Forgoing Market-Garden

Cook

Banned
Market-Garden was a flawed attack both strategically and tactically.

The Strategic Objective of the Allies in North-West Europe following the breakout form the Normandy Beachheads was the port of Antwerp. Antwerp was not only the largest post facility in mainland Europe but was conveniently close to the borders of the Reich, vastly shortening the length of supply lines that, until it became operational stretched all the way back to Cherbourg and the Mulberry harbours on the beaches of Normandy.

Following the collapse of the German Armies around Falaise the Allied armies had sprinted across northwest France, the British 11th Armoured Division travelled more than 250 Miles in five days to capture the Antwerp intact on 4 September 1944. This was a fantastic achievement, not only had they gained control of Europe’s largest port, potentially ending the supply difficulties that were plaguing the Allied Armies, but they had also trapped Von Zangen’s Fifteenth Army, 100,000 men strong, in a pocket on the Dutch coast around Brekens on the south bank of the Schelde Estuary.

Unfortunately, just capturing the port of Antwerp was not enough, it was critically important to secure both banks of the Schelde Estuary before the Antwerp could be made operational. The Royal Navy had repeatedly warned Eisenhower at SHEAF and Montgomery at 21st Army Group of this requirement, the latest warning being less than 24 hours prior to the harbour falling into Allied hands. On 3 September 1944 Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay wrote to Eisenhower that “Both Antwerp and Rotterdam are highly vulnerable to mining and blocking. If the enemy succeeds in these operations, the time it will take to open these ports cannot be estimated...It will be necessary for coastal batteries to be captured before approach channels to the river route can be established.” The same message was copied to Montgomery.

So the two Army commanders who were most responsible for deciding Strategy in North West Europe had been informed repeatedly of the critical importance of the Schelde Estuary, yet neither passed on the urgency of securing the Estuary approaches to Lieutenant-General Dempsey, Commander of the British Second Army, Lieutenant-General Horrocks commanding XXX Corps and on down to Major-General Roberts commanding 11th Armoured.

Had the Schelde’s critical importance been passed on to Horrocks the 11th Armoured could have immediately advanced 18 Miles further North to the narrow base of the South Beveland Peninsular, thereby preventing German movement to and from the Peninsular. As it was, no such order was given and consequently Von Zangen was able to extract the remnants of his Fifteenth Army from the pocket around Brekens by ferrying them across the Schelde, mostly by night and then moving along the South Beveland Peninsular and from there into Holland.

The Fifteenth Army represented nearly half of all the forces available to Germany in the west in September of 1944. Had they been captured they would have been the largest pocket of German forces trapped by the Allies since Tunisia and a devastating blow to Germany’s defence of the western front, perhaps a terminal blow. Not only was this force five times larger than the one that had escaped the Falaise pocket following the collapse of German forces in Normandy but Von Zangen’s Army was still in good order; its divisions largely intact. By comparison the approximately 20,000 that escaped Falaise were the shattered remnants of dozens of different divisions. Von Zangan’s forces would later see action during Market-Garden and the defence of the Rhineland.

Nor were the allies ignorant of German weakness, in early September Bletchley Park’s interception of German radio traffic reported that the Germans had only nineteen divisions with which to man the West Wall.

But in September the Allied supply columns were consuming 300,000 gallons of petrol per day keeping the front line divisions supplied, and this would only get worse with every mile closer to the Rhine, and consequently every two miles that the trucks carrying supplies had to make a round trip, that the armoured divisions advanced. So even though German Army group B had only 100 panzers against the 2000 allied tanks available, the allies were not able to overwhelm the Germans simply because they could not get sufficient supplies to do so.

The South Beveland Peninsular remained in German hands and Antwerp harbour was not opened to Allied shipping until the 28th of November, nearly three months after its capture by the British. The forces that should have been securing this key strategic target were instead diverted into the ridiculous distraction that was Market-Garden. In September of 1944 the Allied commanders were infected by a “Victory Fever” every bit as real and as damaging as that accredited to the decision making of the Japanese High Command.

The Germans were never in any doubt about the vital role that Antwerp would play. Extensive demolition charges had been set and it was only the extraordinary speed of 11th Armoured’s advance that had prevented the destruction of the harbour. Antwerp was the target of the German offensive in the Ardennes that became the battle of the Bulge. They also repeatedly launched V2 missiles at Antwerp, some 900 being fired at it before the Allies finally pushed the Germans back out of range of the city.

