On Sunday, September 17, the first day of Operation Market Garden, a total of 3 battalions of the 1st Parachute Brigade advanced to Arnhem. Only the 2nd Battalion led by John Frost reached the bridge in Arnhem that evening. The 3rd battalion stopped at the Hartenstein hotel in Oosterbeek. The 1st Battalion fought the heaviest…
It was a mighty metal construction from 1897: the railway bridge over the Rhine at Oosterbeek. Capturing this bridge was one of the objectives given to the 2nd Battalion of the 1st Parachute Brigade under the leadership of Colonel John Frost during the airborne landings. They had almost succeeded and it had drastically changed the…
On the first day of Market Garden, three British paratrooper battalions advanced from the landing areas at Wolfheze to Arnhem. The third battalion under Colonel John Fitch had been ordered to take the road to Arnhem via the Utrechtseweg. The majority of the battalion did not get further than the Hartenstein hotel in Oosterbeek on…
Even before all British troops had landed west of Wolfheze on Sunday, September 17, the troops of the German 9th and 10 SS Armored Divisions had already been alerted. To immediately clear up a major misunderstanding: the two armored divisions stationed near Arnhem had almost no tanks and mechanical artillery. Combined, the two divisions only…
While at the Elisabeth Gasthuis four British battalions with more than 1,500 soldiers tried to break through in the direction of the Rhine Bridge, General Shan Hackett’s 4th Parachute Brigade tried to reach Arnhem from the north side. During their advance to Arnhem on the evening of Monday, September 18, the 10th Battalion and the…
Part of the Polish Airborne Brigade landed near Arnhem on Tuesday, September 19. The Poles found themselves in the middle of heavy fighting between the British and Germans around the landing site. Originally, the entire 1st Polish Airborne Brigade was supposed to land near Arnhem that day. But because the weather was too bad at…
Barely a day after the 4th Parachute Brigade led by General Shan Hackett landed on the Ginkelse Heide near Ede, the combat power of the brigade had been halved. On Tuesday morning, September 19, the 156th Battalion carried out an attack on the German Sperrline on the Dreijenseweg, between Oosterbeek station and Amsterdamseweg. The much…
On Tuesday, September 19, the British had tried to reach the Rhine Bridge in Arnhem from Oosterbeek and from the Bovenover-Onderlangs intersection in Arnhem. The British suffered major losses in both attacks. In addition to many deaths and injuries, hundreds of British paratroopers had been forced to surrender to the Germans. After the failure of…
The remnants of the four battalions that had tried to break through to the Rhine Bridge via the Utrechtseweg and the Onderlangs on Tuesday, September 19, had withdrawn in a chaotic retreat to Oosterbeek. Under the leadership of Major Dickie Lonsdale, they formed a defensive position a few hundred meters east of the Oude Kerk…
During the first days of Operation Market Garden, the British at Arnhem were unable to make contact with the headquarters in Nijmegen. The British had the wrong radios with them, which made connections difficult. On Thursday morning, September 21, one of the British radio operators finally managed to make contact with the artillery of the…