How plausible is this?

  • Very plausible

    Votes: 5 6.2%
  • Plausible

    Votes: 20 24.7%
  • Might be plausible

    Votes: 44 54.3%
  • Not very plausible

    Votes: 10 12.3%
  • Not plausible at all!

    Votes: 2 2.5%

  • Total voters
    81
Tactically they could have done better if they had landed gliders on the fields next to the Arnhem bridge, the British wrongly believed they had obstacles and/or mines there. The dutch resistance gave good intel on German dispositions particularly the Panzer units refitting around the town and told the Brits the fields were clear but following the debacle of what happened to SOE's Dutch networks no one believed they were not compromised at best or being played back by SD/Gestapo agents. The Ox and Bucks were criminally wasted as normal infantry and should have been used for more such precision attacks, they could have brought 6 pdr AT guns (and even 17 pdr AT guns had been landed by glider previously) with them. As for seizing the approaches to Antwerp, Montgomeries failure to do so was a significant lapse that resulted in major casualties and serious logistical issues that would have allowed further operations into late 1944.

The other issue of course is the Allied planners used the "wrong" approach route to Arnhem rather than the one they used which would have gotten a failing grade at the Dutch staff college pre-war.

On the subject of 6 pounder and 17 pounder AT guns - they did

http://www.pegasusarchive.org/arnhem/order_1st.htm

Each of the 2 paratrooper Brigades had an Anti tank Battalion

Each battalion had 4 batteries of 4 x six pounder for a total of 32 in the Division

Each Battalion also had 2 Batteries of 4 x Seventeen pounder for a total of 16 in the division (note that of the 8 sent with the first wave 2 were lost when their gliders were shot down and 2 were damaged when their gliders overturned - 1 of them being completely wrecked)

So 48 Anti tank guns for a op where no armoured units were expected!

The Ox and Bucks were Elite infantry who were also highly skilled in Urban operations or FISH (Fighting in someone's house) and it would have been 'criminal' not to have used them in the battles fought during that campaign - so by the time the Normandy campaign ended (and the Division took part in the advance to the Seine ops before it was finally taken off the line) which was on or about the last day in August the units of 6th Airborne were worn out and like the Commando battalions who had also been in the line for the entire campaign had suffered heavy losses and needed to be rebuilt and the men rested.

The idea that they could be recycled into a new op a few weeks after they had been withdrawn is I am afraid fanciful.

However given their legacy it always surprises me that all of the airborne units did not comprise at least one unit capable of an Operation Deadstick type mission - all 3 Divisions involved seemed to drop some way from the bridges - its the most baffling part of it for me given that the capture of the Bridges was the entire reason for the airdrops.
 
apparently the air force commanders wanted to use the sites they used to lessen the losses to aircraft from AA since they had to make landing over several days.
 
Montgomery is the alternate. What are the odds he might look at the maps the day after crossing the Somme & decide the main objective for the next 3-4 weeks must Antwerp and its approaches? A decision that early helps get around so many of the problems that turn up between the 1st & 6th September.

Absolutely agree with your post, except for this part.

Actual position on 2 September:
3 British armoured divisions across the Somme and in full pursuit mode
Canadian and Polish divisions at the Somme, closer to the coast
Dieppe captured intact
Le Havre isolated
Decision made on 30th August to cutdown intake in Normandy to release supply units to move forward, assuming Channel ports would soon be open
Note: US XIXth Corps is ahead of the British

https://www.loc.gov/resource/g5701s.ict21089/?r=0.04,0.356,0.413,0.338,0

It was critical to open Le Havre as it would give access to the Seine for supply to Rouen and Paris, as well as being a major port. This, and another Channel port (Bolougne) would be enough to supply 21st Army Group. Therefore any decision to concentrate on Antwerp must come from above. Eisenhower's directives included Antwerp and Rotterdam (across the Rhine) as objectives.

