Dan Snow's History Hit - Operation Market Garden

Episode Date: September 17, 2024

Operation Market Garden was an ambitious Allied airborne offensive to secure a quick victory in WWII. It failed disastrously.The plan was to capture key bridges in the Netherlands via a frank plan to outflank German defences and bring an early end to the conflict. But the Allies hadn’t anticipated the extent of German resistance. Dan is joined for the first episode in this two-part series by military historian Mike Peters as they delve into the planning, the chaotic execution, and what exactly went wrong.Produced by James Hickmann and edited by Dougal Patmore.Listen to Pegasus Bridge: The First Assault of D-Day to hear more about the role of the airborne forces during D-day:https://shows.acast.com/dansnowshistoryhit/episodes/pegasus-bridge-the-first-assault-of-d-dayEnjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Sign up HERE for 50% off for 3 months using code ‘DANSNOW’.We'd love to hear from you - what do you want to hear an episode on? You can email the podcast at [e-mail] can take part in our listener survey here.

Hi everybody, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. Eighty years ago, the Battle of Arnhem was raging. This is the first of two episodes in which we're going to commemorate the anniversary of that terrible battle. Some of you may remember, long-time listeners may remember, that five years ago, I went out to Arnhem this time of year. I jumped out of a plane. I made a tandem parachute jump. Alongside me was a veteran of the battle, an American paratrooper over 100 years old, who obviously put us all to shame. On that occasion, I was attached to the front of a giant Fallschirmjäger,

a German paratrooper. And as we floated down together in this rather intimate position, he showed me where his grandfather had been killed fighting the British in the Reichswald, just across the border with Germany. In this episode, I'm going to be telling the story of that battle. We're going to continue our D-Day to Berlin series, in which we've been going through all the key events that ran through from the invasion of Northwest Europe in June 1944, D-Day, all the way through to the fall of Berlin in 1945. We're going to be hitting all the big 80th anniversaries. And today, I'm going to take you through the background. We're going to look at the broader things. Why Arnhem happened, the planning, the idea,

why the Allies decided to make these extraordinary airborne drops right across Holland and then drive an armoured column north, Operation Market Garden, but don't worry, I'll explain what all that means. We're also going to look at the first day of the fighting when it just seemed like everything was still possible. It might just work. So this is the story of why the Allies chose to make this daring gamble. And to help me do this, I've got Mike Peters. He was in the Army Air Corps. He's got 30 years of military experience. He's now a full-time military historian, chairman of the

International Guild of Battlefield Guides. Mike is definitely the man to talk to. He has published books on airborne troops, including Glider Pilots at Arnhem. And for the next episode in this mini-series, I've got a real treat for you. I'm going to be joined by the comedian, the actor, the historian, the podcaster, the broadcaster, the national treasure, Al Murray. He and I are going to get into the critical day, the decisive day at the Battle of Arnhem. We're going to talk about Bloody Tuesday and how what happened on that day really decided the fate of the Allied effort at Arnhem. We're going to talk about Bloody Tuesday and how what happened on that day really decided the fate of the Allied effort at Arnhem and the subsequent course of the war itself. I get to ask Al the question, could it have ended differently? So make sure you follow and like and

subscribe and do all the things you've got to do to make sure that drops into your feed in a couple of days time. But for now, let's hurl ourselves out of a moving aircraft at 10,000 feet. Let us jump into the battlefield below. Enjoy. So where are we in the Second World War? D-Day had been a huge success. The fighting for Normandy that followed had been bloody, attritional, terrible, but it had ended up, eventually, in a decisive victory. German forces reeling back across North and Eastern France. The war suddenly looked like it was going pretty well germany's best units had been defeated captured driven back destroyed german soldiers were

reeling back across france or actually almost as fast as they'd invaded france in 1940 by late august paris capital had been liberated allied troops were pushing across the Seine, pushing to the east, pushing to the north, but there was still fight left in the Germans. They weren't going to run all the way back to Berlin, and the Allies had to make a big decision. Should they just keep pushing the Germans on a broad front all the way through Holland and Belgium, right from the Channel Coast, all the way deep into France, Alsace-Lorraine, across the Rhine, into Germany? Or perhaps they take a lesson from the Germans. Do they launch a 1940-style, bold, sickle strike into the heart of the German defences? So confusion, chaos, outflank, surround,

force the Germans into a dramatic collapse. Would that bring an end to the war quicker? Could such a strike lead Allied troops to capture Berlin by Christmas? Here to talk about it, it's Mike Peters. Mike, thank you very much for coming on the podcast. It's good to be here, Dan. Good to be here. So if you've been a senior Allied commander in the beginning of September 1944, France has been liberated, The Germans appear to be falling back in some disarray. Why launch this bold strike now? That's one of the most interesting facts about it. I mean, it's British driven and we tend to think of Operation Market Guard and

the whole operation as an Anglo-US thing, but it's really the driving force behind it is Churchill and, of course, Montgomery. The first V2 is landed in London, in Chiswick, in the first week of September. Those V2s are being launched from Northern Holland. The UK is financially strapped, and people want the war to be over. So there's a lot of pressure on Montgomery to clear out the north of Holland and push on and get through.