Tactically Market-Garden was a Pigs Ear of a plan and not even the best efforts of the troops on the ground could turn it into a Silk Purse. Omar Bradley described it unflatteringly as Pattonesque in its audacity. For it to succeed at all, all the elements of the plan had to be successful. Even if it was 90 percent successful it would be a total failure. It made no allowance for any action by the Germans and could not be modified significantly to take into account the enemy’s reaction; in fact the only way for Market-Garden to be a success is for the Germans to do absolutely nothing. Criticism of individual units and blaming them for the failure of the plan overlooks the fact that the objectives given to those units were beyond their capabilities if faced with even the limited opposition that the German Army was able to put up in September 1944.

In fact Bletchley Park had intercepted radio signals and knew that the 9th SS and 10th SS Panzer divisions were refitting in the Arnhem area. The Allied Commanders chose to overlook this information; more “victory fever”. To drop an airborne division onto an SS Panzer Corps, even a badly depleted one, was an act of profound hubris that had deadly consequences. In addition to a lack of mobility airborne divisions suffer from a lack of firepower, being limited essentially to small arms.

This already poor situation was not helped by some very questionable leadership. Lieutenant-General Frederick Browning was the Corps commander of the airborne part of the attack. He had never seen combat in WW2. Following his briefing on the plan he demonstrated his total misunderstanding of the mission when he said to General Montgomery that he believed that they were trying to go “a bridge too far”. That the officer commanding the airborne aspect of the plan could say something which showed he clearly did not understand the intent of the plan should have raised some concerns at least. This was a plan that succeeded in all its elements or failed completely.

The Northernmost division of Market-Garden was 1st British Airborne Division lead by Major-General Roy Urquhart. Prior to the attack Urquhart failed to spell out to his brigade commanders who should succeed him in command of the division should anything happen to him; given the inherent risk associated with paratrooper and glider drops this is an extraordinary thing to omit.

Another major drawback of the airborne divisions was that once on the ground they lacked vehicles; their only means of transportation is the mark one boot. So for them to seize key objectives quickly required them to be dropped either on top of the objective or extremely close to it. The further their drop zones were from their objectives the more likely it was that the Germans would be able to react before the paratroopers could get organised and on the move. The drop zones selected for 1st British Airborne were six to eight miles from their objective at Arnhem Bridge; no closer drop site could be used because of the increasingly heavy antiaircraft fire that the RAF were reporting in the area.

Worse; the entire division was not dropped on the first day, necessitating Urquhart to split his forces, half moving to Arnhem Bridge while the rest defended the drop zones. The reason given for this was that there was not sufficient transport aircraft to move the entire 1st Airborne Division in one day. In fact the additional aircraft required existed but had been tasked with transporting supplies from England to the Army Groups on the mainland; a further indication of the desperate situation the Allied supply lines were in at the time. A more experienced and forceful commander than Browning would have demanded that additional transport aircraft be re-tasked to ensure the bulk of his airborne troops, and all of 1st Airborne were dropped in on the first day.

Once on the ground 1st Airborne discovered that their radios didn’t work. They were unable to contact the aircraft tasked with tactical air support for them, the follow on transport aircraft, England, the American divisions to their south, XXX Corps, or even the paratroopers that had reached the bridge. Had this happened in a German or Russian division the signals officer concerned would have been shot!

General Urquhart then committed a cardinal error. In an effort to find out what had happened to the troops he had sent to the bridge he set off on foot with a small group to try to reach the bridge. This was an action that effectively decapitated his divisional command structure at a critical time in the battle.

South of the 1st Airborne was the landing by the US 82nd Airborne Division in the vicinity of Nijmegen. Their target was the major bridge at Nijmegen over the Waal River as well as the bridge over the Maas River at Grave and as series of bridges over a canal in between the two river crossings. Again the drop zones selected were too distant from their objectives to seize and secure before the Germans reacted. The closest drop zone to Nijmegen Bridge was five miles. The 82nd Airborne were unable to take the bridge prior to XXX Corps reaching them and were then only able to take the bridge because of the failure of the German demolition charges to explode. Had the German sappers had a better day the advancing armoured divisions would have been confronted with the broad expanse of the Wall River and a lot of twisted steel.

