After 75 years, the circ*mstances that led to the selection of the drop zones and landing zones at Arnhem are still frequently misunderstood and misrepresented. What follows is an attempt to inject some much-needed balance and context into the story, and to remind readers of a long-forgotten first-hand account of how the DZs and LZs were chosen.
Reference: Arnhem: The Air Reconnaissance Story
Reference: The Royal Air Force and Airborne Operations, Normandy to Varsity
Some 75 years after Operation Market Garden (the Alliedairborne invasion of Holland in September 1944), it is still common to readthat the Allies failed to secure their primary goal – the Arnhem Road Bridge – becausethe RAF forced 1st Airborne Division to accept drop zones (DZs) and landingzones (LZs) some seven miles northwest of the Arnhem road bridge, nearWolfheze. The distance between these zones and the primary operationalobjective is held by many to be chiefly responsible for the Allied defeat atArnhem. Out of the entire division, only some 740 men, mostly from 2 PARA,managed to bypass German opposition and reach the bridge. After a heroicstruggle over three days, they were overwhelmed by (numerically) far superiorenemy forces. Had the division been landed closer in, it is argued, many moretroops would have taken up positions in central Arnhem, and the bridge mightwell have been held until the arrival of XXX Corps.
Some caution is necessary here. The fact is that 1stAirborne Division's battle plan only ever envisaged the deployment of twobattalions (2 and 3 PARA) in the immediate vicinity of the road bridge. Theremainder of the division was supposed to form a perimeter defence linestretching around Arnhem's outskirts. For them, the distance between thelanding areas and the bridge was an irrelevance.
We must also bear in mind the likelihood that a largerairborne deployment around the bridge would have precipitated a far strongerGerman counter-attack in the same area whereas, in the event, the landings atWolfheze were followed by intense and protracted fighting in western Arnhem.This commitment resulted in a substantial diversion of German resources – a majorfactor in their failure to overwhelm 2 PARA for three days. Had this not been necessary,they would have been able to assign all their available strength to the task ofrecapturing the bridge. It therefore seems unlikely that a landing in itsimmediate vicinity would have made much difference. The presence of so manyGerman troops near Arnhem on 17 September and the remarkable rapidity of theirsubsequent reinforcement left them with a range of potential options forcountering an Allied airborne assault; a different threat would merely haveprovoked a different response.
Nevertheless, given the controversy that has surroundedthis issue ever since, it clearly merits further investigation and a reminderof some long-forgotten evidence – the only first-hand account (to my knowledge)of the DZ/LZ selection process.
To begin with, it is important to remember that MarketGarden grew out of the smaller-scale Operation Comet, planned in the first weekof September 1944. It was at this stage that Browning and the commander of 1stAirborne Division, Major General Roy Urquhart, first sought DZs and LZs atArnhem. Following deliberations with the commander of 38 Group, RAF, AirVice-Marshal Hollinghurst, it was agreed that the landings should take place atWolfheze.
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| Hollinghurst, the AOC 38 Group |
In part, understandably enough, Hollinghurst's positionreflected concerns about German flak. The operations under consideration werethe first large-scale airborne missions conducted by the Allies in daylight;also, no previous landings had been made immediately adjacent to a large townor city, 100 miles inside enemy-occupied territory and very close to Germanyitself. Allied intelligence – the only information available to him – showed asteady build-up of flak at Arnhem and Nijmegen, and also pointed to heavy flakconcentrations north of Arnhem at Deelen airfield.
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| The routing to Arnhem, first developed for Operation Comet, carefully avoided known German flak concentrations |
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| The air approach to Arnhem devised for Comet and used in Market Garden, again designed to reduce exposure to flak |
The air routing plans for Comet and Market Garden weredetermined by the unprecedented depth of the two operations–something thatwas entirely beyond the control of the two air forces. Of necessity, the Allieshad to guide aircraft around known flak concentrations between the Dutch coastand the Arnhem-Nijmegen area. To achieve this, they identified an eastwardroute inland, orientated slightly south of Arnhem, necessitating a final sharpturn that commenced just east of 's Hertogenbosch into a north-easterly approachto the DZs and LZs.
