wierzbowski was sent with a company to capture the bridge at Best, which was believed to be “lightly held.” The area actually contained more than 1,000 German troops of the forgotten Fifteenth Army and in the end involved an entire regiment of the 101st Airborne.

  Lieutenant Glover who took his pet chicken, Myrtle, on the Arnhemjump. “Myrtle, the parachick” was killed and in the midst of the fighting was given a formal burial. · Major Deane-Drummond second in command, 1st Airborne Division Signals, had doubts that his communications would work, but like everyone else was “swept along with the prevailing attitude,” which was “For God’s sake, don’t rock the boat.” ·

  Colonel Tucker 504th regimental commander, whose units crossed Waal River, was appalled at slowness of British tanks. He had expected a special task force to make the eleven-mile dash to Arnhem and relieve bridge defenders. Instead, Tucker said, the British “stopped for tea.”

  Fired by Hitler after the Normandy debacle, Von Rundstedt the Reich’s most competent Field Marshal, was recalled in September. The situation on the western front was so catastrophic that Von Rundstedt believed the Allies could invade the Reich and end the war within two weeks. His strategy in saving Fifteenth Army was a major factor in defeating Montgomery’s Market-Garden plan. Field Marshal Model whom Von Rundstedt called a “good regimental sergeant major,” had been unable to halt Allied drive across western Europe, but by chance had moved the II SS Panzer Corps into the Arnhem area days before the airborne attack. Captured Market-Garden plans were in his hands within 48 hours, but, incredibly, Model refused to believe them.

  II SS Panzer Corps commander, Lieutenant General Bittrich (shown above as he is today and in 1944), knew nothing of captured Market-Garden plans, but correctly deduced that main objective was Arnhem Bridge.

  The Reich’s airborne expert, Colonel General Student (today and in 1944), was stunned by the size of airborne drop and “only wished I had had such forces at my disposal.”

  The British landed virtually amidst two Panzer divisions in the Arnhem area, to the surprise of their commanders: Lieutenant Colonel Harzer [AS HE IS TODAY AND IN 1944] of 9th SS “Hohenstaufen” Division; Major General Harmel of 10th SS “Frundsberg” Division.

  Double agent “King Kong” Lindemanns crossed front lines to inform Germans of British ground attack on September 17th. Contrary to British newspaper reports after the war, Lindemanns knew nothing about scope of airborne attack.

  Luftwaffe General Dessloch was so worried about possibility of airborne attack that he refused to visit Model. The battalion of Major Krafft was by chance in position on the edge of British drop zones.

  The first man at Model’s headquarters in Tafelberg Hotel to learn of airborne drop barely two miles away was Lieutenant Sedelhauser. “They are dropping in our laps,” he was told.

  Prince Bernhard shown as he arrived in liberated Eindhoven and as he is today. Neither Bernhard nor his general staff were consulted about terrain difficulty in the Market-Garden plan until it was too late, and detailed information which the Prince had from Dutch underground sources regarding German armor in Arnhem was discounted.

  Expecting liberation, the Dutch in Oosterbeek found themselves caught up in brutal battle. “Montgomery will be here soon,” optimistic Britishers told 17-year-old Anje van Maanen. • Jan Voskuil could not rid himself of a “feeling of hopelessness.” · Hendrika van der Vlist wrote in her diary that Oosterbeek had become “one of the bloodiest battlefields.”

  Kate ter Horst with son Michiel during war and with husband, Jan, as they are today, courageously made her home available to British wounded. At one time during battle more than 300 casualties crowded the house. A former Dutch captain, Jan could not understand why the British failed to use Driel ferry to cross the Rhine. In Market-Garden planning the ferry was completely overlooked.

  The embryo concept (which thereafter would bear the code name “Operation Market-Garden”—“Market” covering the airborne drop and “Garden” for the armored drive) was to be developed with the utmost speed, Montgomery ordered. He insisted that the attack had to be launched in a few days. Otherwise, he told Browning, it would be too late. Montgomery asked: “How soon can you get ready?” Browning, at this moment, could only hazard a guess. “The earliest scheduling of the operation would be the fifteenth or sixteenth,”* he told the Field Marshal.

  Carrying Montgomery’s skeleton plan and weighed with the urgency of preparing for such a massive mission in only a few days, Browning flew back to England immediately. On landing at his Moor Park Golf Course base near Rickmansworth on the outskirts of London, he telephoned the First Allied Airborne headquarters, twenty miles away, and notified the commander, Lieutenant General Brereton, and his chief of staff, Brigadier General Floyd L. Parks. The time was 2:30 P.M., and Parks noted that Browning’s message contained “the first mention of ‘Market’ at this headquarters.”