Furthest south of the airborne assault was the US 101st Airborne Division tasked with taking crossings over the Aa River and several Canals near Eindhoven. They successfully took most of these but the Wilhelmina Canal Bridge at Son, 4 miles north of Eindhoven was destroyed as they approached it. The allied plan anticipated that some of the bridges would be destroyed, 5000 British engineers and hundreds of tons of bridging equipment were attached to XXX Corps for this reason, but time would be lost as moved forward to the location of the destroyed bridge and further time lost constructing a replacement bridge before the armoured advance could resume.

South of the airborne attacks was the assault by XXX Corps of the British 2nd Army. The term armoured assault gives the impression of overwhelming force blasting its way through the thin German lines and smashing its way north to link up with the paratroopers. The attack was nothing like that. XXX Corps was led by the Guards Armoured Division but it was not deployed on a divisional front. It was led by the Irish Guards but it was not an assault on a Brigade front; in fact it was an assault by a single tank squadron up a narrow highway with the rest of XXX Corps following behind. Both sides of the highway were too soft for the Sherman tanks to advance on and much of the surrounding ground was thickly wooded.

Instead of being a thrust with a broadsword or even a Rapier stab this was a prod with a stiletto. By attacking on such a narrow front up a single highway the Allies gave up their great advantages in firepower and pure weight of numbers and reduced it to a much more personal battle, which handed the advantage over to the Germans who, even in late 1944 were still performing better individually than their opponents. For the Allies it became a race against time against an army renowned for rapid improvisation.

Every tank, troop truck, artillery piece, fuel truck, engineering vehicle etc. had to move up that single Dutch highway. The entire length became a traffic jam backed up for miles every time there was any obstruction. Every time a bridge was blown the entire Allied timetable was thrown out while the Engineers, sometimes several miles behind the front line struggled forward through the logjam of other vehicles to build a new bridge. This would have been difficult to keep on schedule even without any opposition, but with the Germans resisting at all points along the length of the highway it was impossible. When the leading armoured elements had moved further north the Germans would organise improvised battle groups and launch local counteroffensives that succeeded in cutting the highway, further delaying the allies who would have to halt moving more forces north until the German attacks were dealt with.

Market Garden was never going to succeed. Even if by some miracle the Airborne Divisions had been able to seize all of the bridges in their respective areas of responsibility and XXX Corps had been able to advance swiftly up the more than 80 miles to Arnhem and over the Rhine, their advance would have inevitably ground to a halt; the Allied supply system was already stretched to breaking point and beginning to fail.

In September 1944 the British Army withdrew 1,400 three-ton Austin trucks from service because of faulty pistons. All the replacement engines were found to have the same fault. So desperate was 21st Army Group’s supply situation that thousands of horse drawn wagons left behind by the Wehrmacht were pressed into service. The ‘Red Ball Express’ supply columns were writing off 700 trucks per weak in September, a rate that exceeded the rate of replacement. So desperate was the supply problem that, as mentioned earlier, C-47s were pressed into service transporting supplies to the Armies in France.

Each division in the allied armies required 650 tons per day of supplies. A single armoured division of the time required 25,000 gallons of fuel per day just to move. There simply was no way the supply columns could have pumped sufficient supplies up the single main supply route at a rate sufficient to allow the armoured divisions at the head of the column to fight their way into Germany; especially when additional forces would need to struggle up the same road. At the same time further defence of the entire length against desperate German Counter attacks would be required.

The list of obstacles is long enough without having to deal with the problem of trying to force a way across the Rhine precisely where two of the few remaining Panzer divisions were located; something that Bletchley Park’s signals intercepts had informed the Allied Command of prior to the attack commencing.

Soldiers have to take risks and accept danger, but those risks should be realistically assessed, the dangers judged to be acceptable and the missions have a reasonable potential for success. Their lives should not be thrown away in operations that are unnecessary, badly planned and where the potential enemy threat has been ignored.

So consider how Market-Garden could have hastened the end of the war; not by being a success but by never being considered at all.

The British 11th Armoured Division Antwerp intact on 4 September 1944, but General Roberts, impressed with the critical importance of the port’s approaches by his superiors drives his exhausted men on, further north until they cut off the base of the South Beveland Peninsular before the Germans have a chance to react. The front line stabilises just south of Breda in the Netherlands while two infantry brigades, supported by armour clear the peninsular of any remaining German forces.

From this point on the fate of the Fifteenth Army is sealed. Von Zangen can carry out Field Marshal Model’s order to fight his way out south of Antwerp and back to the German lines in Holland, a suicidal move in the face of the far greater forces arrayed against him and his lack of transportation, or he can dig in and try to hold out for as long as possible, tying the Canadian and British Armies down in the process for as long as possible; he opts for the latter.

