Then & Now | Groesbeek & Nijmegen 

The book is trash. Inaccurate.

Stop rewriting history.

@@steveguild871 Once again... *The 82nd men who crossed the Waal in boats, never seized the Nijmegen bridge. The British Guards did that.* The 82nd men did not reach the bridge. The British tanks met them at Lent one km north of the bridge. The 82nd *failed* to seize the Nijmegen bridge, the Grenadier Guards and tanks seized it for them. Another one who gets his history from Hollywood.

Read a book called, Descending From the Clouds. The US 82 nd, 505 Division F and K companies took Hunnerpark at the foot of the south approach to the Highway bridge over the Waal. Then the British Guards pushed through their position and took the bridge. It was an extremely bloody battle for Hunnerpark, after that there was not much more resistance on the south side of the bridge. So technically the British did set foot on the bridge first but the 82nd cleared the approach with a British’s tank. So it was a joint effort actually. The next day was the crossing by canvas boats in the daylight. That was further west near the railway bridge.

@@davidsmith1898 A needless crossing. It was to save the face of Gavin using the lives of his men and British Sappers. British engineers went on the bridge to disable charges.

@@johnburns4017 and they also needlessly died trying to disarm the bridge. They were all cut down. It’s in the book I referenced. A British Lt. approached the men from Coy F 505 PIR for volunteers to disarm the bridge, one American went with the Brits and they were all cut down.

Wrong. Montgomery came up with this clusterf@ck.

@@steveguild871 Read your history. Browning was at fault not Montgomery and Gavin also for his failure to take his objective when it was lightly guarded, Hence the reason why XXX corp couldn't cross the bridge.

@@steveguild871 Montgomery never planned or was involved in the execution of Market Garden, only proposing the concept. Eisenhower, approved and under resourced the operation. Two American Air Force Generals, Brereton, in command of the First Allied Airborne Army, and Williams, USAAF, were the prime culprits of why the Market Garden plan was flawed. The Market part was planned by mainly Americans while Garden mainly the British. Nevertheless, despite their failings, the operation failed to be a 100% success by a *whisker.* It was Brereton and Williams who: ♦ Ignored nearly all the Airborne tactics and doctrine that had been established, practised and performed in operations in Sicily, Italy and Normandy; ♦ Who decided that there would be drops spread over three days, losing all surprise, defeating the object of para jumps; ♦ Who decided that there would only be one airlift on the first day, despite there being multiple airlifts on day one on Operation Dragoon weeks previously. The RAF offered to man the US planes for a second lift but were refused; ♦ Who rejected the glider coup-de-main on the bridges that had been so successful on D-Day on the Pegasus bridge and which had been agreed to on the previously planned Operation Comet; ♦ Who chose the drop and landing zones so far from bridges - RAF were partly to blame here by agreeing; ♦ Who would not allow the ground attack fighters to attack the Germans while the escort fighters were protecting the transports and thereby not hindering the German reinforcements. Ground attack fighters were devastating in Normandy, yet rarely seen at Market Garden; ♦ Who rejected drops south of the Wilhelmina Canal that would prevent the capture of the bridges at Son, Best and Eindhoven by the 101st because of "possible flak". The job of the Airborne was to capture the bridges with as Brereton said _'thunderclap surprise'._ Only one bridge, at Grave, was planned and executed using Airborne tactics of surprise, speed and aggression - land as close to the objectives as possible and attack the bridge simultaneously from both ends. General Gavin of the 82nd decided to lower the priority of the biggest road bridge in Europe, the Nijmegen road bridge, going against orders compromising the operation. To compound his error, lack of judgement or refusal to carry out an order, he totally ignored the adjacent Nijmegen rail bridge, which the Germans had installed wooden planks between the rails for light vehicles to move on. At the time of the landings by the 82nd there were only 19 Germans guarding both bridges with a few troops in the town. There were no bridge defences such as ditches and barbed wire. This has been confirmed by German archives. Gavin sent only two companies of the 508 *seven hours after they had landed to capture the bridges.* They arrived at 2200, *eight hours after being ready to march.* Company A moved towards the bridge while Company B got lost. In the interim eight hours the 19 guards had been replaced by Kampfgruppe Henke with 750 men and then a brigade of the 10th SS Panzer Division (infantry) setting up shop in the park adjacent to the south side of the road bridge at 1900 hours, *five hours after the jump.* The Germans occupied the town, which was good defensive territory being rubble in the centre as the USAAF had previously bombed the town in March 1944 by mistake thinking they were in Germany, killing 800. An easy taking of the bridge had now passed. XXX Corps Guards Division's aim was to reach Arnhem at 15.00 on D-Day+2. They arrived at Nijmegen in the morning of D-Day+2, with only 7 miles to go to Arnhem. Expecting to cross the road bridge they found it in German hands with Germans fighting 82nd men at the edge of the town, seeing something seriously had gone wrong. The 82nd had not captured either of the bridges or cleared out the Germans from Nijmegen town itself. XXX Corps then had to seize both bridges themselves and clear the Germans from the town, using some 82nd men in clearing the town, seizing the bridge themselves. What you see in the film _'A Bridge Too Far'_ is fiction. It was the Grenadier Guards tanks and the Irish Guards infantry who seized the Nijmegen road bridge. If the 82nd had seized the road bridge, immediately on landing, as ordered, XXX Corp's Guards Division would have reached Arnhem well within time relieving the British 1st Airborne men on the north side of Arnhem bridge. The German archives state quite clearly that failure to capture the Nijmegen bridge on d-day was the reason for XXX Corps not making a bridgehead north of the Rhine. A clear failure by General Gavin. Even the US Official War record confirms this. Charles B. MacDonald wrote the US Official history on Market Garden: history.army.mil/books/70-7_19.htm The Market part of Market Garden failed. The Garden part was a success. XXX Corps hardly put a foot wrong. _"it was not until_ *_9 October, more than a month after the fall of Antwerp,_* _that General Eisenhower told Montgomery to devote his entire attention to the clearance of the Scheldt. By that time Monty had the Canadians cleared it, or were investing in many of the Channel ports"_ - Neillands, Robin. The Battle for the Rhine 1944

*The 82nd as a whole failed,* irrespective of whether it was a commander at any level. The blame points to *Gavin* not Browning. Browning was not even in Holland on the vital 1st para drop when Gavin for 3 hours never communicated with Linquist who was supposed to proceed to the bridge *"without delay".*

@@johnburns4017 Speaking of clusterf#@k, your reply is right up there. Monty and the team ignored the intelligence from locals that the Germans had better resources in the area than they thought.