The Royal Air Force and Operation Market Garden: Chapter 3

The Assault, Sunday 17 September 1944

‘No plan ever survives first contact with the enemy.’
Field Marshal Helmut von Moltke (1890)

Direct RAF support for Market Garden started on the night of 16/17 September 1944, when 200 Lancasters and 23 Mosquitoes of 1 and 8 Groups, Bomber Command, based in England, bombed 4 Luftwaffe airfields in the battle area, whilst 54 Lancasters and 8 Mosquitoes bombed flak [Flieger Abwehr Kanonen – Anti Aircraft Artillery] batteries. Runways of all the airfields were cratered but no direct damage was caused to the flak guns. Losses were 2 Lancasters which, in the brutal officialese of the day ‘failed to return’.

During the morning, Mosquitoes of 2 Group, Bomber Command, and 500 B 17 Flying Fortresses of US 8th Air Force attacked flak batteries along the trooping routes. Before the aerial armada reached Holland, Typhoons of 83 Group, 2nd Tactical Air Force (2TAF) attacked targets around the area British Army XXX Corps was to assault that afternoon.

RAF Down Ampney – gliders and tugs

The morning of Sunday 17 September 1944 saw the largest air armada of troop-carrying aircraft ever known. From 0945 British Double Summer Time, taking off from airfields all across southern England were almost 5,000 fighters, bombers, transports and 2,500 gliders – troop carriers and gliders alone using 25 airfields – so many aircraft that the last departed some 21/4 hours later.

A Handley Page Halifax towing an Airspeed Horsa

The list of types involved reads like a fantasy Airfix catalogue: troop-carriers – Douglas Dakota and Armstrong-Whitworth Albermarle of 38 Group RAF, supplemented by C 47 of the Ninth Air Force; 46 Group providing glider tugs – Short Stirling and Handley Page Halifax; fighter escorts of the RAF’s Air Defence Great Britain (that part of Fighter Command not assigned to 2TAF and remaining in Britain) – Supermarine Spitfires, Hawker Tempests and Typhoons, de Havilland Mosquitoes.

A Douglas Dakota

Plus the American Eighth and Ninth Air Forces contributing Lockheed P 38 Lightning, Republic P 47 Thunderbolt and the superlative North American P 51 Mustang. Not forgetting Horsa, Waco and Hamilcar gliders, the last being able to lift lorries, artillery and even light tanks. Below them, near ground level, were more Mosquitoes of 2 Group shooting up flak batteries and other German defences.

US IX Troop Carrier Command conveyed British paratroopers to Arnhem

In all, 20,000 men, 511 vehicles (mainly the ubiquitous Jeep), 330 artillery pieces and 590 tons of stores were loaded that day.

Topographical model Arnhem and Drop/Landing Zones to west. 75/M/1292

At 12.40pm the parachute pathfinders, with Eureka homing transmitters, were dropping at Arnhem to mark the Landing Zones for the first gliders, which started arriving at 13.00 and by 14.00, parachutists were descending into their own designated Drop Zones. Some things went awry early. 24 gliders were down even before reaching the English Channel: tow ropes snapping; tug aircraft losing power; collision in cloud. And a further 5 ditched in the North Sea, where Walrus amphibian aircraft and RAF Air Sea Rescue launches were waiting for them.

General Aircraft Hamilcar landing

The Operations Record Book for 46 Group notes that they despatched 130 Dakotas, each towing a Horsa glider: 11 gliders cast off in cloud (being unable to see their respective tugs) and 6 for mechanical problems. Of these, 15 landed safely in England but 2 ditched at sea, all personnel being safely rescued by ASR launches. The load delivered to the Landing Zones was 1,517 troops, 90 motorcycles, 12 wireless sets, 80 hand carts, 82 bicycles and 1 cooker.

Hamilcar disgorging Vickers light tank

At Arnhem, two massive Hamilcars landed on soft ground, their wheels dug in and the gliders flipped over onto their backs, killing all on board and destroying vital anti-tank guns, 3-ton trucks and ammunition. Of the 320 gliders destined for Arnhem, 36 were lost.

Green on. Go!

In all, 5,200 men arrived at Arnhem that afternoon where, after landing, they had two immediate tasks: an advance party to race in Jeeps and on folding motor-cycles and pedal cycles the 8 miles from the landing areas to secure the railway bridge, a pontoon bridge and finally the massive road bridge; larger formations having to force-march on foot – an 8-hour slog and battling on the way. Simultaneously, other troops had to secure the Drop/Landing Zones designated for the arrival of the follow-on forces and resupply deliveries on the following days.

