In the general headquarters of the German Western Front, Li Mo was carefully studying the map, the Allied offensive was fast, the vanguard had entered Belgium, and the route of the Allied attack was only 250 kilometers away from the Ardennes Forest, but fortunately the Allies did not intend to pass through the Ardennes Forest.

The Ardennes has been a strategic location in Central Europe since ancient times, covering an area of about 10,000 square kilometers in southeastern Belgium, northern Luxembourg and northeastern France. Because there are many forests here and the roads are steep and difficult to navigate, Eisenhower did not plan to take the offensive route of the Ardennes Forest, otherwise Li Mo's big pocket tactics would be bankrupt.

"Marshal Modell, come and see, now that the Allies have entered Belgium, I guess they want to attack the Netherlands, and then bypass the Siegfried Line from the Netherlands and directly attack Germany proper, since these Allies want to find death, I plan to fulfill them.

Now I order you to freely mobilize the garrisons in Holland and Belgium to attack these daring Allied forces, these bridges will be the focus of the Allied contention, they will definitely send a large number of paratroopers for a surprise attack, don't we have a few SS Panzer divisions that are resting? Now I'll give you command and teach them a hard lesson!

……

Eisenhower knew that it would be unwise to attack a fortified fortress like the Maginot Line with his own flesh and blood, so Eisenhower planned to attack Germany from Belgium to the Netherlands, as Germany had done in the case of France, so as to avoid storming the Maginot Line and the Siegfried Line.

To realize this strategic vision, Eisenhower developed the "Market Garden Initiative."

The tactical thrust of this operation is to coordinate the rapid movement of ground armored forces with the largest airborne surprise attack in history. the capture of a series of bridges over the main rivers in the Netherlands, still under German control; The strategic goal was to seize control of these bridges and allow the Allies to cross the Rhine, the last natural barrier on the German border, and end World War II in a short period of time, while the Germans were still on their feet.

In June 1941, after the Allies landed in Normandy to open up the second battlefield, in order to defeat Nazi Germany as soon as possible, on July 25, 1941, the Allied 3rd Army led by Patton took the lead in breaking out of Normandy and began a large-scale pursuit of the German army on the French plain.

In order to detour the Siegfried Line from the north. Take it directly to the Ruhr region of Germany. In order to "end the war before Christmas", Marshal Montgomery, who had always been known for his prudence, came up with a bold and risky plan codenamed "Market Garden". The aim was to seize a series of important bridges across the Rhine, Waal and other rivers, and then penetrate from the Netherlands into the heart of Germany, with the aim of ending the European theater of war by Christmas 1941.

It consisted of a ground offensive by the British 30th Army on Antwerp. At the same time, the 101st Airborne Division, the 82nd Airborne Division, the 1st British Airborne Division and the Polish Paratrooper Brigade totaled 35,000 airborne troops. Using the leapfrog jumping tactic, they landed in Eindhoven (Eindhoven, Nhoven), Nijmegen (Njmegen) and Arnhem (Anheng, Anheng) in the depth of the 63-mile campaign. Capture the bridge over the Rhine.

After the Normandy landings, the Allied airborne forces suffered heavy losses and had to be reorganized into the Allied 1st Airborne Corps. It has three U.S. airborne divisions, two British airborne divisions, and an independent paratrooper brigade of the Polish Army. It was hoped that all airborne troops involved in the European theater would operate under a unified command, and General Eisenhower agreed to this idea on June 20, 1941.

The entire Market Garden action can be divided into two parts:

Market Operations: Refers to the operations of the Airborne Forces, with the Allied 1st Airborne Corps responsible for capturing bridges and adjacent areas in the Rhine Valley.

Operation Garden: Ground forces led by the British 2nd Army advance northward, with the British 30th Army as the vanguard.

The forces involved in Operation Market were three of the five divisions of the Allied 1st Airborne Corps, namely Major General Taylor's 101st Airborne Division, which was scheduled to land north of the British 30th Army and was responsible for capturing the bridge northwest of Eindhoven and the Fehel Bridge in the Soon area, and the distance between the 101st Airborne Division and the 30th Army was also the closest of the three airborne divisions.

The second furthest is by James? Brigadier General M. Gavin's 82nd Airborne Division, which landed northeast of the British 30th Army and attacked the Heraph and Nijmegen bridges. Major General Uquet's British 1st Airborne Division and the Polish Separate Paratrooper Brigade landed at Arnhem, the farthest north of the 30th Army and the terminus of the 30th Army's march. The British 1st Airborne Division had to occupy the road bridge at Arnhem as well as the railway bridge at Ousterbeck.

Operation Garden

In the British offensive zone, the 30th Army (1 armored division, 2 infantry divisions) carried out the main assault, the task of which was to break through the enemy's defenses on a narrow frontal position, and to use the ferries captured by the airborne troops in the offensive zone of the army to cross the river barriers, and advance to the line of Eindhoven, Hlaveau, Nijmegen, and Arnhem.

For the implementation of artillery fire preparation and artillery support, 880 artillery pieces were concentrated in the offensive zone of the 30th Infantry Army. The 8th and 12th infantry armies were to operate on both flanks of the assault group in order to expand the frontal breakthrough front. More than 650 aircraft were used to provide aviation support for the actions of the army. The contrast of forces in the British strip was in favor of the German army: infantry and artillery, aircraft and tanks had absolute superiority.

On September 17, 1941, the U.S. and British air forces used almost all their belongings, including more than 5,500 transport planes, 2,596 gliders, and more than 8,000 combat and bomber planes, and at the same time successfully parachuted more than 35,000 people, 568 artillery pieces, 1,927 military vehicles, and 5,230 tons of materials in the three places, launching the largest airborne combat operation in the history of human warfare. Operation Market Garden was mainly commanded by the British, and operations on the ground were also mainly carried out by the British.

Half an hour after the first batch was airborne, at 2:15 p.m. on the 17th, the commander of the 30th Army, General Holox, ordered the "Garden" troops to attack, and the Irish Praetorian Panzer Division began to attack five battalions of the German defense in front, and the 43rd and 50th regiments followed after the Praetorian Division, rapidly advancing several miles.

The detachment of the German Walz Division, which had entered the positional defense in front of the 30th Army, was in a hurry unable to exert its combat effectiveness, and the vanguard of the Irish Praetorian Panzer Division attacked from the road, dividing the Walz detachment into two parts, and the German defense line began to crumble and was driven back to the left and right sides of the road.

However, the scales of fate seemed to be tilted in favor of the Germans at the outset. Due to intelligence errors, Montgomery had no idea that in the area where the Allies were scheduled to land, the Germans had already deployed two panzer divisions of the 2nd SS Panzer Corps and part of the airborne 1st Army.

The Allied airborne troops lacking heavy equipment were airborne on the heads of the German armored troops, and the US army carried out altitude parachuting, with an average parachute height of 366~457 meters, much higher than the standard parachute jump height of 244 meters in World War II.

…… (To be continued......)