In May 1945 it was the Russians who hoisted their flag over the ruins of the Reichstag building in Berlin. In this way World War Two, in Europe, was signalled as being effectively over. However, the troops who captured Berlin could easily have been British or American, if events around a small town in Holland had turned out differently.
If Operation Market Garden, planned to take place in the area near Arnhem, in Holland, had succeeded, the western Allies could have punched their way across one of the last great natural barriers between them and the German fatherland.
Their tanks and troops might have reached Berlin weeks before the Russians, ending the war by Christmas 1944. The fate of post-war Europe might have been very different.
The glittering triumph of the D-Day landings in France had become bogged down in the slow and costly progress through the Normandy fields and hedgerows ...
Market Garden was one of the boldest plans of World War Two. Thirty thousand British and American airborne troops were to be flown behind enemy lines to capture the eight bridges that spanned the network of canals and rivers on the Dutch/German border.
At the same time, British tanks and infantry were to push up a narrow road leading from the Allied front line to these key bridges. They would relieve the airborne troops, and then cross the intact bridges.
The plan was conceived by General Bernard Montgomery, commander of the British forces in Europe. The glittering triumph of the D-Day landings in France had become bogged down in the slow and costly progress through the Normandy fields and hedgerows, which the Germans defended with skill and tenacity.
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