And actually, you would be, I think, if you were a senior Allied commander to take your line a bit further in September of 1944, you'd be quite confident. You'd cross the Seine, as you said, in August. Paris is liberated. We're over the Seine. Racing along, and it's a great race. I mean, Luxembourg is 60 miles a day for army columns.

It's not uncommon. And if you're a very senior Allied commander, if you're General Eisenhower, you're under some pressure from General Marshall in Washington DC to do something with these airborne divisions and all these specialised transport aircraft that you've got

lined up to actually use them or actually get them on the ground and use them as infantry in a conventional sense. There's a lot of variables coming into play in the autumn of 1944 and things need to be done before the winter sets in. Why attack up north through Holland? You've got the V2 rockets being launched, I get that. What's the objective here?

Get to Berlin and get Adolf Hitler? And if so, why take the big sort of left-hand swing north through Holland? Is there a more direct way? Well, it's called the Low Countries for a reason. There is a more direct way, and the Allies have a problem in that it's all about supplies, logistics, as always, and the routes back to Normandy, Cherbourg, and one day eventually Antwerp to get supplies through.

So the chain's getting longer. For Montgomery, he firmly believes that if he could punch through the Low Countries, because it's always the Low Countries, the cockpit of Europe, and every war has been fought in that corner of Europe. It's always about getting through what's now Belgium and the Netherlands. He believes that if we can get through there and get over the Rhine into the Ruhr, which is the industrial heart, the beating industrial heart of what's left of Germany, then he can draw these German panzer forces into one last massive battle on the North German plain where Allied air power and air superiority will come to the play.

And that will be the end of the German Wehrmacht and the road to Berlin will then be open. So that's a more attractive route than trogging through via Strasbourg, Frankfurt from Southeast Germany. It is for the British and the Canadians because that's where they are and it's clear in the Channel Coast.

We've already mentioned the V2s etc but it's opening up that side of it. The Americans they're a bit more flexible and of

course this is the dilemma that Eisenhower has at the time. He's advocated up until this point a broad front advancing with Bradley, Patton, Montgomery

essentially a line abreast and pushing the Germans everywhere at the same time and combat supplies are limited so that's a steady pace. Then up pops Montgomery at Brussels airport of all places where he meets Eisenhower at the back of his Dakota aircraft and says I've got this bold and audacious plan and to use this first Allied airborne army that we've got in a really daring way and all I need you to sign Ike, is to give me the American divisions and let them be part of this plan.

But also to give me all the combat supplies to stop supplying Patton and Bradley and everybody else. And let me have the lion's share of these combat supplies. And I will punch through across all these bridges. And Operation Market Guard will take us all the way through onto the North German plane. We're going to bounce the Rhine. The operation was styled Market Guard will take us all the way through onto the North German plane. We're going to bounce the Rhine. The operation was styled Market Guard. The landings by the airborne troops were market, and the ground forces charging up that road to relieve them would be garden.

Now, it's worth stopping here briefly and dwelling on the politics, what was going on in Allied High Command. Supreme Allied Commander Eisenhower was really herding cats. He had a lot of big egos, a lot of subordinate commanders, very jealous of their status and of the role that their national forces played within this big coalition group. The problem with coalitions is they're made up of diverse national contingents, lots of different characteristics, different equipment, different languages, or if they speak the same language, very different interpretation of it. And the case of Eisenhower, he had Bernard Law Montgomery, the British field marshal.

