The Royal Air Force and Operation Market Garden: Chapter 6

Withdrawal and Reckoning

‘Market Garden was not a failure: it was 90% successful. We gained 90% of our objectives’.
Field Marshal Montgomery in official 21st Army Group post-action report.

‘In my – prejudiced – view, if the operation had been properly backed from its inception, and given the aircraft, ground forces and administrative resources necessary for the job – it would have succeeded in spite of my mistakes, or the adverse weather, or the presence of the 2nd SS Panzer Corps in the Arnhem area.

I remain MARKET-GARDEN’s unrepentant advocate.’
Memoirs. Montgomery of Alamein p. 267

We have no regrets
Major-General R E Urquart, Commander, 1st British Airborne Division

Montgomery may have been mathematically correct in that 90% of the distance from the start line at Joe’s Bridge on the Meuse-Escaut Canal to Arnhem Bridge was captured. But other analysts say it was a desperate failure. Given that the primary objective Montgomery devised and Eisenhower endorsed was to capture the Arnhem bridge, thus opening a route to the Zuider Zee and facilitating a circumvention of German defences enabling an attack on the Ruhr, the only possible conclusion was that it failed. Capturing the intervening bridges on the way to Arnhem was only a means to an end, namely British Army’s XXX Corps advancing to relieve 1st British Airborne Division north of the Rhine and holding the bridge. That had failed. The British and Americans had to dig in over the winter. And the Germans had an opportunity to dig in as well and reinforce their defences.

German officer supervising civilian deportations September 1944 – clandestine photo
by resistance worker: St Eusebius Church display, Arnhem via Author

RAF participation was limited by the resources available to it; by the strength of German flak and fighter defences; having to operate from two areas (Southern England and Belgium) with different weather patterns and difficult communications, leading to conflicting tasking; as well as the interaction with other faults, such as lack of radio communications. And by a factor over which Montgomery had no control, despite his assumptions: bad weather.

Why did Market Garden fail so completely? Shelves of books have been written on this topic, which lies outside the purpose of this blog, but readers seeking detailed analyses might look at, inter alia: The National Archives WO 205/623 ‘Market Garden: lessons learned’ and for the RAF particularly, ‘Airborne Forces Air Historic Branch Air Ministry 1951 pp 173-178’. But does not General Montgomery, who conceived and actively promoted the operation, bear the greatest responsibility?

After the fighting: Archives London Borough of Croydon

A footnote on broken communications: radios could not communicate within Arnhem (bridge to Oosterbeek – just 8 miles) and from Arnhem to Nijmegen but the Dutch telephone system was fully automatic and in good working order; as the Dutch resistance movement knew.

Of the approximately ten thousand six hundred British and Polish men who fought north of the Lower Rhine, only two thousand three hundred and ninety-eight returned. Of the rest, including the Polish Brigade south of the Rhine and men who died in captivity as a result of their wounds or other causes until the end of 1944, one thousand four hundred and eighty-five men had died, and six thousand four hundred and fourteen were taken prisoner, of whom about one-third were wounded. British Army XXX Corps lost 5,334 killed; US Airborne 3,974 and 378 Poles.

‘Operation Manna’ Lancaster dropping not bombs but sacks of food: RAF Museum P007095

RAF aircrew won the following awards: Victoria Cross, one; Distinguished Service Order, one; Distinguished Flying Cross (officers), thirty-four; Distinguished Flying Medal (NCOs and other ranks), four. Also, four members of the Royal Army Service Corps, flying as aircraft despatchers, were awarded the Distinguished Flying Medal. One member of the Glider Pilots Regiment won the Victoria Cross, but when fighting as infantry on the ground [all glider pilots always received full infantry training and were required to remain and fight with the Parachute Regiment].

Some 6,172 aircraft sorties were flown in support of Market Garden for the loss of 125 aircraft, against 160 enemy aircraft claimed as destroyed. 38 Group alone recorded 118 aircraft damaged in action.

Arnhem bridge after VE-Day (note foot crossing over wreckage): Australian War Memorial Museum

This author has found it impossible to arrive at an exact figure for the number of RAF fatalities during Operations Market and Garden as they are not recorded by campaign. And many records refer to ‘casualties’ for both wounded and killed. A definitive number is that between 17 and 26 September, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s record show that 1,022 RAF personnel died.

But these figures cover all theatres and all Commands. And include personnel wounded before 17 September who died during that period, but exclude personnel wounded 17-26 September but succumbing later; also including ground crew who died of accident or disease. What can be stated with accuracy is that 97 RAF/RAAF/RCAF/RNZAF personnel lie in the CWGC’s Arnhem Oosterbeek War Cemetery who died during Operation Market. Plus 10 Air Despatchers of the Royal Army Service Corps.

A Commemorative Delft tile:  ‘Food, Peace, Freedom’ – RAF Museum 1987/1402/C

It cannot in any way be described as a success for the Dutch people. Arnhem and Oosterbeek were largely reduced to rubble; their inhabitants – who so enthusiastically welcome the paratroopers as liberators – were deported; the Germans reacted to a railway workers strike by stopping the movement of food within Holland and opening sluice gates to flood low land and thereby prevent further Allied airborne assaults. These actions together created the Hongerwinter [Hunger Winter] which led to mass starvation and deaths.

John Frost Bridge, named after Lieut.-Colonel John Frost, Commander of Paratroops at Arnhem bridge: Author 2024

Finally, a local agreement was reached with German forces to permit Operation Manna from 29 April 1945 when Lancasters and Halifaxes, unarmed and unmolested by the Germans, flew at low level dropping sacks of food. The US Eighth Air Force did likewise under Operation Chowhound. And Arnhem? The ruins were not liberated until Operation Anger in April 1945 – just days before the total capitulation of Germany.

Laying flowers at graves 1945

What of the Arnhem road bridge? With the Germans on the north bank of the Lower Rhine in force, the bridge was bombed and destroyed in October 1944 by the USAAF to prevent the German army using it to counter-attack Allied forces encamped in front of Nijmegen.

Laying flowers at graves 2022: Commonwealth War Graves Commission

The Dutch people in Arnhem and Oosterbeek greeted the British and Polish troops as liberators, only to be bitterly disappointed. Today, the Allied sacrifice is still commemorated. Every year, on the Saturday nearest 17 September, dozens of allied transport aircraft drop several hundred parachutists onto Ginkel Heath, to an audience of thousands; Pegasus flags (the emblem of British airborne forces), are frequently seen flying. But it is at Arnhem Oosterbeek War Cemetery – where 1,772 casualties lie – that Dutch sentiment is most strongly displayed. Back in 1945, on that Sunday, people laid flowers on every grave: today, they still do, with a few of the original 1945 children still returning.

Parachute dropping over Ginkel Heath 2023

Credit: RAF/ Ministry of Defence UK

Perhaps we should leave the final words to Prince Bernhard of The Netherlands, speaking to author Cornelius Ryan

‘My country can never again afford the luxury of another Montgomery success.’

Modern Mural, Arnhem: Author 2024

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

Hartenstein Hotel was British HQ at Oosterbeek in 1944, now Airborne Museum: Author 2024

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 GuideCommonwealth War Graves Commission
• D-Day Atlas, Charles Messenger; Thames & Hudson 2004
• Holts Battlefield Guides: Market-Garden Corridor; Tonie and Valerie Holt Leo Cooper in association with Secker and Warburg 1984
  https://history.army.mil/books/70-7_18.htm
• 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 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”
  CAB 106/962 Report on operation “Market Garden”, the airborne operations at Arnhem 1944 Sept.
  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