Had the landing area been located near to the road bridge,the Allied transport aircraft would have had to over-fly slowly, straight andlevel, and at low altitude, the anti-aircraft defences of both Nijmegen andArnhem; then they would either have had to exit straight over Deelenairfield or bank east towards Germany. The Dakotas that equipped the bulk ofthe Allied air transport force lacked both armour and self-sealing fuel tanks;the gliders were even more vulnerable. Furthermore, quite apart from the lossesthat seemed likely to result, one important lesson of earlier operations (Normandyand Sicily, for example) was that heavy flak tended to cause widely dispersedand inaccurate drops and the loss of much vital equipment. In short, on groundsof flak alone, there seemed to be good reasons for avoiding central Arnhem.
After Comet was planned, and during its transformation intoMarket Garden, Allied air reconnaissance revealed a sharp increase in Germananti-aircraft artillery deployments around Arnhem and Nijmegen. On 6 September,one 1st Airborne Division report based on air imagery noted ‘heavyconcentrations at Deelen airfield, Arnhem and Nijmegen, respectively 30 lightand 24 heavy guns, 36 light and 36 heavy guns, 24 light and 12 heavy guns.’These numbers were expected to increase. On the 7th, XXX Corps recorded thatheavy and light flak at both Arnhem and Nijmegen was increasing veryconsiderably. ‘Guns getting into position (with vehicles and pits underconstruction) can be seen on several photos and there is railway flak at Arnhem.’
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| Air imagery showing the build-up of anti-aircraft artilleryaround Arnhem and Nijmegen in the second week of September 1944 |
These developments would have been worrying enough under anycirc*mstances, given the inherent vulnerability of airborne air transport. Butthe build-up of German flak around Arnhem and Nijmegen gave cause forparticular concern because it was suspected of being far from coincidental.Both Hollinghurst and Browning feared that operational security had beenbreached, and these concerns were shared by 1st Airborne Division’s head ofintelligence. On 14 September he wrote:
Perhaps as usual the Germans have misappreciated our intention and theyreally do think we wish to destroy the bridges which we photograph but do notbomb, or perhaps they perceive as we have that the bridges are a suitableairborne target. Even if they do not realise this the security for theoperation has been so appalling that some breeze must have reached them.
In fact, while the Germans were expecting an Allied ground offensive inHolland, as well as the possible use of airborne troops, they do not appear tohave identified Arnhem as a potential airborne objective. However,Luftwaffe records do confirm that flak was being strengthened in the MarketGarden area as a direct result of the decision to establish a defensive linebetween Antwerp and Maastricht. Both the formation and sustainability of thisline depended on the integrity of the communication routes behind it. On 5September, Luftgau Belgium-Northern France Field Headquarters received orders ‘toput A.A. [anti-aircraft] artillery into the German western position to providedefence against air attack for troops fighting there, and also to coverdefiles, bridges etc. on supply routes.’ The headquarters was specificallyinstructed to protect the area ‘between Antwerp and Maastricht’. The lines ofcommunication serving the more westerly sector of this region ran directlythrough Arnhem and Nijmegen, and could have been severed if their vital bridgesover the Neder Rhine and the Waal had been destroyed. This doubtless explainswhy they were singled out for the additional flak cover noted by Allied airreconnaissance.
However, predictions about the strength of Germananti-aircraft artillery played only a part in the decision to locate the DZsand LZs at Wolfheze. Of equal if not greater importance was the problem of identifyingsuitable terrain for the glider landings, which involved more than 500 aircraft.There was never any realistic prospect of safely landing hundreds of heavilyladen assault gliders in the countryside south of the Arnhem road bridge. Since the war, this area has been transformed by drainage and a significant level of agricultural consolidation. However, in 1944 it waspolderland, criss-crossed by hundreds of dykes and drainage ditches. This can be confirmed merely by examining maps from the period and the surviving imagery. According to one post-war official account, the land was divided by ditches into plots of 50 to 100 metres in width, and 100-200 metres in length; the ditches were 2-3 metres wide and 1.5 metres deep, and contained water about half a metre deep.