Key conferences were Eisenhower at 12th Army Group HQ on 2nd September, which seemed to make US 3rd Army's thrust south of the Ardennes their main thrust, and Montgomery and Bradley meeting on the 3rd which adjusted their boundary eastward, effectively "pinching out US XIXth Corps south of Brussels. This places the Rhine from the northern edge of the Ruhr to the sea in 21st Army Group's area, and with Montgomery happy with his logistics position there is no reason for him to focus on Antwerp rather than seizing a Rhine crossing (and also isolating Rotterdam).

A focus on Antwerp requires Eisenhower as soon as he takes command, ensuring Bradley focuses on the Aachen gap, rather than the Saar, and placing the 21st Army Group's right boundary north from Brussels to Nijmegen.
 

HJ Tulp

Donor
None of these maps indicate a airfield on Walchern Island. Modern maps show nothing for that as well, so there likely was none, or no more than a unpaved landing strip for small liaison planes.

As @Adelbert60 mentions above, there certainly was a airfield at Vlissingen. Vliegveld Souburg was used as a civilian airport during the Interbellum, servicing 1900 airplanes in 1937. In 1939 the airfield was mobilized as an military airfield and used for the military flight-school. Between 1940-1941 it was used by the Germans and by the Corpa Aero Italiano. According to Wikipedia it was used extensively until 1942 when it was used less and less. During allied air raids on 15 and 19 august it was heavily damaged.

1280px-Duitse-en-italiaanse-jachtvliegers-voor-een-bf-109-op-vliegveld-souburg.jpg

German and Italian airmen at Vlissingen.
 
Must not have been commercially viable to the present day? The exact location affects the tactical viability of a airborne drop on the island, and the defenders could have rendered it unusable. Otherwise it makes a airborne op on Walchern much more viable.

Absolutely agree with your post, except for this part.
...
It was critical to open Le Havre as it would give access to the Seine for supply to Rouen and Paris, as well as being a major port. This, and another Channel port (Bolougne) would be enough to supply 21st Army Group. Therefore any decision to concentrate on Antwerp must come from above. Eisenhower's directives included Antwerp and Rotterdam (across the Rhine) as objectives. ....

Those seem sufficient for 21 AG as we know it. But, there is Montys argument for the 40+ division full blooded thrust to Berlin. That would be greatly aided, or require a larger and closer port capacity. Was Monty at this point still thinking in terms of theatre strategy, or confining himself to the local affairs of 21 AG?

Eisenhower certainly was distracted 2 September, & many day either side of that date. I also am curious about how 'fuzzy' his intelligence was at that period. He had some other more to the point intelligence failures at other times. I'm wondering if he could have had better information, or if that were impractical under the circumstances. That information picture runs the other direction as well. In retrospect its clear his AG commanders, & the US logistics commander Lt Gen Lee were not passing the optimal descriptions of their situations upwards the SHAEF. that is the picture internally looks near as 'noisy' and chaotic as that for the enemy.
 
apparently the air force commanders wanted to use the sites they used to lessen the losses to aircraft from AA since they had to make landing over several days.

Suppresion of enemy air defense, SEAD as we called in the 1980s, was a imperfectly understood tactic in 1944. It would have required yet more buckets of imagination, and cutting edge skill to put together a effective suppression of the defenders antiaircraft weapons around the bridges. The alternate is to set the whole operation forward to dawn, so that a DEADSTICK type operation had some cover of night and surprise. That of course has its own several cans of worms to contemplate.

Arguments about LZ seem so much more messy than those about beach choices.
 
One of the problems was that the plan was conceived in such a short time their was almost no time for a good review of it.
 
Monty's problems were that a) he believed his own press clippings and b) he didn't respect Ike.

Monty did believe his own press, and he didn't respect Eisenhower as a general - he liked him as a person and thought he was well suited for the SHEAF role but didn't have any kind of grip on the military situation - but Monty's opinions of himself and Eisenhower were not without justification.