He was certain that he was the greatest general in the world. He was certain that he had not just turned the tide of the battle in North Africa, but had driven the Axis forces out. And Eisenhower knew that Montgomery thought that really he should have been given the job as its overall commander. He was a difficult one to manage. Eisenhower also had thrusting generals wearing the American uniform, George S. Patton. He was as certain as Montgomery that there should be a main effort, a concentration of forces. But surprise, surprise, Patton thought that concentration should take place in his sector, which was further south. It was a thrust east across the Rhine into Strasbourg kind of area, into Germany that way. Eisenhower had been trying to balance all of these competing interests. He believed essentially in a kind of broad front

strategy. So allow everyone to move forward on a front several hundred miles long from the Swiss Alps to the Channel Coast. But there was one big problem with that. There wasn't enough fuel. Napoleon famously said an army marched on his stomach. Well, by the mid-20th century, an army marched on its internal combustion engines, and those engines needed fuel. Plenty of fuel was arriving on the Channel Coast but there was no way of getting it across France in sufficient quantities. It was all, if you can believe it, it was all going into small what we now call jerry cans. So the small kind of metal fuel containers that you might strap on the back of a car today for a road trip. Those lorries full

of those containers had to bump across the roads of rural France. There was not enough fuel for all of the troops to advance at the same time. So Patton and Montgomery argued, better to concentrate the effort, push the fuel where it was needed, and strike a decisive blow. Patton insisted that if he had half a million gallons of fuel, he could get to Germany in two days. Montgomery didn't just insist. He flew. He got on a plane and he flew to Brussels to meet Eisenhower. Then he sort of lost it. He screamed at Eisenhower and tore some official documents up and showed his frustration. Eisenhower had to pat Montgomery on the shoulder, I think it was, and said,

steady Monty, you can't talk to me like that. I'm your boss. Eisenhower knew that this single thrust would be incredibly risky. It'd be very easy for the Germans on either side of this long, single line of advance to counterattack, to turn that long needle thrust, that long salient into German lines. Well, that could easily be turned into a number of encirclements where the troops found themselves completely cut off by German counterattacks. But Montgomery was persuasive and Eisenhower allowed himself to be convinced. Operation Market Garden would be launched. Okay. Eisenhower says yes, even though he's not a huge Montgomery fan. Why do you think he says yes? I think he sees the attraction of, and there's a lot of these knockout blows as we go through the war,

we can actually punch through and draw the Germans into one last cataclysmic battle. So the attraction is there because the Allies want the war over. And it seems to be, in the weeks leading up to the decision to mount Market Garden that it's a realistic proposition that the rate of advance is high. The Russians are closing in from the east equally quickly. So it does seem a very attractive option. And also the phrase that's used is that the coins Bernie holds in his pocket. Marshall's comment about use these

airborne forces. He says these airborne divisions are like coins in his pocket, burning holes in his pocket. You have to spend them. And he's not the first, nor was he the last general, to be beguiled by the idea of one great decisive battle. A push. Yeah, one last push, but one great battle that would decide it all. And sadly, in wars, it's just often the attritional effect of many battles. But anyway, he's not the first or the last to fall for that.

Okay, so we got day one, September 17th, 1944, 80 years ago. These coins burning holes in these pockets, these airborne divisions, so very, very highly trained troops that are trained to jump out of aircraft or land in gliders, attack from the sky where the enemy are least expecting them. Where are their objectives? It's a line of bridges right from almost the Belgian Dutch border. And the troops involved are British Second Army on the Dempsey, spearheaded by the 30 Corps. And they'll be spearheaded in turn by the Guards Armoured Division. That's the armoured punch. That's Operation Guard and the ground element to that. And they're literally revving their engines at a place called Lamel. And they're going to try and drive a 60 mile corridor straight through across more than 20 bridges

through this airborne carpet of these three airborne divisions, which will be laid down 101st US, US 82nd, and then British 1st Airborne and the Polish Independent Parachute Brigade. But the prize, the prize is the road bridge at Arnhem. You mentioned there the garden, which is the ground troops, people in heavy vehicles, tanks, they're ready to charge up this corridor. And their route has been secured by market, which are these US, Polish and British airborne lines. They're just landing on all the way up that narrow corridor, seizing bridges and important points to secure that highway north, the 30 core, this armoured thrust.

That's the theory. That is the theory. That's the theory. And it's odd, isn't it? Because it's straight, like a dagger, a very narrow dagger, deep, narrow dagger pressed into the German occupied territory rather than what we tend to see, which is advancing on a broader

front. This is all of your resources in one sort of, as I say, dagger thrust. People listening might be able to spot the problem with that theory. Well, it worked for the Germans in 1940, didn't it? If you can cause panic, the difference being that the Germans are defending this time, and obviously they know the ground. And the British have tried this before. They tried it in Sicily with Operation Ladbroke and Operation Fustian, where they used airborne troops along the Catania plain. And funnily enough, that involved Boy Browning, the start of the planning. That involved 1st Airborne Division. And all the characters you're going to hear about in this battle at Arnhem

from 1st Airborne Division pretty much were all involved in Sicily, which was near disastrous. And that was essentially the same principle of seizing bridges ahead of armoured formations with airborne forces, as demonstrated by the Germans in 1940 as part of their theory. And they had a high attrition loss rate

through the 40s campaign. We tend to think it's politically being massively successful. But if we examine what happened to German airborne forces at that time, the blood price was high. The airborne troops, or to take part in Market Garden, or Operation Market, I should say, were pretty elite. They were the British 1st Airborne Division. They were commanded by Major General Roy Urquhart. They have the Polish 1st Independent Parachute Brigade attached to them.

