Operation Market Garden Failure

With German forces on the run following the Allied success at Normandy and the breakout and pursuit across France, Allied forces were staged to enter Germany in late summer 1944. Both Field Marshal Montgomery and General Bradley clamored to be given the priority of effort. General Eisenhower chose Montgomery’s Operation MARKET GARDEN as the plan for action. It called for airborne forces to open the route for a ground force to move more than sixty miles up a single road, ending up north of the Rhine River near Arnhem, Netherlands. By accomplishing this task, the German Ruhr industrial heartland would be within easy grasp. But the operation failed. The ground force

According to Sun Tzu’s book, The Art of War, he states, “All war is based on deception” (“D-Day as a Parable”). The Allied Invasion of Normandy, code named Operation Overlord, on June 6, 1944, was considered the most decisive and deceptive battle in Western Europe between the Allied and the Axis powers. The Allies were led by Britain, France, and the United States in the Western front and the Soviet Union in the Eastern front. The Axis powers were led by Germany, Italy, and Japan, but the Normandy Invasion was only against the Nazi regime in the German controlled parts of Western Europe. In order to prevent Germany from obtaining more land in Russia and Western Europe it was necessary for the Allied forces to open a second front at

Operation Overlord, or the D-Day invasion as it came to be known, was the operational codename for the Allied Invasion of Western France in June 1944. Operation Overlord was preceded by Operation Neptune, which included the buildup of forces on the British mainland, as well as the movement of men and material across the English Channel and the landing itself. These operations involved 39 military Divisions consisting of over 1.5 million men that required 16 million tons of supplies- including 137,000 trucks, 4200 tanks, 3500 artillery pieces, and 12,000 aircraft; not to mention over 5,000 ships of every kind imaginable.2 Operation Overlord was largely a success, and constituted the beginning of the end for the Nazi war machine in Europe.

The Battle of Normandy was a pivotal moment of World War II in Europe. It outlined Germany's last chance to end the war on any favorable terms. However, a type of invasion of this magnitude took two years in the making strategically planning every significant moment and movement appeared to be an overwhelming task for the allied forces. Execution of the war had commenced, in late August 1944, three months after D-Day started our troops were in control of the battlefield and defeat was imminent a year later. Here begins the Battle of Normandy also known as Operation Overlord. (McManus, 2013)

One of Field Marshall Montgomery’s main objectives was the capture of the port city of Antwerp. The Allies wanted to use the port as a supply base for the final push into Germany. Field Marshall Montgomery preferred a single Allied front along his path into Germany, while US General Omar Bradley preferred a broad front advance. Unfortunately, the Low Countries had a political objective as well; protecting London. The Germans were launching their V-1 and V-2 rockets at London from Belgium. Bradley preferred a broad front advance because if the Third Army was able to advance quickly enough past Metz and Nancy to the West Wall, which was unmanned at the time, Patton could capture the Saar industrial area. Plus using a broad front would force the Germans to spread their forces out along their entire front, reducing resistance.

     The object of the German offensive was to push through the Belgian Ardennes, cross the Mousse, retake Antwerp and its harbor facilities, thrust to the north and reach the sea which they almost succeed in doing. This would cut off the Allied troops in Holland and Belgium, making it impossible for them to withdraw. The success of the operation depended on three important

“The battle [is also] known by different names. The Germans [called it] ‘Operation Watch on the Rhine’, while the French [called] it ‘Battle of the Ardennes’. [American and Britain] called it the Ardennes Counteroffensive.” The main goal for the Germans for this offensive was to split the British and American forces in half and capture the port city of Antwerp. This would “cause an encirclement of four allied armies and [force] a peace negotiation” (Cirillo). The Germans almost had complete surprise when the offensive was launched on “December 16th, 1944, at 05:30” and the offensive start with “an artillery barrage of over 1,600 artillery pieces.” The assault took place across an “80 mile front [that] the 6th Panzer Army had to cover” (Quarrie 1). “The attack was led by one of the best equipped German divisions on the western front, the 1st SS Panzer Division.” This was the lead unit for the 6th Panzer Army and was the lead division for the assault. The 26th Infantry was covering the part of the front where the push started. They were caught completely by surprise. “Equipped with only 32 M4 tanks, 57 anti-tank guns and thousands of battle-weary men” (MacDonald 1). The initial assault went well for the Germans and they break through the thinly defended American lines. Just “20 hours in [from the start of the assault] German forces are just 55 miles out from their objective”. By this time the casualty rate is below from what the