Monty was, for whatever his faults, the most battle-tested and proven winner in the Western Allied camp, and, with the exception of MARKET GARDEN, won all his most important battles at a tolerable cost and on schedule if not ahead of it, and was rarely if ever held back by tactical set-backs and achieved his stragetic aims regardless.

Meanwhile Eisenhower never actually took direct command of a single battle in his entire military career. He was a career staff officer who never saw action at the front and never took part in combat himself. It wasn't unsual that Eisenhower wasnt respected by Generals who commanded at the front - Bradley and Patton too thought little of him as a military man
 
But, there is Montys argument for the 40+ division full blooded thrust to Berlin. That would be greatly aided, or require a larger and closer port capacity. Was Monty at this point still thinking in terms of theatre strategy, or confining himself to the local affairs of 21 AG?

Montgomery was, as you note, happy with his own logistics.

On the wider point, care needs to taken about Montgomery suggested, versus what other people thought he suggested. The "40 divisions moving as a single mass" was an earlier proposal to reach Brussels/Antwerp and got very quickly overtaken by events as it assumed German defences would be stiffer. The "full-bodied thrust towards Berlin" was a later suggestion (first few days of September IIRC) that caused a lot of confusion. To me it seems a reminder to Eisenhower of the overall campaign objective when he was throwing around multiple objectives including Saar, Ruhr and Rotterdam ("maintenance of the aim" was a core British Army tenet), but SHAEF believed it might be a serious proposal. Tedder writing after the 10th September meeting makes it clear that it wasn't a serious suggestion.

However it also appears that 21st Army logistics planners did an appreciation which showed that logistically they could get a Corps to Berlin without Antwerp, and I think Van Creveld covers this.

Eisenhower certainly was distracted 2 September, & many day either side of that date. I also am curious about how 'fuzzy' his intelligence was at that period. He had some other more to the point intelligence failures at other times. I'm wondering if he could have had better information, or if that were impractical under the circumstances. That information picture runs the other direction as well. In retrospect its clear his AG commanders, & the US logistics commander Lt Gen Lee were not passing the optimal descriptions of their situations upwards the SHAEF. that is the picture internally looks near as 'noisy' and chaotic as that for the enemy.

I think a core issue was Eisenhower's conception of his role, where I understand he split his forces into Northern, Central and (eventually) Southern Army Groups and said that each commander would act as C-in-C within his zone ie Eisenhower's role was effectively to set boundaries between the groups, and high level objectives for each group, but not detailed objectives. If he had taken a tighter grip, then he should have made sure Bradley prioritised Aachen rather than maintain two thrusts, and ensured that attacks could be sustained logistically.

The general intelligence at that time was that the German Army was broken and had insufficient resources to even man the WestWall, and therefore the Allies should be in full pursuit mode. This was incorrect as IIRC they'd missed the Parachute Army from the Luftwaffe, other ad-hoc units being created at key points such as Metz etc.

There was also a lack of logistical understanding, especially in the US forces. The planners advised against crossing the Seine without a pause, but Eisenhower took a risk in doing so, and all went well for a while. Nobody seemed to ask where the culminating point would be, and which advances should be prioritised. There is a contrast between Guards Armoured reaching Brussels with IIRC enough fuel for 100 miles further, and US divisions running out of gas earlier short of objectives. However Montgomery had to delay Market Garden because of logistics issues.
 

HJ Tulp

Donor
Must not have been commercially viable to the present day?
The bombings and especially the inundations of 1944 had destroyed the airfield to such an extend that they decided to build a resedential area instead.

The exact location affects the tactical viability of a airborne drop on the island, and the defenders could have rendered it unusable. Otherwise it makes a airborne op on Walchern much more viable.

I have found this little map:
6.jpg


Which might correspond with this location on google maps:

upload_2019-5-6_20-21-59.png


The condition of the place is undetermined though. Some sources say it was only truly rendered useless after the bombings of 15 and 19 august, others mention that it's exposed position had forces away the Luftwaffe earlier.
 
