Ewoud Dronkert said:Davey Crockett said:Look for [Cipo] to repeat here in what may go down in the annals of cycling history as the biggest
F-Up since Arnhem.
Yes, the course for the Dutch championships at Arnhem is no fun either.
Oops. I was referring to a contest of a different kind. Not a cycling type battle but a military
type engagement.
I'm sure any cycling events in and around Arnhem these days are most professionally managed.
But remember? The US 101 Airborne at Remegen, the 82nd at Nijmegen and the 1st British Airborne
Division at Arnhem supported three days later by the 1st Independent Polish Parachute Brigade
inexplicably dropped at Driel on the other side of the Rhine.
By September 1944, WWII had almost reached a conclusion. Given the view that the Germans were almost
on the point of collapse, it was agreed that a single army should be given priority of supplies and
manpower to execute a plan that would deal the final blow and win the war before the end of 1944.
Field Marshal Montgomery proposed a highly ambitious plan to fly three Divisions of glider and
parachute troops (35,000 men) and land them in various parts of Holland to capture no less than five
key bridges.
British tanks would simultaneously break through the front line and link up with the Airborne
Divisions one by one to properly secure these bridges.
The plan, the largest airborne assault in the history of warfare, was codenamed Operation
Market Garden.
The final bridge at Arnhem, the ultimate goal of Market Garden, was entrusted to General Roy
Urquhart and his 1st British Airborne Division.
Opposition had been believed to be light, However, reconnaisance analysis tending to indicate that
two elite German SS Panzer Divisions had recently been billeted in and around the town was ignored
by Montgomery for reasons known only to himself.
These units were well trained, fresh from battle, and were equipped with tanks. And in any case,
Luftwaffe General Christiansen, Commander in Chief of armed forces in Holland, uncertain why such a
foolish operation was going ahead anyway, quickly ordered
Lt. General Hans Von Tettau to form a 'Battle Group' to combat the allied airborne landings
(see end).
Added to the fact that the allied forces had dropped into Holland with little in the way of supplies
and that their supplies were being airdropped into German occupied areas, they had radios that were
calibrated on the wrong frequency and idiots for commanders who refused to surrender long after
anybody with half a brain at all would have called it a day long ago.
The German forces finally were taking no offensive action, limiting their activities to repelling
the occasional half hearted allied incursion.
Von Tettau upon several occasions had offered the allies the surrender option which to Von Tattau's
continual surprise they stubbornly refused. He felt so sorry for the allied soldiers that under a
white flag he was even evacuating allied wounded to the German field hospital.
Now if that ain't a F-Up, I dunno what is!!!
[Listed so you can see how futile Market Garden really was:
Kampfgruppe Von Tettau - assembled after the landings
======================
L.u.- N.C.O., School Arnheim: Col. Lippert,
L.v.- Training and Replacement Battalion 4: Lt. Labahn Naval Manning Battalion 10: Kapitan
Lieutnant Zaubzer
L.w.- Surveillance Battalion 3 : Col. Paul Anton Helle Tank Company 224 Fliegerhorst Battalion 3
Soesterberg Fliegerhorst Battalion Regiment Knoche
L.x.- Battalion Eberwein Regiment 42. Sichecheit
II S.S. Panzer Korps. 9th and 10th S.S. Panzer Division - already in place.
=======================================================
L.y. Pzr Grenadier Battalion 16 Kampfgruppe Hardert Kampfgruppe Weber Fallschirmjager Regiment 6 1st
Battalion Fallschirmjager Regiment 22 1st Battalion Fallschirmjager Regiment 2 Kampfgruppe
Brinkmann (Ex Frundsberg Recce. Battalion 10.) 10th S.S. Engineers Battalion 10th S.S.-
Grenadier Regiment 21. 3rd Company Kampfgruppe Spindler 9th S.S. A/Tank Battalion Panzerjager 9
9th S.S. Kampfgruppe Moeller 9th S.S. Panzer Grenadier Regiment 20
L.z. A/A Company and A/A Battalion Assault Gun Brigade 280 9th S.S. A/A Battery.S.S. Kampfgruppe Von
Allworden Hermann Goering Training Regiment
L.z. Panzer Grenadier. Regiments 19 and 20 Training and Replacement Regt: Bocholt
Interestingly the 10th SS Panzer Corps had been formed from the old [censored] Jugend!]
--
le vent a Dos
Davey Crockett
