Operation Market Garden | What went wrong?

"Victory has many fathers, defeat is an orphan" JFK.

"The matter was made worse for the 1st Airborne Division as its proportionate share of aircraft was the lowest of all the divisions. Browning denied their request for a larger allocation as the swift progress of the 2nd Army was judged to be of the greatest importance, and so the 101st Airborne Division, closest to the relieving troops, had priority on aircraft, followed by the 82nd Airborne Division and finally the 1st Airborne."
Pegasus Archive Browning

Market Garden failed because the Brits were (and are) so vain!!! The Brits didn't give a damn on Dutch recommondations before and during Market Garden. There was a ferry across the Wal the Brits didn't use because no one asked Dutch people on nearer information. Rule Britannia!!! (a German, living next to the Dutch border)

Landing on top of an SS Panzer Division……..not a good idea

There were no German forces in the Reichswald that Gavin was shelling and the Groesbeek heights secured and taken with little force and did not need the whole of the 82nd to do so . The landing zone for the second wave between Groesbeek and Reichswald had been quickleynsecured and HQ established .The delay in sending elements led by Warren under Lindquist on day 1 , allowed 10 Panzer at Arnhem to speed south to Nijmegen and occupy the town on the south bank of the Waal . Time lost at the Son had been made up by 30 Corps after intercepting radio messages that the bridge was lost and fotwarded Bailey equipment which was in place overnight . The 101st under Maxwell-Taylor had done an excellent job of achieving and maintaining their objectives throughout . On reaching Nijmegen on schedule , 30 Corps was now facing 10 Panzer that was not there before . The delay that resulted was insufferable.
The force eventually sent against the Groesbeek Heights on day 4 was an ad hoc KG made up of a hospital unit and injured infantry that were easily beaten back with very few casualties taken by the 82nd .
The orders for Lindquist to take the Bridge were clear on the 15th September and reinforced on the 17th . The report from Gavin stating Browning had agreed to prioritise the Heights was not produced by Gavin and was dated 5th October after the event and must be considered unreliable. In any case Gavin has subsequently blamed Lindquist for the failure . Regardless of what had ensued Gavin was in command and had failed to correctly allocate troops to achieve the directive.
The IWM has a responsibility to ensure history is correctly presented regardless of sensibilities.

"Mass glider landings can be a hazardous business to say the least. As men unloaded equipment from their gliders and began to move off the landing zone, they had to keep a wary eye behind them for gliders that were still landing. The prospect of such accidents appeared to be the only cause for concern, because although the standard procedure for disembarking from a glider calls for a rapid and defensive exit, there was such a lack of enemy activity that men calmly left their craft and went about their business as if they were on a training exercise in England."
Pegasus Archive Arnhem 5. The First Lift (Sunday 17th September)

Browning remained convinced that Market Garden was a sound plan which had been thwarted by bad luck. The incessant reference to the operation as a "failure" was a continual annoyance to him as the parts played by the two American airborne divisions had been a great success, and it angered him that they were never, in his lifetime, given due credit. In private correspondence he wrote "People don't seem to have been told that it [Arnhem] was only rather less than a third of the Airborne effort and the whole thing was 80% successful. The two US Airborne Divisions which I have the honour to command have done marvellously and if it hadn't been for the atrocious weather and sheer bad luck the whole thing would have been 100% successful which in war would have been phenomenal." He also said "I only wish that the exploits of the two American divisions and everyone else during those hectic days when we were holding the corridor open, fighting the battle against the Germans in the Reichswald and struggling to force a corridor to the 1st Division, might be more fully appreciated." Browning received no British recognition for the part that he played in the Battle, but he was, ironically considering his relations with both countries, honoured by the United States who awarded him the Legion of Merit, and by the Poles who gave him the Order of Polonia Restituta.
Pegasus Archive Browning

or a good history lesson video would be as to why when limey's ( Brits) were in charge of military operations with american troops did the limey's fail so badly

It failed because the radios failed.
Once the Allies and in particular
Ist Airborne were out of communication with each other.
It was tbe beginning of the end.
🇳🇱 🇺🇸 🇵🇱 🇬🇧

Monty should have been Demoted !

