A Bridge Too Far.

Authors Avatar

   A Bridge Too Far.  

Background

On September 17th 1944 operation Market Garden began. First Allied Airborne Troops landed near Arnhem, Nijmegan and Eidhoven to seize a number of bridges in Holland (market) and allow the British 2nd army to enter Germany in an attempt to bring a quick end to the war in Europe (Garden).

Strategy

There were three main rivers with bridges to secure to allow the 2nd army to cross, River Maas at Grave, River Waal at Nijmegan and the River Rhine at Arnhem. This project looks at the Arnhem battle “a Bridge Too far”.

   There were 35,000 men committed to market and approximately 11,000 were dropped at Arnhem Bridge.

   There were 6,500 paratroopers (1st and 4th parachute brigade and 1st independent Polish parachute brigade) and 5,500 soldiers from Air landing brigade (landing by gliders).

  There were 519 aircrafts, 161 C47 Dakotas (for the paratroopers) and 358 gliders (air landing).

   The RAF would only drop the men away from Arnhem because of crew risks and gliders could only land away from Arnhem because of ground conditions. Also the U.S flying pilots couldn’t fly at night so drops had to spread over 3 days.

Join now!

  The paratroopers had got food and ammunition for 2 days, to last until 2nd army’s support arrived.

The Battle

 

  The Paratroopers began to assemble into Dakotas (some of the army got into gliders) and they were transported to Arnhem.

 Some gliders crashed, some parachutes failed to open and German soldiers shot at them on decent but enough survived to carry out the necessary task. The remaining men headed off to town to secure the bridge.

 Bill, Harry (two soldiers) and some others set off on a road into town. Suddenly a Tank crashed through a ...

This is a preview of the whole essay