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Market would be the largest airborne operation in history, delivering over 34,600 men of the 101st, 82nd and 1st Airborne Divisions and the Polish Brigade. 14,589 troops were landed by glider and 20,011 by parachute. Gliders also brought in 1,736 vehicles and 263 artillery pieces. 3,342 tons of ammunition and other supplies were brought by glider and parachute drop.
- 17-25 September 1944
- See debate on outcome
- Landing at Best
- Approach at Night
- Digging in
- Hay For Cover
- The Death of Cole
- Best’s Bridge Blown
- German Attack on The Paratroopers
- The Lost Platoon
- Breaking The German Resistance
- Joe Eugene Mann’s Medal of Honor
One of the towns assigned to the 502nd was Best, Holland, a nondescript place of about 30 houses, a church, and one gas station situated on the main road outside of town. That roadway led south to the city of Eindhoven, a major objective of the 506th. Today, the A-2 Highway, whose odyssey begins in northern Europe and ends in southern Spain, hugs t...
Despite this setback, the battle plan as originally conceived by headquarters was apparently still on. Before the company withdrew from Best and with no understanding of the situation, battalion command insisted that Jones send 2nd Platoon, reinforced by 26 engineers and part of the machine-gun unit, to capture both canal bridges and set up defense...
The two had not crawled far when they saw Germans changing guard at the nearby entrance to the bridge. As one soldier came off, another soldier came on. What they did not see was the route of the sentry’s post, which took him in a wide circle around the men. They were belly down in the center of his rounds. For an intense 30 minutes Wierzbowski and...
Cole’s men were being pushed deeper into the woods by enemy fire when at 4 am on September 18 Colonel John H. Michaelis, commander of the 502nd, finally took notice. He ordered the three companies of 2nd Battalion, under the command of Lt. Col. Steve A. Chappuis, to free up 3rd Battalion, which was stuck in the forest, march on Best, and secure the...
Michaelis had no reserve forces available to send in or to request from division headquarters. First Battalion’s three companies were assisting the 501st to the north at St. Oedenrode, and the 506th had not yet captured Eindhoven. As Chappius’s fall back began, German infantry saw an opening and started to infiltrate Cole’s lines in the forest by t...
Wierzbowski, positioned east of the highway bridge that morning, had no way of knowing the rest of 3rd Battalion was bogged down in the nightmare of the Zonsche Forest from which he had escaped the night before. His men heard distant fire throughout the night and began to think support might be coming their way. Even more encouraging, the overnight...
Joe Mann and Jim Hoyle, Wierzbowski’s main scouts who led the mission throughout, grabbed some weapons and crawled toward the canal to do just that. They spotted a German artillery dump to their west, which Mann lit up with two rounds from the bazooka. Over the next hour the pair killed six Germans advancing on their hideout until enemy fire finall...
The German attack was driven off, but it left the detachment low on ammunition, high on casualties, and completely out of medical supplies. In spirit they still had a pulse, which was raised a bit late in the afternoon when two armored vehicles of XXX Corps appeared on the contested far side of the canal. “Stay where you are. I am sure that help wi...
The stalemate continued with terrific fighting until late afternoon when a squadron of 12 British tanks from the 7th Armoured Regiment joined the attack and proved decisive. “The rumbling of the tanks and the noise of their fire had taken all heart out of the enemy,” Stopka wrote in his report. Demoralized German soldiers dropped their weapons and ...
Wierzbowski, waiting in a shroud of mist at the former bridge site, was on his own for the duration. His men were exhausted, hurt, and content to wait for the relief that never arrived. As the sun rose higher in the sky that morning and temperatures warmed, the fog that covered the area burned off in an instant. When it did, a German officer sudden...
This photograph shows British paratroopers of the Pioneer Assault Platoon of 1st Parachute Battalion, 1st Airborne Division, on their way to Arnhem in a USAAF C-47 aircraft on 17 September 1944. The 'Market Garden' plan employed all three divisions of First Allied Airborne Army. The US 101st Division was ordered to capture Eindhoven, and ...
Jun 12, 2006 · In a few hours, the 101st would have its stretch of Hell’s Highway completely open. Almost from the beginning, jubilant Dutch civilians had welcomed the Allied paratroopers as liberators. Early on the morning of September 18, the 506th destroyed a pair of 88s and pushed into Eindhoven.
Mar 20, 2015 · With the aid of an aerial photograph taken on September 6th, before Market Garden started, we are going to follow Easy company in the battle at the Crossroads. This battle was famously depicted in episode 6 of Band of Brothers, “Crossroads.”. An overview of the Island, on October 5th the 101st Airborne was responsible for three quarters of ...
The basic plan was for the 101st Airborne Division to seize the several bridges and defiles between Eindhoven and Grave. The 82nd Airborne was to capture the Maas crossing at Grave, at least one of the four bridges over the Maas-Waal Canal, and then, after securing the high ground between Nijmegen and Groesbeek, to capture the vast Waal road bridge in Nijmegen.
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Sep 19, 2019 · The 101 st Airborne had to capture 5 bridges near Eindhoven on the first day of the operation. The British at Arnhem had two bridges to take, the most important of the two being the road bridge. The 82 nd US Airborne at Nijmegen had one: the Waal Bridge. It was the combination of these two operations that made up Operation Market Garden.