  The airborne commanders were not the only officers caught unaware. Montgomery’s daring plan so impressed and surprised the Field Marshal’s greatest critic, General Omar N. Bradley, that he later recalled, “Had the pious, teetotalling Montgomery wobbled into SHAEF with a hangover, I could not have been more astonished…. Although I never reconciled myself to the venture, I nevertheless freely concede that it was one of the most imaginative of the war.”*

  It was, but Montgomery remained unhappy. He now prodded the Supreme Commander even further, reverting to the cautious, perfectionist thinking that was characteristic of his military career. Unless the 21st Army Group received additional supplies and transport for the “selected thrust,” Montgomery warned Eisenhower, Market-Garden could not be launched before September 23 at the earliest, and might even be delayed until September 26. Browning had estimated that Market could be ready by the fifteenth or sixteenth, but Montgomery was concerned about Garden, the land operation. Once again he was demanding what he had always wanted: absolute priority, which to his mind would guarantee success. Eisenhower noted in his desk diary for September 12: “Monty’s suggestion is simple—’give him everything.’ “Fearing that any delay might jeopardize Market-Garden, Eisenhower complied. He promptly sent his chief of staff, General Bedell Smith, to see Montgomery; Smith assured the Field Marshal of a thousand tons of supplies per day plus transport. Additionally, Montgomery was promised that Patton’s drive to the Saar would be checked. Elated at the “electric” response—as the Field Marshal called it—Montgomery believed he had finally won the Supreme Commander over to his point of view.

  Although opposition before Montgomery’s troops had stiffened, he believed that the Germans in Holland, behind the hard crust of their front lines, had little strength. Allied intelligence confirmed his estimate. Eisenhower’s headquarters reported “few infantry reserves” in the Netherlands, and even these were considered to be “troops of low cat
egory.” The enemy, it was thought, was still “disorganized after his long and hasty retreat … and though there might be numerous small bodies of Germans in the area,” they were hardly capable of any great organized resistance. Montgomery now believed he could quickly crack the German defenses. Then, once he was over the Rhine and headed for the Ruhr, he did not see how Eisenhower could halt his drive. The Supreme Commander would have little choice, he reasoned, but to let him continue toward Berlin—thus ending the war, as Montgomery put it, “reasonably quickly.” Confidently, Montgomery set Sunday, September 17, as D Day for Operation Market-Garden. The brilliant scheme he had devised was to become the greatest airborne operation of the entire war.

  Not everyone shared Montgomery’s certainty about Market-Garden. At least one of his senior officers had reason to be worried. General Miles Dempsey, commander of the British Second Army, unlike the Field Marshal, did not dispute the authenticity of Dutch resistance reports. From these, Dempsey’s intelligence staff had put together a picture indicating rapidly increasing German strength between Eindhoven and Arnhem, in the very area of the planned airborne drop. There was even a Dutch report that “battered panzer formations have been sent to Holland to refit,” and these too were said to be in the Market-Garden area. Dempsey sent along this news to Browning’s British I Airborne Corps, but the information lacked any back-up endorsement by Montgomery or his staff. The ominous note was not even included in intelligence summaries. In fact, in the mood of optimism prevailing at 21st Army Group headquarters, the report was completely discounted.

  *The late B. H. Liddell Hart, the celebrated British historian, in his History of the Second World War wrote: “It was a multiple lapse—by four commanders from Montgomery downwards …” Charles B. MacDonald, the American historian in The Mighty Endeavor, agrees with Liddell Hart. He called the failure “one of the greatest tactical mistakes of the war.” The best and most detailed account on the cost of Antwerp is undoubtedly R. W. Thompson, The 85 Days, and I agree with him that one of the main reasons for the missed opportunity was “weariness.” Men of the 11th Armored, he wrote, “slept where they sat, stood or lay, drained of emotion, and in utter exhaustion.” If we accept his theory it is doubtful that Roberts’ 11th could have continued its drive with the same vigor. Nevertheless, Antwerp and its vital approaches, argues Thompson, might have been taken with ease “had there been a commander following the battle, hour by hour, day by day, and with the flexibility of command to see the prospect.”

  *Horrocks, in his memoirs, gives a very frank explanation. “My excuse is that my eyes were fixed entirely on the Rhine and everything else seemed of subsidiary importance. It never entered my head that the Schelde would be mined and that we would not be able to use Antwerp until the channel had been swept and the Germans cleared from the coastlines on either side…. Napoleon would, no doubt, have realized these things but Horrocks didn’t.” He also readily admits there was little opposition ahead of him and “we still had 100 miles of petrol per vehicle and one further day’s supply within reach.” There would have been “considerable risk” but “I believe that if we had taken the chance and carried straight on with our advance, instead of halting in Brussels, the whole course of the war in Europe might have been changed.”

  *The young Prince, although named Commander in Chief of the Netherlands Forces by the Queen, was quite frank in interviews with the author regarding his military background. “I had no tactical experience,” he told me, “except for a course at the War College before the war. I followed this up with courses in England, but most of my military knowledge was learned in a practical way by reading and by discussions with my officers. However, I never considered myself experienced enough to make a tactical decision. I depended on my staff, who were very well qualified.” Nevertheless Bernhard took his job very seriously. In his meticulously kept personal diary for 1944, which he kindly placed at my disposal, he recorded in minuscule handwriting each movement, almost minute by minute, from telephone calls and military conferences to official functions. During this period, based on his own notations, I would estimate that his average working day was about sixteen hours.