If I remember rightly the Nazis had extra forces near Arnheim, not necessarily as part of a plan. Could those forces have just been elsewhere and the Bridgehead be taken?
 
I would like to revisit the point re apc/kangaroo - an early adoption by British forces of the kangaroo would have had significant knock on impacts throughout the action from D-Day +1 onwards.

XXX corps advance in MG would look rather different at the very least.
————————————————————————-

Yes!
Earlier adoption - say pre D-Day - adoption of APCs would have vastly reduced Canadian infantry casualties.
By early September 1944, the Canadian Army ground to a halt - on the outskirts of Antwerp - because they had too few infantry and many serving infantrymen were psychological casualties after 90 days of steady fighting.
Clearing Breskens, Beveland, etc. went painfully slowly because of more infantry casualties.
The Conscription Crisis hit Ottawa during the autumn of 1944!
 
............ (Where do the Poles end up? {I keep seeing Gene Hackman, somehow...:openedeyewink: })[/QUOTE]
—————————————————————-

OTL Polish anti-tank gunners landed in gliders with the main forces (18 September 1944).
The rest of the Polish paratroopers landed on a dry polder to the Southwest of the Arnhem Bridge (21 September 1944) Poles confirmed Dutch Resistance reports that the polder was dry enough for landing gliders. Poles stubbornly defended the town of Driel (4km SW of the Bridge) against German counter-attacks. Towards the end of MG they covered the main forces’ retreat.

Why Polish paratroopers weren’t landed earlier is a political question.

Why more British gliders did not land on the same - dry - polder is a bigger mystery.
 
The bombings and especially the inundations of 1944 had destroyed the airfield to such an extend that they decided to build a resedential area instead.



I have found this little map:
6.jpg


Which might correspond with this location on google maps:

View attachment 457717

The condition of the place is undetermined though. Some sources say it was only truly rendered useless after the bombings of 15 and 19 august, others mention that it's exposed position had forces away the Luftwaffe earlier.

Thanks. Thats useful. I wonder how many gliders that could accommodate?
 
I have found this little map:

I assume here

https://www.forgottenairfields.com/airfield-souburg-984.html

The Germans took over the airfield, and stationed 1. Staffel of I./JG1 there in December 1940. They also constructed a concrete runway. But because the airfield was so close to the sea, and the Germans feared a British attack they left again before the year was over. Despite the absence of the Luftwaffe at the airfield, the Allies bombed the airfield several times. Adding to the destruction the Germans did themself, it left little of the new concrete runway. When the Allies bombed the dikes that kept the island of Walcheren dry in an affort to force the Germans away from the entry to Antwerp, the airfield was flooded also.
 
Why Polish paratroopers weren’t landed earlier is a political question.
Not political per se, more like the responsible division commander wanted all of his units in place before allotting transport to the Poles. There weren't enough transports to move all the forces in one lift, so it was decided that there would be three lifts to land all the forces. If I remember correctly, the Polish Parachute Brigade wasn't scheduled to land until the 3rd day but got postponed by 2 days due to fog.
Things could have been accelerated if the USAAF Transport Commander had allowed for 2 lifts per day instead of 1 lift per day, especially on the 18th.

Why more British gliders did not land on the same - dry - polder is a bigger mystery.
For some reason, British Intelligence thought the polders were damp and unable to accept gliders. British Intelligence didn't trust Dutch Resistance information, so that may be why they discounted the info.
To my knowledge, only Polish paratroops, no gliders, landed on the south bank of the Rhine. The Polish Para Bde gliders went in on the 3rd day and landed at Osterbeek.

I'm not sure why all the emphasis on the coup de main on Arnhem bridge, 2nd Paras got to and held the bridge for 3 days. An additional company landing there by gliders isn't going to change the outcome.
 
Top