Oct 1, 2015, 10:28 PM
Hello, I am a Military Historian studying the First Great War and the Second Great War and I am currently researching a bit into the Vietnam War. I'm going to share some information I have researched recently about something, an operation during the Second Great War.
Operation Market Garden
Operation Market Garden was a mission taken up by the Americans, British and Polish. Their mission was to take Arnhem and secure surrounding bridges in the Netherlands. Taking the bridge of Arnhem was supposed to stop Germany from pushing reinforcements across into the Netherlands. The British had pushed up to Arnhem shortly after a big drop of airborne troops had landed, 25,000 British Soldiers (correct me if I'm wrong). The British soon pushed up to Arnhem and took the bridge, they were supposed to hold it for four days awaiting XXX Corps to arrive which was an armoured division, they had taken a bit of as battering in a previous battle pushing up to the bridge so they thought it'd be too dangerous to enter Arnhem so they waited outside. As XXX Corps were pushing over a bridge to get to Arnhem the Germans weren't very good with explosives. They had set a fuse on all the support beams of a bridge they were crossing but the fuse failed and the armoured division safely made it across. The British held the bridge for longer than 4 days and the Germans attempted to make the British surrender. They kept pushing armoured troops over the bridge so they would soon run out of P.I.A.T ammunition. The P.I.A.T gun was a fairly short ranged weapon which was pretty powerful. Ammunition drops were found by German soldiers and it left the British to surrender as they had no ammo to fight with. Operation Market Garden was a failure. Today the bridge is named John Frost Bridge or John Frostbrug in Dutch because John Frost was the last man to be fighting on the bridge when he was shot in the shoulder and was injured and captured by Germans, he was taken to a German Hospital and was soon released later.
That's about all I know currently, I am still studying more about it though. I also heard that after the operation they decided to bomb the bridge? I am unsure of that though. A good film which will help is "A Bridge Too Far".
If I am wrong anyway please correct me below.
Operation Market Garden
Operation Market Garden was a mission taken up by the Americans, British and Polish. Their mission was to take Arnhem and secure surrounding bridges in the Netherlands. Taking the bridge of Arnhem was supposed to stop Germany from pushing reinforcements across into the Netherlands. The British had pushed up to Arnhem shortly after a big drop of airborne troops had landed, 25,000 British Soldiers (correct me if I'm wrong). The British soon pushed up to Arnhem and took the bridge, they were supposed to hold it for four days awaiting XXX Corps to arrive which was an armoured division, they had taken a bit of as battering in a previous battle pushing up to the bridge so they thought it'd be too dangerous to enter Arnhem so they waited outside. As XXX Corps were pushing over a bridge to get to Arnhem the Germans weren't very good with explosives. They had set a fuse on all the support beams of a bridge they were crossing but the fuse failed and the armoured division safely made it across. The British held the bridge for longer than 4 days and the Germans attempted to make the British surrender. They kept pushing armoured troops over the bridge so they would soon run out of P.I.A.T ammunition. The P.I.A.T gun was a fairly short ranged weapon which was pretty powerful. Ammunition drops were found by German soldiers and it left the British to surrender as they had no ammo to fight with. Operation Market Garden was a failure. Today the bridge is named John Frost Bridge or John Frostbrug in Dutch because John Frost was the last man to be fighting on the bridge when he was shot in the shoulder and was injured and captured by Germans, he was taken to a German Hospital and was soon released later.
That's about all I know currently, I am still studying more about it though. I also heard that after the operation they decided to bomb the bridge? I am unsure of that though. A good film which will help is "A Bridge Too Far".
If I am wrong anyway please correct me below.