  *Major General Francis de Guingand, Generals at War, pp. 100-101.

  *Montgomery and the British public, as outraged as he, were somewhat mollified when George VI, at Churchill’s strong urging, made Montgomery a field marshal on September 1.

  *Author’s interview with Field Marshal Montgomery.

  *For a more detailed version of Allied intelligence estimates see Dr. Forrest C. Pogue, The Supreme Command, pp. 244-45.

  *Patton’s weekly press conferences were always newsworthy, but especially memorable for the General’s off-the-record remarks, which, because of his colorful vocabulary, could never have been printed anyway. That first week of September, as a war correspondent for the London Daily Telegraph, I was present when, in typical fashion, he expounded on his plans for the Germans. In his high-pitched voice and pounding the map, Patton declared that, “Maybe there are five thousand, maybe ten thousand, Nazi bastards in their concrete foxholes before the Third Army. Now, if Ike stops holding Monty’s hand and gives me the supplies, I’ll go through the Siegfried Line like shit through a goose.”

  *In all fairness to Montgomery, it must be said that he, himself, never used this phrase. His idea was to throw forty divisions together and drive toward Berlin—certainly no knifelike thrust—but he has been credited with the remark and in my opinion it hurt his cause at SHAEF during the many strategic meetings that took place.

  *To the author. In a taped interview, President Eisenhower almost relived for me his emotions at the time of this bitter argument with Montgomery. When I told him I had interviewed the Field Marshal, Eisenhower cut me short and said, “You don’t have to tell me what he told you—he said I knew nothing about war—right? Look, I’m interested only in getting this thing down truthfully and logically, because any historian has to make deductions…. Personally, I don’t believe I would put too much weight on what generals remember, including me. Because memory is a fallible thing … Goddammit, I don’t know what you heard in Britain, but the British have never understood the American system of command…. When the whole damned thing [WW II] was done … I never heard from the British any goldarn paeans of praise. And you’re not going to hear it now, particularly from people like Montgomery…. His associates—they’ve said things about him that I would never dream of repeating…. I don’t care if he goes down as the greatest soldier in the world. He isn’t, but if he goes down that way it’s all right with me…. He got so damn personal to make sure that the Americans and me, in particular, had no credit, had nothing to do with the war, that I eventually just stopped communicating with him … I was just not interested in keeping up communications with a man that just can’t tell the truth.” The reader is urged to remember that never, during the war, did the Supreme Commander publicly discuss the Field Marshal, and his views expressed here are revealed for the first time.

  *Pogue, The Supreme Command, p. 280.

  *In his memoirs, Montgomery, in discussing the meeting, says that “we had a good talk.” But he does state that, during these days of strategy arguments, “Possibly I went a bit far in urging on him my own plan, and did not give sufficient weight to the heavy political burden he bore…. Looking back on it all I often wonder if I paid sufficient heed to Eisenhower’s notions before refuting them. I think I did. Anyhow … I never cease to marvel at his patience and forbearance….”

  *To the author.

  *Eisenhower told Stephen E. Ambrose, according to his book, The Supreme Commander, p. 518 fn.: “I not only approved … I insisted upon it. What we needed was a bridgehead over the Rhine. If that could be accomplished, I was quite willing to wait on all other operations….”

  *Minutes of the first planning meeting, First Allied Airborne Army operational file 1014-1017.

  *General Omar N. Bradley, A Soldier’s Story, p. 416. Bradley also added, “I had not bee
n brought into the plan. In fact, Montgomery devised and sold it to Ike several days before I even learned of it from our own liaison officer at 21st Army Group.”

  FIELD MARSHAL GERD VON RUNDSTEDT’S high-risk gamble to rescue the remains of General Von Zangen’s encircled Fifteenth Army in the Pas de Calais was paying off. Under cover of darkness, ever since September 6, a hastily assembled fleet consisting of two ancient Dutch freighters, several Rhine barges and some small boats and rafts had been plying back and forth across the three-mile mouth of the Schelde estuary ferrying men, artillery, vehicles and even horses.

  Although powerful coastal guns on Walcheren Island protected against attack from the sea, the Germans were surprised that Allied naval forces made no effort to interfere. Major General Walter Poppe expected the convoy carrying his splintered 59th Infantry Division to be “blown out of the water.” To him the one-hour trip between Breskens and Flushing “in completely darkened ships, exposed and defenseless, was a most unpleasant experience.” The Allies, the Germans suspected, completely underestimated the size of the evacuation. Certainly they knew about it. Because both Von Rundstedt and Army Group B’s commander, Field Marshal Walter Model, desperately in need of reinforcements, were demanding speed, some daylight trips had been made. Immediately, fighters pounced on the small convoys. Darkness, however unpleasant, was much safer.