The Canadian First Army and British XII Corps, with prodigious amounts of air support begin the task of destroying the trapped German Army. By mid-September the last remnants of the German pocket have surrendered and on the twentieth of September the first freighters begin unloading in Antwerp.

The Germans begin targeting Antwerp with V2 missiles. The shortcomings of it as a weapon of war is amply demonstrated; it fails to interfere with the use of the port.

The front, along a line from the Dutch coast near Breda, east to Neerpelt, Maastricht, to the outskirts of Aachen, then along the Siegfried Line to the Moselle and then south to Nancy is now essentially static while the Allies repair and re-equip their divisions and the new, shorter supply lines are established and stockpiles for the next, final offensive into Germany are built up.

On the 7th of September Field Marshal Gerd Von Runstedt, Commander of German forces in the West, informs Hitler that it would be six weeks for the West Wall can be manned and made defensible; he is in a race to be ready before the Allies can sort out their supply problems and resume the attack. But he is trying to scrape together spare divisions from all over Germany and there are precious few to spare, none can now be taken from the East; the position there is too precarious.

On the 1st of October Von Runstedt has lost his race; the Allied advance resumes. The Army groups are supported by nearly 14,000 combat aircraft against which Goering’s Luftwaffe have barely 570 serviceable aircraft that are perpetually short of fuel. The full strength of the Allied forces freed from fuel restrictions and with further divisions being unloaded in Antwerp press forward. What it lacks in finesse it more than makes up for in shear overwhelming firepower.

The Allied armies push through the West Wall meeting only pockets of resistance. The German line is just too weak to slow the advance. Although Hitler insists that every yard of sacred German soil must be defended to the last he has little to back up the rhetoric; his reserve panzer divisions are still re-equipping after their near total destruction in Normandy. Those that he does release for the defence of the Rhineland are not up to the task of stopping the American 1st and 3rd Armies and are easy prey to allied air power. Hitler’s dream of a winter offensive are ruined by the desperate need to hold the Rhineland and prevent the Allies crossing the Rhine that sucks up all of his remaining reserves.

By the twentieth of October the Allies are on the west bank of the Rhine and are poised to cross in force. The do so in dramatic fashion. Three airborne divisions are dropped in daylight on the east bank of the Rhine in support of simultaneous amphibious crossings by the British 2nd and US 9th Armies near Wesel in the north, the US 1st Army south of Bonn in the centre and in the south the US 3rd Army between Mainz and Worms. While they meet stubborn resistance in places, the result is never really in doubt.

In the East Stalin realises that he is in a race and urges Zhukov on; there is no halt outside of Warsaw. The German Armies facing the Russians are the strongest that Hitler has, but while they can slow the Russians a little, there is no halting them.

Since this scenario is intended only to illustrate the shortcomings of Market Garden and the author will not try to project the course of the war any further; to go beyond this point and try to forecast where the Allied and Soviet Armies would have met would require a thorough assessment of the Red Army’s capabilities in early 1945.

It would also require too much speculation as to the politico-military decisions of the various leaders on each side as to where the strength of each side’s forces would be focused. Would Eisenhower still unilaterally give up the opportunity to reach Berlin ahead of the Red Army or would American soldiers have the distinction, and suffer the appalling losses associated with taking the heart of the Nazi state?

But the final message from SHAEF to the Combined Chiefs of Staff can be speculatively projected: ‘the mission of this Allied Force was fulfilled at 0241, local time, February 7th 1945// signed// Eisenhower’

 
Moved and bumped.

Looks like a nice scenario Cook, but in order to post it in the T&S forum, you have to have your TL discussed at first for some weeks, correct mistakes (if there are some), then you can post it there.
 
Would Eisenhower still unilaterally give up the opportunity to reach Berlin ahead of the Red Army or would American soldiers have the distinction, and suffer the appalling losses associated with taking the heart of the Nazi state?
?Didn't the Allies agree [at Stalin's Demand] that Russia would have the Honor of taking Berlin?
 
I always wondered why any senior British officer understood the importance of capturing the banks of the Schelde estuary. Any man with some common tacktical sence ( which I believe you must have or been thought as an officer) understand that a port like Antwerp which is some 50 km inland is only usfull when you have the river, estuary or bay occumpied aswell..