Air landing and Paratroops congregate AIR 14/3650

The race to the bridge was to be on three separate routes (‘Lion’, ‘Tiger’ and ‘Leopard’), each on one of three highways. They were, though, dogged by problems from the very outset: although few gliders had been lost on the long flight, some of those that did fall carried armed jeeps, vital for the high-speed sprint to the bridge.

Crucially, the assumption that the Germans were weak and disorganised was very soon shattered: their reaction was swift and decisive, blocking two routes. Adding to the confusion, radios did not work, preventing communications between the advancing bridge party and headquarters’ staff at the DZ/LZ; and the cab-rank radios – mounted on curiously named ‘jeep tentacles’ operated by US troops – were on the wrong frequency so could not call in any Typhoon strikes.

War comes to a Dutch cottage garden AIR 14/3650

As a consequence, only about 740 troops, a third of the force assigned, reached the bridge and were promptly isolated from the landing areas. And the Germans blew the rail bridge and pontoon before British 1st Airborne Division (1 A/B) reached them. At dusk, British troops occupied the northern end of the road bridge, and the Germans the southern.

Sixty five miles to the south, 2TAF had been grounded as the troop carriers passed over, for fear of identification mistakes by their 8AF fighter escorts. But, as the last of the air armada passed over, at 1415 hrs Double British Summer Time, British Army XXX Corps set off towards Arnhem to relieve the airborne forces, along the single-track road on high embankments, where they were immediately engaged by German anti-tank weapons which destroyed the leading nine tanks. 2 TAF flew a total of 550 sorties, including 233 by Typhoons on a ‘cab-rank’ system directed by radio by RAF Forward Air Controllers in a scout car, radio call-sign ‘Winecup’, alongside the tanks, on hand to clear the route and TacR (tactical reconnaissance) Mustang I aircraft, flying ahead, reporting direct to General Horrocks at his mobile British Army XXX Corps Headquarters.

Horrocks had planned to reach the American 101st Airborne at Eindhoven and its major bridge within 3 hours of the assault (i.e. by around 1600) but by nightfall, they were only half way along the 14 miles and were forced to halt at Valkenswaard. Montgomery’s promise to relieve 1 A/B in two days was already slipping. And the Germans had already blown the Son bridge.

Author’s Note: RAF Museum has very kindly provided access to documents and photographs but the views expressed herein are the author’s alone.

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND FURTHER READING

• 2nd Tactical Air Force: Volume Two Breakout to Bodenplatte, Christopher Shores and Chris Thomas: Classic/Ian Allan 2004
• A Bridge Too Far cinema film directed by Joseph Levene, directed by Richard Attenborough Released by United Artists 1977
• A Bridge Too Far, Cornelius Ryan; Hamish Hamilton 1974
• Airborne Operations Air Historical Branch Air Ministry 1951
• Battle for Arnhem Pitkin Guide
• Bomber Command War Diaries Martin Middlebrook and Chris Everitt, Viking/Penguin 1985
• CAB 106/962 Report on operation “Market Garden”, the airborne operations at Arnhem 1944 Sept. 17-26.
• Holts Battlefield Guides: Market-Garden Corridor; Tonie and Valerie Holt Leo Cooper in association with Secker and Warburg 1984
• Overlord, Max Hastings; Michael Joseph 1984
• RAF Historical Society Journal 40 2007
• Slag om Arnhem/Theirs is the Glory’ filmed 1945 distributed by Airborne Museum Hartenstein, Oosterbeek, Netherlands
• The Longest Day, Cornelius Ryan; Victor Gollancz 1960
• The National Archives
  AIR 25/586 Operations Record Book 38 Group
  AIR 25/589 Operations Record Book 38 Group Appendices
  AIR 25/649 Operations Record Book 46 Group
  AIR 25/655 Operations Record Book 46 Group Intelligence Appendices
  AIR 25/705 Operations Record Book 83 Group: Appendices
  AIR 37/1249 21ST ARMY GROUP: Operation “Market Garden”
  WO 171/118 21 Army Group Report: Appendix S Air targets
  WO 171/118 G. (Ops.) with Apps. K.M.N.S. (“Operation Market Garden”)
  WO 205/1126 Operation Market Garden
  WO 205/623 21 Army Group “Operation Market Garden
  WO 205/623 Operation Market Garden: reports, correspondence, lessons learned
  WO 205/693 Operation Market Garden: reports and instructions