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| A highlighted secton of the polderland south of the Neder Rhine |
After the extreme difficulties encountered in Sicily andNormandy, no one involved in planning the Arnhem operation could haveauthorised a large-scale glider landing in such heavily subdivided country. To have done so would have involved a high risk of serious damage to the gliders and their cargoes, injury or worse to their passengers and acute difficulties unloading and transporting vital equipment. Away from the polders, much of the countryside around Arnhem was characterisedeither by dense woodland or small fields. The only larger and more open fieldsnear the town were those actually chosen for the landings, and they were onlyjust large enough. The fact is that there was no practicable alternative toWolfheze. It was therefore selected as the landing area for Comet, and retainedwhen Comet was replaced by Market Garden.
The commander of the Glider Pilot Regiment, Colonel GeorgeChatterton, allegedly suggested that it might be possible to land a smallglider force (five or six gliders) in the immediate vicinity of the roadbridge. However, while such an operation was approved for Comet, this was onlyon the basis (1) that it would be executed under cover of darkness and (2) thatthe first main lift would reach Arnhem only shortly afterwards, just afterdaybreak. These stipulations could not have been applied after Comet wassucceeded by Market Garden because the first main airlift was rescheduled tothe early afternoon. Flown according to the original Comet schedule, thecoup-de-main glider force would in these circ*mstances have arrived too far inadvance. If, on the other hand, the coup de main had been mounted in daylight,it would have faced significant dangers from German flak and, if executedsuccessfully, it would have signalled to every German in Holland that alarger-scale airborne assault to seize the Arnhem road bridge was imminent.
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| Imagery of the polderland showing the multiplicity of drainage ditches that extended right across the area |
The DZ/LZ selection issue at Arnhem is invariably presentedby historians as an inter-service problem, which resulted in Hollinghurst'over-ruling' Urquhart. This is misleading, for the real tension was betweenthe operational and tactical levels of command rather than the airborne and aircomponents. The official documents (UK National Archives, CAB 44/253, P. 69) prove that, during the planning of OperationComet, both Browning and Dempsey were made fully aware of the fact that therewere no suitable areas for large-scale airborne landings immediately adjacentto the Arnhem road bridge. Almost certainly, Montgomery would also have beenbriefed to this effect. They nevertheless retained Arnhem as the objective forMarket Garden, consciously accepting a major risk (in addition to many others)instead of seeking a different Rhine crossing point. The three operationalcommanders then simply handed off the problem to the tactical level, where itcould not possibly be solved.
The records provide no evidence of a major inter-servicedispute over the Arnhem landing area. It was only later, searching for scapegoats for theAllied defeat, that historians began to allege controversy and confrontation between Urquhart and Hollinghurst. Urquhart would haveknown that Browning, his superior officer, accepted the case for landing atWolfheze, but it is very likely that the intelligence picture also influencedhis position. When Comet was being planned, it was at first believed thatelements of only three enemy divisions of very limited capability were deployedbetween the front line and Arnhem, where there was thought to be nothing morethan a flak battalion. There would have been no serious cause to doubt thecapacity of 1st Airborne to deal with such meagre opposition.
It is of course true that intelligence subsequently reportedthat German defences in the Arnhem area were being strengthened. But this mustbe weighed against the fact that, in virtually every other respect, MarketGarden represented a vast improvement over Comet for Urquhart’s men. WhereasComet would have spread 1st Airborne Division far and wide via landings at Arnhem,Nijmegen, Groesbeek and Grave (for the bridge over the Maas), Market Gardenfocused the entire force on the Arnhem mission. At the same time, the daylightairlift promised far greater accuracy and concentration than had been achievedin darkness in the past.Given the absence of suitable landing areas elsewhere, there was simply no option but to use Wolfheze and devise the best possible plan for the subsequent seizure of the bridge.
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| The landings at Wofheze |
Urquhart afterwards described the Arnhem airlift as ‘quite first class' and 'easily the most successful and accurate of any previously achieved either in operations or on exercises'. Moreover, in complete contrast to earlier airborne experience, ‘All units were able to move off to their tasks practically at full strength and in a very short time after landing.’This factor, more than any other, explains why, in Market Garden, the airborne forces (British and American) were able to secure a far higher proportion of their objectives independently–without the support of conventional ground forces–than they had attained in the past.