They are the ones at the very northern end of the line. Perhaps Montgomery had tried to ensure the Brits would, well, try and claim the lion's share of the glory. They would jump on the key bridge at Arnhem and they would hold it for longer than anyone else as the armoured forces rumbled towards them. To the south, the US 82nd Airborne Division, was commanded by James Gavin. He was nicknamed Jumping Jim or the Jumping General because he insisted on taking part in combat jumps alongside the paratroopers under his command. He has the record, in fact, for an American general officer, he made four combat jumps during the war. And Market Garden would be one of them. The 82nd Airborne, well, their job was to capture the big bridge at Nijmegen,

just south of Arnhem, to the south, the US 101st Airborne, under General Maxwell Taylor, would drop in a couple of different locations. They would take several bridges, particularly ones in Eindhoven and Son. All those airborne forces would then have to do would be wait for the cavalry,

pretty much literally, actually. The land forces, Operation Garden, that component was the British 30 Corps. They were commanded by Brian Horrocks. They were spearheaded by the Guards Armoured Corps. They would smash a hole in German lines, and then they would thrust all the way north and relieve all of these airborne troops. Now, unlike the airborne units who'd been back in the UK, these armoured units, well, they'd driven all the way from the beaches of Normandy. They'd been busy. They'd been going pretty much non-stop, and that will be important, as you'll hear. The intelligence picture, well, it was, as it often is, pretty contradictory. There were those who believed that the German

troops in the area were mostly novices, they were young men, inexperienced, or they were old and worn out. The theory went that the Germans would be so shocked by this bold strike that they'd be overwhelmed and they would continue their panicky retreat. It was a classic case of confidently expecting the enemy would conform to your wishes. And on Sunday, the 17th of September, 1944, 80 years ago, a vast airborne armada took to the skies above southern England and made their way across the Channel. Operation Market Garden was underway. Let's hear from Mike.

The first phase goes all right, doesn't it? The first drop. Talk to me about the 17th. Yeah, they all talk about it being a naffy drop, which means basically a training jump or a training flight where you land on the target landing zone. There's a naffy wagon there with a brew of tea on a nice date. And Sunday the 17th of September, 1944, first day,

goes like clockwork from an aerial perspective. And one of the glider pilots told me his story about taking a German soldier prisoner who was out with his Dutch girlfriend. They called him in a barn with this Dutch girl. He came out with his trousers around his ankles and took a prisoner. And they were completely shocked. And it seemed to fit the intelligence picture that everyone had been given, I think. At the end of the first landings,

there were 35 different units of German prisoner of war being captured. People from 35 different units and they all fitted the old men on bicycles, sort of reservist picture that the intelligence crew had given to the guys before the op.

The first afternoon on D-Day, 17th September, everything seemed to be going really well. You listened to Dan Snow's history. Talk about the Battle of Arnhem. More coming up. I'm Matt Lewis. And I'm Dr. Alan Orjanaga. And in Gone Medieval, we get into the greatest mysteries.

The gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research from the greatest millennium in human history. We're talking Vikings, Normans, kings and popes who were rarely the best of friends, murder, rebellions and crusades. Find out who we really were by subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit wherever you get your podcasts. You've got tens of thousands of paratroopers. They're all now clustered on this long, funny-looking corridor. If you've seen a heat map from space, you've seen them all on this very, very narrow line, this highway, and they've seized most of the bridges they have to seize, all the way ending up at Arnhem. We'll come to Arnhem in a second.

