All the Way to Berlin by James Megellas

Author:James Megellas
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9780307414489
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2007-12-17T21:00:00+00:00

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Holland: Postmortem

Return to Leicester, England 14 November to 17 December 1944

The campaign in Holland had been long, arduous, and bloody. My Company, H, of the 504th Parachute Regiment, had been in the eye of the storm for almost all of the fiftyseven continuous days in combat, without relief. We had suffered heavy casualties and were able to continue fighting as a viable unit only through the steady infusion of replacements.

The campaign will forever be remembered in the annals of military history for the daring, almost suicidal, crossing of the Waal River at Nijmegen in the face of intense, withering fire from a determined enemy force that outnumbered us at least five to one.

In spite of the heroic actions of the greatly outnumbered paratroopers in capturing the bridges intact, the overall objective of Market Garden was not realized because British tanks of XXX Corps failed to seize the moment and lost an opportunity to reach Arnhem, just ten miles to the north.

After the incredible crossing of the Waal River and the seizing of the bridges, the failure at Arnhem relegated us to a war of attrition. The 82d and the 101st Airborne Divisions were deployed to defend the fifty-seven-mile penetration into Holland that had been gained in the first three days of Market Garden. For the next fifty days, we became bogged down in a defensive struggle, with neither side able to mount an offensive. The front lines stabilized and barely moved. Night patrols behind German lines, small-unit actions, and constant enemy artillery continued to exact a heavy toll on our forces. Paratroopers were fighting a war to which they were not accustomed.

To their credit, the Wehrmacht fought stubbornly and valiantly, particularly at Arnhem, where they annihilated the British 1st Parachute Division and prevented the Allies from turning the corner and sweeping across Germany and on to Berlin. They achieved a badly needed victory, which raised the sagging morale of their troops. They fought hard to keep us from entering Germany. By any measurement, Market Garden was a stinging defeat for Allied forces.

In analyzing the failure of Market Garden, the question is asked, did incompetent commanders, ignoring Dutch underground intelligence reports, sacrifice thousands of young British and American lives on the altar of inflated egos and incompetence?

In ordering a suicidal crossing of the Waal River to seize the Nijmegen bridges, which proved to have no tactical value, were lives needlessly lost? A further question is raised about the hastily devised plan to seize the two bridges at Nijmegen seventy-two hours after D day. Because the highway and railroad bridges had to be secured from both ends, why were none of us dropped on the north end of the bridges on D day, when we could have quickly attacked the enemy with the element of surprise on our side? Instead, we attempted to capture the bridges by paddling across the Waal River in flimsy canvas boats in broad daylight, three days after our initial jump. By that time, the Germans obviously knew

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