Secondly, can somebody explain me why, in earth, Eisenhower agreed with this strange Market Garden plan, while Patton had a more prommissing and straight forward plan of crossing the Rhine and pushing into Germany. The plan was eventualy executed.

Could annybody explain me what Montgomory thought to achive, even the troops crossed the Rhine at Arnhem, there still have to cross the river Ijssel in the East to advance into Germany???
I never understood this waste of men and material, and time.
 
I was told, here of course, that one of the major knock off effects of Market Garden was that it would force the evacuation of the estuary, which would explain why it was done over patton's plan.
 
I always wondered why any senior British officer understood the importance of capturing the banks of the Schelde estuary. Any man with some common tacktical sence ( which I believe you must have or been thought as an officer) understand that a port like Antwerp which is some 50 km inland is only usfull when you have the river, estuary or bay occumpied aswell..

Secondly, can somebody explain me why, in earth, Eisenhower agreed with this strange Market Garden plan, while Patton had a more prommissing and straight forward plan of crossing the Rhine and pushing into Germany. The plan was eventualy executed.

Could annybody explain me what Montgomory thought to achive, even the troops crossed the Rhine at Arnhem, there still have to cross the river Ijssel in the East to advance into Germany???
I never understood this waste of men and material, and time.

1: To be a British officer, you need to have a pulse. Getting dressed is what your batman is for.

2: Lack of supplies. Patton said it best: "my men can eat their belts, but my tanks have gotta have gas"

3: Don't ask me...

As for the Red Army, if they move into Warsaw while the rising is still in full swing, they only have two options. The first is to cooperate with or at least ignore the partisans. That means that after the Germans are kicked out, the Polish partisans are still intact and armed - not easy for the Soviets to beat. The second is to fight a three-way battle that will delay the Soviets even more. Both are losing options.
 
What are the chances of, without a Market Garden, the Polish Brigade under Sosabowski going into Warsaw? Might Sosabowski manage to get a Polish state that isn't a Soviet satellite? Or at least keep it from happening a year or two?
 
A very interesting book on this possibility is Peter Beale's 'The Great Mistake, the battle for Antwerp and the Beveland Peninsula, September 1944'.
 
What are the chances of, without a Market Garden, the Polish Brigade under Sosabowski going into Warsaw? Might Sosabowski manage to get a Polish state that isn't a Soviet satellite? Or at least keep it from happening a year or two?

The first problem is to find a landing zone in a town as Warsaw, or close to Warsaw and not occupied by Germans... And to keep this brigade supplied...

The Uprising of Warsaw was condemned to be crush at the moment it began because :
- the Germans decided to not evacuated Warsaw but to crush the uprising, the town and the population,
- the Soviets decided to not help the polish underground,

The same will happened to Paris but two allied divisions quickly come to Paris help, an american division and the french 2nd Armored Division...
 
Originally posted by Polish Eagle
What are the chances of, without a Market Garden, the Polish Brigade under Sosabowski going into Warsaw? Might Sosabowski manage to get a Polish state that isn't a Soviet satellite? Or at least keep it from happening a year or two?

Chances are slim to none. It takes quite a lot of slow, defenceless planes to carry a 1500 paras with equipment. Easy target for German fighters - even 10 of them might slaughter the Brigade in air. And do I have to mention German Flak?. Then, the planes have to go back - another chance for Germans to shoot at them. Losses would have been enormous, both for Polish paras and Allied pilots, and any help for Warsaw minimal.
Theoretically Stalin might allow the planes to land behind Soviet lines, but he refused to do that IOTL - why should he allow it here? He already has a Polish army controlled by the communists (Berling's Army), he has his Polish puppet government, he does not need Free Poles coming home.
And from purely military point of view: mere 1500 soldiers, even as dedicated and well trained as Sosabowski's paras, is not enough to change an outcome of the battle. They were light infantry only, with weak anti-tank armament and no anti-air weapons, with very limited supplies.
Even assuming they arrived, they landed and Warsaw was liberated in cooperation with the Red Army, so what? We have the same thing that happen in Vilnius, after Operation "Ostra Brama" . Polish and Soviet soldiers fight hand in hand, Soviet commanders praise courage of their Polish allies and a week or a month later a division of NKVD arrives and forcefully disarm Polish units. Or Stalin uses Berling's Army (doubtful - too great risk those Poles would have refused). Officers are murdered or sent to Siberia, lower ranks are forced to join Berling's Army, and officially nothing happened.
 
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