After the retreat from Oosterbeek, General Roy Urquhart reported on the progress of the battle at Arnhem and Oosterbeek at the headquarters of Field Marshal Montgomery. The next morning, before leaving Montgomery headquarters, Urquhart saw Montgomery come out of his caravan. He waved a letter. “I wanted to give it to you,” he said to… Keep Reading
Nowadays, the image of Montgomery has been adjusted considerably downwards, but in early September 1944, Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery was at the height of his fame. Montgomery was the hero of El Alamein. He was the British commander who had driven the Germans out of Africa, and after D-Day he was the one to defeat… Keep Reading
One Dutch soldier was involved during the Battle of Arnhem. Captain Jacob “Jaap” Groenewoud was added as a liaison officer to the headquarters of the 1st Parachute Brigade. Jacob Groenewoud was killed on Tuesday September 19 near the park near the Rhine bridge that now bears his name: the Jacob Groenewoudplantsoen. Groenewoud was an a-typical… Keep Reading
One of the last British officers to escape from captivity after the Battle of Arnhem is Scottish Colonel Graeme Warrack. Warrack headed the medical department of the British paratroopers in Oosterbeek. In February 1945 he managed to reach the Allied lines via the Biesbosch in the west of the Netherlansds with the help of Dutch… Keep Reading
There are still many myths circulating about the Battle of Arnhem for so many decades afterwards. One of those myths is that Operation Market Garden aimed to liberate (the north of) the Netherlands. In reality, the liberation of the Netherlands played no role whatsoever in drawing up the plans for Market Garden. The British field… Keep Reading
There are still many myths circulating about the Battle of Arnhem for so many decades afterwards. One of those myths is that Operation Market Garden failed because the Germans acquired the original plans for Market Garden. Because the Germans knew what the Allies were planning, they could anticipate this in advance. The British and Americans… Keep Reading
There are still many myths circulating about the Battle of Arnhem for so many decades afterwards. One of those myths is the “betrayal” by King Kong. King Kong was the nickname of Christiaan Lindemans, a Dutch double agent. Immediately after the loss of the Battle of Arnhem, it was rumored that the plans for Operation… Keep Reading
There are still many myths circulating about the Battle of Arnhem for so many decades afterwards. One of those myths is that Allied tanks could have driven undisturbed to the Rhine Bridge in Arnhem on Wednesday evening, September 20, without major opposition. If the Allies had done that, they would have been able to relieve… Keep Reading
There are still many myths circulating about the Battle of Arnhem for so many decades afterwards. One of those myths is that the plans for Operation Market Garden had no role whatsoever for the German airbase Deelen, just north of Arnhem. Fliegerhorst Deelen was built by the Germans in 1940 as part of Germany’s air… Keep Reading
There are still many myths circulating about the Battle of Arnhem for so many decades afterwards. One of those myths is that Arnhem suffered the greatest war damage during the fighting between the English and Germans in September 1944. The myth that the fights during the Battle of Arnhem were responsible for the destruction arose… Keep Reading