There are many myths about the battle for Arnhem and Operation Market Garden. Historians of the battle have often been tempted into the ‘if-only’ trap. If only this, or if only that, had been different, then it would all have turned out to be a brilliant success. This cherry-picking of faults is a grave distraction from the harsh fact that Market Garden was a perfect example of how not to plan an airborne operation.
Market Garden was one of the greatest Allied disasters of the Second World War – immortalised in the 1977 film A Bridge Too Far. The plan was for Allied paratroopers and land forces to launch a combined attack, which would break through German defences in the Netherlands. Beginning on 17 September 1944, it ended in failure just a week later, resulting in thousands of casualties. The British airborne troops who spearheaded the assault suffered particularly badly in their doomed attempt to capture the bridge in the Dutch town of Arnhem.