But the minute they're dropped, our 30 core, all these tanks and armoured vehicles on the ground, they're revved up. Are they going? Are they heading north straight away the minute those paratroopers are dropping? Yeah, Horrocks watches and Vandler there and all these notables that we know about watch the aerial armada pass overhead

as per the plan. And the 2nd Army's artillery barrage almost world-born start. So you mentioned how narrow the corridor is, but one of the advantages of that is it's a spearhead. So 2nd Army can mass its artillery behind that. And one of the reasons that 101st Airborne

are at the bottom of the corridor is because they took such a beating in Normandy that they're the weaker of the three divisions. So they go first, so they're closer to the British artillery support and have less time to wait for the Allied armour to reach them. There are a number of hiccups at the start,

so rocket-firing typhoons hitting our own tanks. And there's a lot of speculation when you read about it about maybe that took a bit of a whiz out of the advance because we were being hit by our own aircraft at the start. And then there's some unexpected German resistance pretty early on. So it's not going to be quite the cakewalk that everyone thinks it is. Yeah, this is the big one. How many minutes into the assault before they're running late this is that thing is there were they late

were 30 core late and I in 1994 I saw an almost punch up between 30 core veterans and some first airborne guys there was a little bit

of venom there still after all those years the airborne guys were of course saying where were you you didn't come to us and the in response to the armistice guys

we fought our way from Normandy you fought for a week and actually't come to us and in response to the Arnhem guys we fought our way from Normandy you fought for a week and actually even if they'd made the exact to the minute timetable the bridge wasn't there for them to get across

at Normandy but it was a gamble and actually if you look at the intelligence picture in the reports going back a week before ten days before

even two weeks before it might have worked and that's the whole fascination with Arnhem isn't it it's one of those battles or campaigns where you can say, what if, what if? And the pendulum of who's in charge, who's got the initiative, shifts all the way through right to the last minute. So the German defence is stiffer than people were hoping, both for some of the paratroop drops and also for 30 Corps. Let's go right to the end of the needle now, the famous bridge

at Arnhem. What's famous bridge at Arnhem. What's going on at Arnhem? Well, the interesting thing about Arnhem is where it is, and it's very close to the German border. It's an atrium on the Rhine. For that reason, it's valuable to the Germans, and Model has set his headquarters up there very recently. He's in command of all German forces in the West.

So he is at headquarters just outside Arnhem at Osterbeek, which will become the focal point of the perimeter battle later. He is set up there. He has all the comms he needs. He's sat on the rail link back into Germany. He can call reinforcements forward and back. Second SS Panzer Corps are not that far away, just down the road. And there is intelligence that there is German armour in the vicinity,

but it's battered armour recovered from the eastern front. And it won't matter anyway because we're well-trained, heavily armed paratroopers. We are the Red Devils. We can hold for 48 hours and 30 call. We'll get there. And, of course, we've got air superiority. So the calculation is that we can do this.

There is the road bridge, objective Waterloo, and there is a rail bridge and there's the ferry there. So it seems viable. So it seems viable. The curious decision that I've always struggled with is, so Arnhem is the furthest possible bridge and one of the most important bridges because it spans a big chunk of the Rhine. As you say, the German border is very near on the far side. And yet they drop the airborne forces something like eight miles away from the bridge, don't they? Why not just litter them in the middle of town

right next to the bridge so they can seize it? Well, why not land a glider force on the bridge? Yeah. That's what was offered by Colonel George Chaston, who's the commanding officer of British glider forces. And he is a good friend of Browning's. And he says, this bridge is so wide, we could land hordes of bridges on it. And he says, this bridge is so wide, we could land horses and bridges on it.

And Operation Comet, which was going to be launched the week before Market Garden, involved a six-glider coup d'etat on the Nijmegen Bridge to land on the mudflats next to it. And also to use gliders as a coup d'etat force on the Arnhem Road Bridge. The main reason that is given, the conventional wisdom is that because we're getting towards the end of the war, there's a feeling that we can't afford to take any more casualties. Because, you know, you just got to look back a few months to Normandy, and although it's a whacking great success, airborne casualties are high in Normandy for various reasons. So there's no appetite to do it. What I love about studying the Battle of Arnhem,

and particularly the British drop on the first day, is there's so much that doesn't make sense, as Mike points out, because things appear to us, knowing how it turned out, as obvious mistakes. But at the time, there was good reason for all the decisions that were made.

The airborne troops at Arnhem were not dropped directly on the bridge. It's quite hard to land airborne troops on the bridge. You don't want them ending up in the river, drowning. The north end of the bridge is a built-up urban area. It's odd to drop them in crowded streets. You need to find a big, flat, open piece of land quite nearby. And in the case of Arnhem, that was a few miles away. There's a place called Ginkle Heath. Nice, big, open area where troops could land, get themselves organised, get sorted into all their units, sort their equipment out,

and then move forward in an orderly fashion. But the problem was that that landing zone was quite a few miles from the bridge. But the Brits gambled. They thought that the Germans wouldn't be able to organise themselves and mount any proper form of defence or counter-attack. And so the Brits would have time to land on this wide-open heath and then march into town. And at first, that's exactly what happened.

