Op MARKET GARDEN

'A bridge too far', Arnhem.

The First Allied Airborne Army took off from twenty-two airfields and formed two air fleets over Hatfield and March in southern England. The vast armada formed was 19 miles long and three miles wide and consisted of over 1,000 transport aircraft along with 500 gliders attached to tow planes. All were escorted and protected by hundreds of fighter aircraft.

The mission was to secure key locations along a 60-mile corridor through occupied Holland in order to clear the way for ground forces to advance along the corridor, thus enabling the Allies to bypass the Siegreied Line to the north and bring the war to an end before the end of 1944.

The northern bridge at Arnhem was not seized by 1st British Airborne and the ground force of XXX British Corps was unable to achieve a final push to link up with and relieve the beseiged Airborne force. Field Marshal Montgomery's plan to cross the Lower Rhine at Arnhem and advance into Germany's industrial heartland of the Ruhr, Op MARKET GARDEN, failed in the face of stiff German resistance.