Operation Market-Garden

Operation Market-Garden was the code name for a failed Allied air-ground offensive into the Netherlands in September 1944, during World War II. Operation Market-Garden involved a direct ground thrust by XXX Corps up a single road to relieve troops of the U.S. 82nd and 101st and the British 1st Airborne Divisions ordered to capture and hold key bridges across rivers until relieved. Operation Market-Garden is remembered popularly as the offensive that attempted to reach “a bridge too far,” in reference to the unsuccessful attempt to capture the bridge across the Lower Rhine at Arnhem.

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill inspects Polish troops at Tentsmuir, Scotland, in October 1940. To Churchill’s right is Polish leader in exile Wladyslaw Sikorski.

Operation Market-Garden

Stanislaw Sosabowski: Poland’s Premier Paratrooper

By Tom Aiello, Ph.D

Stanislaw Sosabowski started his military career in the anti-Hapsburg Polish underground movement in 1907, served in the Austrian Army in World War I, and rose to the command of the Polish Parachute Brigade in World War II. Read more

The Red Ball Express kept the Allies rolling during the arduous campaign in Western Europe.

Operation Market-Garden

Red Ball Express: The Legendary Lifeline

 

By Michael D. Hull

August 1944 saw a rosy mood of optimism and self-deception sweep through the Allied high command in France as a result of the sudden, dramatic end to the campaign in Normandy. Read more

Operation Market-Garden

The Magnificent Jeep

By Michael D. Hull

General of the Army George C. Marshall called it America’s greatest contribution to modern warfare. General Dwight D. Read more

Operation Market-Garden

Arnhem’s Other Urquhart

Written by: By Jon Diamond

By Jon Diamond

The Hollywood military film devotee will remember the beginning of the epic, A Bridge Too Far, when a young British airborne officer named Fuller informs Lt. Read more

Operation Market-Garden

Tale of the Biscuit Bomber: The C-47 in WWII

By Sam McGowan

Even though, technically at least, it was not a combat airplane, the performance of the Douglas C-47 transport led General of the Army Dwight Eisenhower to label it as one of the most important weapons of World War II. Read more

Operation Market-Garden

King Company at Bloody Lindern

By Frank Chadwick

In November 1944, an American infantry division underwent its baptism of fire in the worst conditions imaginable and acquitted itself with honor beyond anyone’s expectation. Read more

Operation Market-Garden

Six-Pounder Versus Panzer

By Christopher Miskimon

Sergeant Charles Callistan looked through the sights of an antitank gun at an approaching enemy tank. His weapon, a six-pounder cannon, was in the perimeter of a surrounded British outpost named Snipe. Read more

From Around the Network

  • WWII

    Patton’s War for Sicily’s Beaches
    Read More
  • The Third Reich kept up a steady barrage of music of one style or another, from the constant thump of marching boots and military bands, to street recitals, to radio broadcasts of German classical music, to light romantic fare—all part of the “emotion over intellect” campaign that Nazi Party ideology promoted. A constant soundtrack engulfed citizens and soldiers with a litany of songs that also served to promote morale and military aggressiveness and whose lyrics sought to drum in Nazi political and racist propaganda.

    European Theater

    Off Duty, German Style
    Read More
  • Fire streams from an engine and wing of a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bomber as a rocket-powered Messerschmitt Me-163 fighter aircraft streaks past. Painting by artist Jack Fellows.

    European Theater

    Me-163: The Devil’s Broomstick
    Read More