British airborne infantry moved into villages like Oosterbeek, which are small villages. You'll be hearing that name a lot over the next few days. A small village just near Arnhem, on the way into Arnhem from the west. They caught German units that were billeted there, training and refit. They caught them by surprise. They took lots of people prisoner. The Brits set up a headquarters, a first aid station. They got organised. The commander of the 1st British Airborne Division, Urquhart, he had a plan. Some of the gliders had jeeps in them. Troops would mount the jeeps and then they'd whiz into town through the built-up area

in a kind of coup d'etat attack and they'd seize the bridge over the river. There was a man called Major Frederick Goff and he was in charge of the reconnaissance squadron. This recce squadron would be in those jeeps, and they would grab hold of that bridge, and they would not let it go until they were relieved by the main body of airborne infantry, and in turn by the armour thrusting up from the south. Speed and surprise were the two key elements. But as we're about to hear, nearly everything that could go wrong did go wrong. There were logistical complications, communications mess-ups, and the enemy. It's unwise to bet on the German army being grossly incompetent and scared of the sound of gunfire during the Second World War.

And contrary to nearly everyone's expectations, the British found themselves not up against reserve units, old men, boys, rear echelon troops. They found themselves facing highly trained veteran Waffen SS infantry and armour, men who knew exactly how to respond to this kind of crisis, who knew exactly how to respond to this kind of crisis. Men who were very quick to organise an effective, powerful defence. Arnhem would be no pushover. So the guys land in Ginkgolea, they land on the ground, not much immediate resistance, it looks quite positive. They've got excited Dutch people coming up and giving them drinks and giving them flowers and giving them flowers

and things so far so good talked about the march towards Arnhem Bridge the key thing is getting to that bridge are they able to get there on schedule

well here we go now we start the controversial bits one of the pivotal things of Urquhart's plan is a smash and grab dash by Goff's recce squad and in their jeeps

which are armed not armoured to dash along the track parallel to the railway line through wolf hazer and straight down to the road bridge to grab the bridge in advance of the parachute battalions on foot who will follow on behind when we look at the outload of the glider lift which the jeeps will come by glider goff's recce squad not divisional troops and they're way down in the batting order so they're not going to be in the first gliders to

land. The landing infantry battalions will be. Also the crews for those jeeps are going to parachute in. The drivers will be with the gliders but everyone else is going to parachute in. So they're in a different landing zone. So this dynamic, thrusting coup de main force.

Coup de main force. And then when they land, a couple of the gliders land badly and the tails are crumpled. They can't get the tails off, so they can't get the jeeps out. And that message of a couple of the gliders having problems morphs into the jeeps haven't arrived to their car. And actually they have. 30 of them have arrived, roughly.

So they will go. They'll go late. But irrelevant of that, at that point, Modal has seen the landing coming in. Beatrick, who's commanding 2nd SS Panzer Corps, has seen the landing. Beatrick, 2nd SS Panzer, have just come back from the west, from Normandy Cabaret, survived the Flaes withdrawal, etc.

Prior to D-Day, they spent their whole time exercising how to counter, obviously, seaborne landings whole time exercising how to counter obviously seaborne landings but also how to deal with an airborne landing and that the first instance the minute you hear about an airborne landing thrust into the centre of it disrupt it and knock them out before they graduate into a coherent force

and he does just that he sends off 10th SS Panzer get down to Nijmegen Bridge sort that out I'll get around Arnhem and Ustabik and secure that and I suppose the problem is it's very clear why the

paras are landing here because of these very strategic bridges I mean there's no question so these very very experienced German commanders go you say that Dan

but Modal thinks they're after him oh yes of course they do don't they yeah he's like they've come for me they've come for me yeah

but he thinks yeah they've come for his headquarters and for him so you know quite famously 3 oh, they've come for me. Yeah, they've come for me. But he thinks, yeah, they've come for his headquarters and for him. So, you know, quite famously, three para when they do come through, Heinstein, which is the officer's mess for the headquarters, find his lunch on the table. So the Germans react and the Germans are on the move before the first paratrooper or glider soldier

steps off the landing zone. You listened to Dan Snow's history. Talk about the Battle of Arnhem. More coming up. This is the tragedy of Arnhem, is you end up accidentally landing on top of a wasp's nest of, by that stage of the war, you'd say one of the best German units still in the fight. Absolutely right.