Montgomery was a terrible General and a waste ! Ike overlooked his faults in a effort to keep allied unity ! Treated him like a spoiled brat ! Market Garden was a major screw up ! The British Units were to slow to relieve the Paratroopers ! The only Battles Monty could ever Won , was when he out numbered the Germans 10 to !

why doe everyone keep blaming Monty for Market Garden , as I understand it Monty came up with the idea for operation Market Garden but he had nothing else to do with organising and planning it, in fact Monty cancelled operation COMET due to SS-Panzerkorps moving into the area, when American forces were added General Eisenhower had all detailed planning turned over to US General Lewis Brereton's 1st Allied Airborne Army staff, who adapted a previously cancelled air plan to the Liege-Maastricht bridges involving three divisions called Operation LINNET II, but mapped to the COMET drop zones and objectives. this erased massive amout of comets plans and objectives which meant less troops , less gliders , less suplies and no real planning, troops who were meant to in the original landings were not going to be sent in until day 3 , but they were cancelled. General Brereton had no experience in airborne operations , he had planned several such as LINNET I and LINNET II but they were considered so bad an officer threatend to resign and the plans got cancelled .
I am not a Britsh Fanboy , it is a fact of US Military record .

Making an advance of 9 bridges was a massive success

Market Garden probably should have been split up to ensure forces to succeed were available to seize one bridge after another with maybe a week between operations. More chance that the Germans would reinforce the remaining bridges or destroy them. If they did, then change the plans.

There was no surprise because fighter bombers and medium bombers attacked AA and other known and suspected positions hours before the landings.

The crossing of the Waal by the 82nd has to be one one of the bravest acts in modern military history....

Because it was led by Monty

Monty drank his own Kool-Aid (or Tea for you Brits) and believed he could ram an entire Corps down one road as if traffic jams and logistics don't exist.

If someone had shot Montgomery earlier in the war thousands would have been saved. Further in the middle of battles the British stop to have tea. We saved the British asses twice from Germany.

I don,t think it was a bridge to far ,if the rest of the army got up that on time the battle would have been won with ease.
The paras did grand job

The reason: Montgomery.

The main issue as far as I’m concerned is the dismissal of intelligence reports of Panzers in the immediate area,particularly with a concise description of the makeup of forces and the order of battle from Dutch sources, including the fact that the II SS Panzer Corps was refitting in the vicinity….thus laying the groundwork for failure even before a single paratrooper left the ground or a single British tank rolled forward…

Monty was an arrogant person but a a good Field Marshall, never understand however why the cock up w that was the battle of the bulge was not villfied in the same way as market garden, was equally a cock,

bad intelligence and ignoring intelligence they knew they would be dropping on 2 panzer divisions dont drop para's aka light infantry on armoured formations once again generals using their men like cow fodder for their reputation

Funny how all this is rubbish Bring up the ORBAT OF Operation of Market Garden Montgomery was not there His name is not on the ORBAT

This battle was the straw that broke the Camels back when it came to Eisenhower even remotely trusting Montgomery's battle plans for the remainder of the war.

That pompous prick Montgomery was so ashamed of seeing real generals like Patton outperforming him at every aspect that switched from his usual overcautios grinding doctirine to trying to show bravado planning a extremly daring operation which was almost a total failure, thousands of elite soldiers lost their lives only to try to soothe the ego of an english aristocrat.

Oh MY gOd TF2 reference !!1!1!1!1!1!1!1

It is astonishing during the Western Allies' Operation Market-Garden that ad-hoc German forces, Kampfgruppen, i.e., improvised "battle-groups," formed and centered around a few experienced, battle-hardened, and savvy army veterans but otherwise comprising army stragglers, Luftwaffe ground crews, teenage Kriegsmarine cadets, more teenage boys of the Hitlerjugend, and others, many of whom, if not most, had never been trained as infantry or even fired a shot in battle before Arnhem, could fight a British Airborne Division, the infantry elite of the British Army, to an absolute standstill and stop it dead in its tracks. It was certainly an extraordinary and tremendous feat of arms by these improvised, ad-hoc German formations. The Germans truly were remarkable soldiers.