The Dutch. The ground force commanders were too optimistic about their ability to push north on the timeline the planners established. With only one road to move north on and no room to maneuver, XXX Corps faced the possibility of grinding to a complete halt if their leading elements were unable to fight their way through the German defenses. This happened every day of the operation and put the armor column behind schedule just hours after the start of Garden. With terrain limiting the ability of the Guards Armored to maneuver their tanks to defeat German tanks and armored vehicles they conceded two principles of war; maneuver and mass. Without maneuvering, the tank column was never able to keep the enemy off balance or confront them with new dangers (Department of the Army, 2008). The Germans knew by the end of the first day what the Allied intentions were and with only one

This involved getting British tanks across the Rhine River and into Germany so that the Allies could continue their push against the Germans (Ambrose 179). After only ten days in Holland, the operation had ultimately failed. The failure was attributed with the Allies being outmanned, fighting elite German troops, and bad coordination between American infantry and British tanks (Ambrose 213). The rest of their time in Holland was spent on the front line. Eventually, they got to return to France to rest, and after awhile, were sent into Bastogne, Belgium to help with a counterattack against the Germans, who had surrounded the Allies as a part of the Battle of the Bulge.

WWII was a very brutal war, but The Battle of Normandy changed it for us. This was the turning point in the war. To prepare for this fight the Allies decided to increase the air strikes and bombings to slow down the German army, who had been trying to take over France at the time. This battle was set for June 5th, but actually took place on June 6, 1944 at exactly 6:30 a.m, when the weather was supposed to be the calmest, and ended on June 30, 1944. The Allies wanted to “end Hitler’s dream of Nazi denomination”(www.dday.org). This invasion is known as “one of the largest and amphibious military assaults in history and required extensive planning.”(www.history.com). The Allies decided that they wanted to “trick” the Germans into thinking that they were going to land somewhere else north of Normandy, which made it a surprise attack. Hitler decided to put his troops more up North because that’s where he believed the Allies were going to land. Not only were the beaches raided, but concentration camps as well.

Early on the misty winter morning of Dec. 16, 1944, more than 200,000 German troops and nearly 1,000 tanks launched Adolf Hitler's last bid to reverse the flow out/decline/get worse fortunes that had begun when allied troops landed in France on D-Day. Trying to drive to the coast of the English Channel and split the allied armies as they had done in May 1940, the Germans struck in the Ardennes Forest, a 75-mile stretch of the front seen as dense woods and few roads, held by four inexperienced and fight-worn American divisions placed/assigned therefor rest and seasoning.

The Battle of the Bulge stands as the largest battle fought between the Allied and Axis forces on the Western Front during World War II. This battle was a German offensive intended to drive a wedge between the American and British armies in France and the Low Countries and capture the port of Antwerp in the Netherlands to deny the Allies use of the port facilities. The battle also known as the Ardennes Offensive, took place in the Ardennes Forest of Luxembourg and Belgium. The battle waged during the brutal winter months between December 16, 1944, and January 16, 1945.

The Battle of the Bulge also known as “Ardennes Offensive”, started on December 16, 1944. The Battle of the bulge, is significantly known as what ruined the German army and brought about the end of the war. The battle got its name from poorly protected stretch of hilly, woody forest “bulge” that Germans made between its allies. Hitler used this area of 80-mile dense forest, believing that his forces would be able to surround and cut off

Launched on 31 July 1917, the British & Canadian offensive in Flanders had aimed to drive the Germans away from the essential Channel Ports and to eliminate U-Boat bases on the coast. But unceasing rain and shellfire reduced the battlefield to a vast bog of bodies, water-filled shell craters, and mud in which the attack ground to a halt.