And it's a real twist of fate that they are there and Model is there. Because Model is the only man, other than Hitler himself probably, who can authorise the release of those forces. He's actually there at the centre of the storm. And also there's another German player in this, which is Sepp Kraft,

who runs an SS NCO training battalion, which is based very nearby to the Hartenstein. And part of his responsibilities are the security of MOL. So here you've got the equivalent of the British Army's infantry training school at Brecon, training the best NCOs that the SS have got to be senior NCOs and junior NCOs. They've got flamethrowers, machine guns, mortars,

all the vehicles they need, et cetera, for these instructional purposes. And they are on the spot. And Kraft is a seasoned commander himself. He's also a very, very ambitious commander. And he dispatches his troops straight into a blocking line. He knows the ground. He sees they're after the bridge.

So he puts a blocking line in from the railway line down to the riverbank, which will become a real thorn in the side. And these are experienced troops. And it's the very first contact when the recce squad gets along there and bumps into the craft's blocking line, just at the end of the blocking line, which is now a modern housing estate, that the first prisoners from the SS are taken. And I interviewed two of the glider

pilots who escorted these guys from the Wolfhays ambush. They said these were real battle-hardened, fanatical Nazis. One of them tried to escape and all this kind of stuff. And these were not the old men on bicycles and quite clearly had SS runes and all the latest gear and were determined fighters. So very quickly in the afternoon of the 17th, it became apparent that things were not going to go quite as everyone expected. And that's about the point where Gough's wreckage squadron hit the ambush from Craftsmen and the plan very quickly begins to unravel. So the end of day one, there's fierce resistance in Arnhem. Remarkably, one British unit does make it through and occupies the north end of the

bridge. They do successfully take, well, what, half of the objective. Yeah, Johnny Frost in the 2nd Battalion. I mentioned Craft's blocking line, which goes from the railway line down to the riverside. He's just short of the riverside. There's one, almost a towpath. There's a road that goes into a towpath all the way along past the railway bridge and two para move along there. A force of about 750 men minus a couple of six pounder guns and Jeeps and Goff and a second Jeep, because he's got a message that Urquhart wants to see him because Urquhart sent for him because he's been told there's no Jeeps. So Goff's left his squadron.

He's in there and Frost get to that. As you say, one end, he's captured one end of the bridge, but one end of a bridge is not a lot of use without the other end. But they got there by dusk on the first day, two para occupying buildings all around, overlooking the bridge on the northern end and holding a perimeter. So that's the situation in Arnhem. Let's just go a little bit further south because it's fascinating what was happening in Nijmegen, the Dutch town of Nijmegen at the time, which was

sort of one bridge south, if you like. Nijmegen was the Dutch town of Nijmegen at the time, which was sort of one bridge south, if you like. Nijmegen was a really important bridge, almost as important as Arnhem. And one reason for that was that the bridge at Nijmegen was huge. It was a big, big span of bridge. There were bridges further to the south that, had they been demolished or blown up or damaged, engineers could replace them quite quickly. You can't replace Nijmegen Bridge. It is enormous. And don't forget, without seizing Nijmegen Bridge, the armoured column can't move on to the next bridge. They can't move on to Arnhem and fulfil all their objectives. And just as it happened at Arnhem, Nijmegen had fallen short of the extremely optimistic expectations of the Allied planners. The US troops had landed at Nijmegen okay, but rather than seize the bridge initially, what they'd done was become involved in

a ferocious battle for some high ground overlooking Nijmegen. This was to give themselves the best possible defensive positions in the event of a German counter-attack. It was an understandable objective, seizing this high ground. It was an understandable objective, seizing this high ground. It was one that had been agreed to by the senior commanders, but it did mean that there was a delay in seizing the bridge, or a delay in trying to seize the bridge, and that allowed the Germans to build up a very strong, tough defensive posture. Remember, the Germans knew immediately, or realised instantly, what was going on. If there are Allied troops landing in Eindhoven, landing in Nijmegen, landing outside Arnhem, they're after the bridges. So all you've got to do if you're a defender is head straight for those bridges and get dug in.

To the south, there is another equally important bridge at the Nijmegen Bridge. What's going on there? Well, nothing.ijmegen Bridge. What's going on there? Well, nothing. That's the problem. Boy Browning and Jim Gavin, Jim Gavin commands US 82nd Airborne. Their primary objective is this Nijmegen Road Bridge, but they have become distracted by the prospect of German panzer forces lurking in the Reichswald and occupying the Grisbeek Heights.

The Reichswald is this great big forested area, isn't it? Correct, yeah. And already at this stage of the war, the Western Allies are becoming fixated on some last stand area that the Germans are going to mass their forces in, whether it be in Bavaria or wherever. And the Reichsfahld is one of those options. And Gavin misunderstands Browning, or Browning doesn't make it clear.