Max Hastings in his excellent book Armageddon: the Battle for Germany, 1944-1945 gives a searing and comprehensive account of Operation Market-Garden and the Battle of Arnhem and in this chapter's source notes on the battle he gives acknowledgment to Robert J. Kershaw's "It Never Snows in September": the German View of MARKET-GARDEN and the Battle of Arnhem, September 1944 which now I shall have to read as I am so intrigued by the Germans' operations at Arnhem. I hope it gives a good, detailed, and comprehensive account of how the Germans accomplished this great feat of arms and triumphed at Arnhem with such hurriedly formed ad-hoc, improvised formations of mostly untrained and fully inexperienced personnel so late in the war.

the reason it failed can be answered in one word, Monty.

Les Pays-Bas et la Norvège étaient les pays les mieux défendus par les allemands.

Les anglos-américains ont très sous-estimés les forces qu'ils devaient affronter.

De plus, en face de Montgommery il y avait Model (le pompier d'Hitler).

Les Pays Bas n'ont été libéré qu'en avril ou mai 1945.

Montgomery was all about Montgomery. As is often said “pride comes before the fall.”

It's actually quite funny watching this and seeing yet another British attempt to lay blame elsewhere. The common excuse is alluded to here, that General Gavin didnt prioritize the Nijmegen bridge over the Groosbeek heights. The Heights had to be taken first. Had the Germans held the heights they could have just decimated any troops fighting in and around the bridge. It's not up for debate among military scholars at all. The heights first. Lets talk about the real reasons this operation failed:

1st, Montgomery held up the Canadian armored formation that was running up the coast just before they reached the Schelde. Had they capped the Schelde, it would have trapped the majority of the 15th Army on the peninsula, approximately 70,000 Germans. Instead this narrow access was left open, and many of the units that put pressure on the bridges came from this area. Big oops nobody ever talks about (because it was Montgomery's fault, and we never criticize Monty, right?).

General Browning felt that his HQ unit was needed near Nijmegen with the first drop. What? With the extreme shortage of transport units, Browning's HQ ate up almost a battalion's worth of air transport......for an HQ unit......on day 1. No wonder Gavin didnt have enough troops for both the bridge and the heights.

Montgomery, the 2nd most overrated general in the war (MacArthur easily 1st on the list. He wasnt just bad, he was a detriment to the US forces in the Pacific) is incapable of urgency, completely incapable. This is reflected in the performance of XXX Corps. My info is not from the movie, but the scene in the movie where Micheal Caine jokes about dragging his feet and arriving 'just in the nick of time' sums up the actions of XXX Corps during that operation. This is typical of a Montgomery led unit. I get a lot of flak (from Brits) for my take on Monty, but lets looks at his 'accomplishments'. Widely hailed as the 'winner of 2nd El Alamein' he showed up about a week before the battle as a replacement. The defenses were already set and his forces grossly outnumbered Rommel's. That victory is mainly due to the ANZAC forces who held the line a month before Monty even got there, allowing the reinforcements that followed to dig in in great defensive positions. That victory was sealed before Monty was ever a factor, but he's the hero of El Alamein (pause to let chuckles subside). Then there's Sicily, where Monty was Monty, dragging his feet, moving at a snails pace while the Americans took Palermo AND Messina against the bulk of the FJs, then ole' Monty claimed himself the hero again. Then there's Caen. targeted to be captured by June 7th, taken well into July with the typical Monty excuse of 'it was hard, they fought back'. Then there's MG, a bad plan to start with then executed poorly while Patton's tanks sat facing open country without any fuel. Good call.

