Hold on. Hold on until the tanks relieve you. Hold on without reinforcement or resupply.
Hold on until victory. Except there won’t be a victory. This battle is lost. It was
lost days ago. You’re just holding on until someone decides to get you out. Such was the
fate of the British Paras at Oosterbeek. Info graphic
Last time we saw the Poles drop at Driel and cause the Germans to shift their focus south
of Arnhem. The corridor was cut at Veghel and the British attacks in the North stalled.
The Germans at Oosterbeek pounded the British paras whilst the Red Devils held on inside
the Witches Cauldron. This time, we’re going to cover the last
few days of Operation Market Garden, starting from the 23rd of September and ending on the
26th. You’ll be surprised to learn that the remaining
airborne reinforcements flew in on the 23rd of September. Yes! 7 days after the beginning
of the Operation, the Poles received the rest of their Brigade that hadn’t taken off two
days previously. The 101st and the 82nd also received additional reinforcements, including
an entire regiment, the 325th Glider Infantry, that landed at Nijmegen.
With additional reinforcements, the Allies pushed Kampfgruppe Walther back towards Gemert
in the evening of the 23rd. Defeated it may have been, but Kampfgruppe Walther had cut
Hell’s Highway for 36 hours. Unfortunately, Walther was now in a poor position to attack
the corridor once more, since British VIII Corps was now in Deurne. Over the next couple
of days, it would withdraw to Boxmeer and would play no further part in the battle.
On the 24th however, Kampfgruppe Huber, on the other side of Hell’s Highway, attacked
towards Veghel. This Kampfgruppe was weaker than Walther, consisting of perhaps four Fallschirmjager
battalions backed up by Jagdpanther tank destroyers. But the Germans had done their reconnaissance.
They’d found gaps in the American lines. Striking into Eerde from Schijndel, the German
Jagdpanthers annihilated British tanks supported by American paratroopers. Several Shermans
were taken out, and trucks burst into flames on Hell’s Highway itself. Now, whilst the
Germans hadn’t got to the road, they had prevented traffic from flowing north. Once
again the corridor was cut. Worse, another force from Kampfgruppe Huber attacked towards
Koevering the next day. Ambushing vehicles on the road, Fallschirmjager did enough damage
to cut the road again. Fifty vehicles were destroyed and the road was blocked here until
the 26th - day 10 of Operation Market Garden - and basically the end.
On the 24th, Day 8 of the Operation, a meeting was held at Valburg between Horrocks, Browning,
Thomas and Sosabowski to decide what to do. Sosabowski pointed out that sending reinforcements
into Oosterbeek was pointless. A major crossing could not be mounted
because XXX Corps was stretched
too thin and had logistical troubles in the south. Instead, Horrocks decided
that small crossings would have to continue for the time being. Interestingly, he told
Sosabowski that if he didn’t like the idea, he would be relieved of his command. Yes,
Horrocks was under pressure, but it may seem a little odd that Sosabowski was threatened
with resignation. I’ll go into more detail as to why there was a distrust of the Polish
commander in the next, and final episode of the series. But either way, on the night of
the 24th, more assault boats arrived and 300 men, mostly Poles got into Oosterbeek - a
lot were killed trying to make the crossing. With the corridor cut further south, XXX Corps
struggled to press on towards Oosterbeek. On the evening of the 23rd, 130th Brigade
finally reached the Poles at Driel, making this the first substantial connection XXX
Corps had with the forces fighting on the Rhine. They still fought the Germans at Elst
and Bemmel and would take Opheusden by the 26th.
Even with a 300 man reinforcement, and the arrival (at last!) of Allied fighter bombers
from the 23rd onwards, the situation in Oosterbeek during the last few days of the Operation
remained bleak. Despite being assaulted by tanks, grenades, and a host of other weapons,
including flamethrowers - specially requested by German commanders and ordered in by Model
himself - somehow 1st Airborne continued to hold on. It was joked at the time that the
British used German weapons - since their ammunition had run out - and the Germans used
British weapons, since their own logistics were strained and they were getting resupplied
by the Allies via the drop zones. And the Germans still didn’t have enough troops
to deliver a decisive blow on the Cauldron. Worse, the troops that the Germans did have
were suffering high casualties as they tried to storm each of the British strong points,
since the defence of Oosterbeek was now a series of strong points rather than a continuous
line. German commanders were angry that their troops were losing as many tanks as they were.
The reason for the losses was because the German infantry weren’t trained and were
few in number, and because there was a shortage of radios amongst the Germans. British AT
tank guns and infantry managed to knock out numerous German vehicles, including Sturmgeschutz
Self-Propelled guns and even some Panther tanks. Surprisingly, the German Konigstiger
- or King Tiger tanks - weren’t that effective at Oosterbeek due to the narrow terrain which
took off their tracks and prevented their turrets from turning. This was of little comfort
to the British, who didn’t realise that the Germans were reorganising their lines.
The Germans pulled in all their veterans from the various kampfgruppen that surrounded the
British pocket, and put them on the Eastern side.
It was hoped that this reorganisation would enable the Germans to pierce the British perimeter
and bring about the end of British resistance. An attack was mounted in the afternoon of
the 25th, and actually penetrated the British lines. Somehow the British managed to stop
the Germans, who’s attack lost momentum quickly, due to fierce resistance and a huge
amount of British artillery. The British called in artillery and (finally) airstrikes on the
Germans to stall the attacks, whilst the Germans used Nebelwerfers - rocket artillery to pound
the British into submission. A lot of British prisoners taken in these critical days were
shell shocked by these strikes. Water and medical supplies were all but gone, and truces
had to be called to evacuate the wounded to German hospitals in Arnhem. Thousands of British
troops would end up as prisoners of war for this reason, perhaps as many as 6000 at the
end of the battle. Having hung on for nine days, the Paras were
finished. On the evening of the 25th, a plan to withdraw across the Rhine was put in place
and the paratroopers crossed the Rhine in small boats throughout the night, under the
cover of artillery fire. By the early morning of the 26th, the evacuation was over and the
survivors of 1st Airborne met at Driel. Just 1,741 of 1st Airborne had made it to Allied
lines. The rest of the 10,000 that had dropped into the Arnhem area were either killed, wounded
and/or captured. In contrast, the Germans had lost around 3,000 men in the Arnhem sector.
Another German attack went in on the 26th… and found no resistance. The Germans were
surprised. All they found were dead bodies and weapons. The British had gone! Yes, the
field hospitals were full, but it dawned on them that the British had withdrawn overnight.
They had succeeded. They’d defeated the British. They’d won.
And thus ended Operation Market Garden. It was day 10 now after the battle had begun
and at best you could probably call it a draw, but really it was a defeat for the Allies.
The British had failed to cross the Rhine, their ultimate objective, and although the
Allied troops had fought heroically throughout the battle, they’d tried to go a Bridge
Too Far. Total losses for both sides vary, depending on which source you use. It’s
safe to assume that German losses were somewhere around six to nine thousand men, although
the actual number may never be known. Allied losses may be as high as 17,000, with around
half of them, over 8,000, being from 1st Airborne alone.
But this series isn’t over yet. We have one more main episode to go. And it’s a
biggy. The question we’re going to ask, and I’ll ask you guys now is, who was to
blame for the failure of Operation Market Garden? Comment below and let me know.
We’ve seen what happened. We’ve watched the battle unfold. Now we get to decide who
should take the blame for this defeat. We will find out next time. And there will also
be additional supplementary episodes in the near future covering things I couldn’t cover
in the main narrative so stay tuned. Thanks for watching, thanks for subscribing, bye
for now.