Lieutenant Colonel John Frost is the face of the Battle of Arnhem. Frost led the 2nd Battalion of the 1st Parachute Brigade during the battle. From Sunday, September 17 to Wednesday, September 20, the paratroopers of this battalion occupied the northern ramp of the Rhine Bridge before they were forced to stop fighting. Born in…
When Major General Roy Uquhart was told in January 1944 that he was nominated as the new commander of the 1st British Airborne Division, he was just as surprised as the British para-troopers he had to lead. Urquhart, a tall 42-year-old Scotsman, had no experience whatsoever with airborne troops. In fact, Urquhart hated flying. He…
British General Frederick “Boy” Browning was a man who undeniably had many qualities. Before and during Operation Market Garden, however, it was mainly his faults that affected the outcome of the fighting. Historians are almost unanimous in their conclusion that Browning’s decisions contributed greatly to Market Garden’s failure. Browning was a professional soldier who went…
Difficult, stubborn, unmanageable, passionate. Polish General Stanislaw Sosabowski was it all. But he is not responsible for the defeat at Arnhem, as the British have claimed for decades. In fact, many of the insights General Sosabowski presented before and during Operation Market Garden turned out to be correct. Sosabowski and the Polish Parachute Brigade have…
When speaking of the German commanders responsible for the Allied defeat at Arnhem, it often refers to Field Marshal Walter Model and General Wilhelm Bittrich. Less attention is paid to Obersturmbannführer Walter Harzer. Yet it was Harzer’s troops that ultimately defeated the British Airborne Division. Harzer led the 9th SS Armored Division Hohenstaufen as Obersturmbannführer…
SS General Wilhelm Bittrich, Willi for friends, was the general who led the 9th and 10th SS Armored Division who were stationed in the Arnhem region when Operation Market Garden started. In his role of commander of the 2nd SS Armored Corps, which included the 9th and 10th Armored Divisions, Bittrich was the first German…
She didn’t like the title herself, but Kate ter Horst was ‘the angel of Arnhem’ for the English soldiers. During the Battle of Arnhem, the 38-year-old mother cared for hundreds of wounded soldiers in the dressing station that was set up at her home in Oosterbeek. Kate ter Horst came to live with her husband…
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…
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…