And Gavin in his orders doesn't stress to his regimental commanders that they at all costs go for the bridge. He becomes distracted by occupying this high ground at Grisbeak, overlooking the point so they're not going to get that bridge straight away and they're going to have to cross the Val and cross over the river by boat to take both ends at the

same time. Because also there are a lot of Germans in Nijmegen. There are other training units in there, et cetera, and they're very well organized. So you've got more Germans of a higher quality in Nijmegen, like in Arnhem, than the intelligence picture suggested. Okay. So you've got two critical bridges, one half taken,

the other not really taken by the end of day one. But the plan was very much that those bridges would be taken, right? So is the plan already scuppered? Personally, I think the plan was scuppered before it was launched. That's quite a controversial view, but actually this long, thin corridor you mentioned is very vulnerable to artillery fire and to armoured attack, et cetera. So I think a week before or two weeks before, maybe it might have worked and the German front would have collapsed.

But no, it's in real trouble. Right. It doesn't take a genius to plot. You're not like, I wonder where they're going. You know, would have collapsed. But no, it's in real trouble. Right. It doesn't take a genius to plot. You're not like, I wonder where they're going. You know, they're in Arnhem. They're in Nijmegen. They're in this really straight,

obvious line all the way down. So it could not be more obvious. And the job of any German nearby is hurl yourself at that corridor. So it's a pretty easy job in a way for Germans who are quite used to pushing decision-making down to a low level anyway. That's a pretty easy job for in a way, for Germans who are quite used to pushing decision-making down to a low level anyway. It's a pretty easy job for them to just go and attack the Allies along this corridor. So, big thank you to Mike for getting us through to the end of day one.

The Allied attack is well underway. Troops have landed right up and down this long corridor. In the north, they've landed at Arnhem. And some men, under the command of John John Frost have managed to capture the northern end of the bridge. Really a triumph. The problem was that they are quickly surrounded. They're cut off from the rest of the British in Arnhem. The German defence right up and down the corridor, much stronger than expected. It's frankly already clear by the end of the first day that the very swift, already clear by the end of the first day that the very swift, very optimistic timetable that Montgomery had hoped for is now not realistic. The overwhelming surprise, the seizure of all the key

objectives on day one has not happened. And now it's going to be a fight. It's going to be a real slog. It's going to be a soldier's battle as up and down that corridor, groups of airborne troops desperately try to hold on to what they've seized and take further objectives, whilst the armour bludgeons its way through up from the south. It's interesting looking back at the D-Day anniversary, people who have listened to the podcast on the 80th anniversary of D-Day, there are some similarities between these attacks and the attack on Pegasus Bridge, the first airborne drop of the day, just after midnight on June 6th, the first airborne drop of the day, just after midnight on June the 6th, 1944. In that case,

don't forget, the airborne troops landed as close as was physically possible to the bridge. They could almost reach out and touch it from those gliders when they landed. So they were able to seize it in a coup de main attack, so-called coup de main attack. They seized the bridge intact, but then you remember they had to endure German counterattacks that defend that bridge hard all night. And they were relieved reasonably quickly. Certainly within 24 hours, there were troops marching up from the beach, bringing heavy equipment, bringing vehicles and securing that bridge, ensuring that the exhausted airborne troops with their limited amount of supplies and spare ammunition and food didn't have to hold out for much longer. Well, what you've got during Market Garden now is airborne troops clinging onto these targets that they've seized, but facing a lot

longer wait and facing much greater numerical imbalance. Unlike D-Day, where German troops were confused and advancing in all different directions, the German troops in Market Garden had a very clear job to do. Head for these narrow, very distinct, well-defined landing zones and try and snuff them out. By nightfall, they faced a very, very daunting challenge. A huge thanks to Mike for coming on the podcast. My guest next time is Al Murray, the British broadcaster, historian, podcaster,

the host of We Have Ways podcast, phenomenon. And he has just written a very, very interesting book on what came next. You are going to love it. We're going to go into some forensic detail. Now, remember, you can hear all of our D-Day to Berlin episodes, all of our 80th anniversary episodes between now and May of next year. If you subscribe and follow and do whatever you've got to do in the podcast, they'll all drop into your feed as if by magic. And while you're here, you might want to go and check out the D-Day and the Pegasus Bridge podcasts.

That last one's called Pegasus Bridge, the first assault of D-Day. As ever, thank you so much for listening. See you next time. you Thank you.