If you want to argue Monty with me, please do, I've only scratched the surface here.

if an American General (say Patton or Abrams) or a German General instead of a British general perhaps it would have been a success.

I recall reading an account of Ike taking Monty on a tour of the battlefield at Gettysburg after his presidency. Ike showed Monty the open ground Pickett's Charge had to cover and asked him what he thought of the decision to order the charge. Monty responded that had he ordered such a futile and poorly planned out attack during WWII Ike would have been well within his rights to fire him on the spot. I wonder if Ike saw the irony in Monty's statement since Monty's ego would never allow him to link such a comment with Operation Market Garden.

But, Monty wasn't the only general in that war who made some bad tactical decisions. I listened to a former Marine who said if he would have been able to get his hands on the commanding general who ordered him and his platoon onto the beach at Tarawa he would have spent the rest of his short life on death row at Leavenworth. At the end of the day though the Nazi's were defeated but it was always going to be slog. Ask the Russians about that reality.

The American 82nd never attempted to take the Bridge. And there was no major counterattack from the forest. As for the attack across the river the crews of the canvas boats were British and although the Americans had to cross the river once the boat crews crossed it 14 or more times and suffered 50%+ casualties.

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Why it failed!?
When you plan to launch a military operation with 100,000 troops to penetrate almost 100 kilometers into the enemy's rear, and make such an operational plan that depends on whether you have completed it exactly to the minute, all you can expect from such a plan is... FAILURE!
Let it be a lesson that the next time you plan to set into motion such an army, let the unit of time be a day, or if you really want to be precise like the Japanese, let that unit of time be half a day, but never an hour, especially not a minute!

Let's see. Operation Overlord. Nine months of planning, led by Eisenhower's meticulous use of redundant airpower, intelligence, navel bombardment, misdirection, and multiple invasions. Operation market garden. A typical British Operation by Montgomery. Minimal planning, zero rehearsal, more fantasy than intelligence.. Ended up extending the war and Soviet gains.

A good plan takes into account contingencies to factor issues that could scuttle plans such as this. I imagine there was a lot of wishful thinking as well as overestimation of the para capabilities given the actual conditions on ground. Intelligence is often crucial, but perhaps too much trust was put into allied intelligence.

Industrial total warfare is not a finesse sport.

To characterize the efforts of the British forces at Arnhem as suffering from PTSD is truly cowardly. Those forces did everything they could to hold territory with lack of equipment and ammunition to simply say they were suffering from PTSD.

"The plan is the first casualty upon first contact with the enemy."

The bridge wasn't too far. The General was a war too late. Montgomery even had American reconnaissance units that forged ahead and made the link, but it was evening (breakfast, lunch, tea time, supper, tea time again, darkness), and Monty was the worst general possible to run this operation. He was good at static defense, and really nothing else (his whole career). In the midst of this, the airborne forces, American, British and Polish, performed spectacularly. General Gavin's 82nd Airborne's capture and holding of two remote bridgeheads against superior German forces on three flanks, was absolute textbook, giving Monty more than he deserved in the center. To what gain? Well, we can have that discussion over tea, I assume at your leisure.

On another note, my wife on seeing the movie and Maximilian Schell in his uniform reckons she'd have had no problems collaborating...bloody Wermacht officers 😏

It was Montgomery's plan. Unfortunately he was more concerned with not losing a battle rather than winning one

I'm going to say something to my friends who have commented on this video that will be controversial, but from my studies of WWII I don't believe Operation Market Garden was ever meat to be, or going to be a total success. However, it was far from a total failure. The Allies were able to secure the port at Antwerp for supplies for the winter & open a huge new front against the Germans which eventually led to the Battle of the Bulge & the end of WWII. The allies & Montgomery made the decision & put mostly British forces in harm's way just as they did on D Day by landing in Caen. Operation Market Garden gave the Allies multiple ways to resupply & keep pouring the pressure on the German High Command. It wasn't a popular battle plan because it led to so many casualties, but it was the right & necessary thing to do to win the war. It had to be done.