And yet, at Arnhem, the advantages bestowed by the accuracy and concentration of the airlift might have been better exploited.The commander of 1 ParachuteBrigade chose to advance on a broad front, dispatching his three battalionsinto the city along three different routes. By this means, even if one wereblocked, the others might bypass enemy forces. Sensible as this appears, there was also a very obvious drawback – loss of mass. The plan dictated that1 Parachute Brigadewould be dispersed across a substantial area and ruled out any prospect of one battalion supporting another. As events turned out, theeffect was magnified by the failureof 1st Airborne Division's communications. This was unfortunate but it should not have beenunexpected, for poor communications had bedevilled earlier airborne operationsand exercises.
2 PARA were ordered to capture the road bridge, butthey were also lumbered with a variety of other tasks, which reduced theireffective strength by at least one company before they reached their primaryobjective. In theory, 3 PARA was to ‘assist 2 Para Bn in capture of mainbridge’. However, given the two battalions’ geographical separation, this wasnever likely to be easy. As for 1 PARA, they were not even sent to the bridge:rather, they were tasked to occupy high ground in northern Arnhem.
2 PARA duly reached the road bridge, in the processdemonstrating that the location of the main landing area seven miles away wasnot, in itself, the fundamental cause of the British defeat at Arnhem.But amore effective strategy would have been to deploy 1 Parachute Brigade as a morecohesive force. Such a force would almost certainly have been able to overwhelmthe fragmented and generally low-calibre German units that prevented 1 and 3PARA from advancing into Arnhem on the afternoon of 17 September, well beforethe SS panzer elements encamped to the north and east could be deployed in thetown in strength.
By focusing on the DZ/LZ issue and presenting it as thecritical factor in Market Garden’s failure, historians have consistently drawnattention away from the other weaknesses of the plan. The past record of the Germanand Allied airborne forces is rarely considered in detail – their frequentfailure to capture tactical objectives independently, their critical dependence on rapidreinforcement by conventional ground forces, the high casualties they sustained, the heavy losses of aircraft, and the extreme difficulty encounteredin executing safe, accurate and concentrated airborne lifts; all of these issues areignored, and readers are instead invited to accept a sanitised version of theairborne experience that dwells on Fortress Eben Emael and Pegasus Bridge, orotherwise implies that airborne operations began in September 1944.
Equally, there is a tendency to overlook the intimaterelationship between operational and tactical-level planning in Market Garden.Instead, historians tend to consider the two levels in isolation. Thus, we areleft with the argument – particularly common in British circles – that MarketGarden was a daring and brilliant operational concept that was ruined by faultytactical-level execution. In reality, the Allied plan fell victim to chronic weaknessesin higher-level command and control, where there was a failure to integrate thedifferent components – land, air and airborne – at the conceptual stage, before Market Garden was submitted to Eisenhower for approval. Afterwards, largely as a direct result,the operational plan imposed rigid constraints on the tactical planners thatleft them with virtually no options other than those selected, and caused risksto accumulate in an entirely uncontrolled way.
Finally, there has been a reluctance to acknowledge the extent to which Allied airborne planning lost mission focus during the summer of 1944, when multiple operation plans were devised and then cancelled. Against this background, almost inevitably, ends and means became hopelessly confused, planning became dominated by the basic airborne infiltration task, and airlift demands increased relentlessly, the assumption being that more men and more equipment would improve the chances of mission success. In Market Garden, the mission–capturing the Arnhem road bridge–became overshadowed by the goal of deploying a full airborne division. Almost the whole of the Air Landing Brigade was used to hold the DZs and LZs for more than 24 hours to make full divisional deployment possible.
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| 'More is better' - the principle that underlay Allied airborne planningin 1944; but the accompanying requirement for multiple lifts significantly reduced the flexibility and dynamismof the airborne forces. |
I have yet to read a history of Market Garden thatacknowledged the publication of an account prepared by the RAF officerresponsible for DZ/LZ selection in airborne operations. His name was LawrenceWright and his book, The Wooden Sword, was published in 1967. Wright’s narrativelays great emphasis on the terrain issue and the problem of finding a suitablelocation for the glider landings. The key passage is as follows.
‘Only three areas offered any possibilities. About fourmiles north of Arnhem, beyond a dense belt of woods, was some rough heath anddune land, quite fit for parachute dropping and for limited glider landings,but this was an active military training zone, with an active airfield in itscentre, heavily ringed by flak and ground defences. This we rejected asunsuitable. (Subsequent knowledge confirmed this, though it weighted the reasonsdifferently: the flak risk had been overestimated, but the ground forces werefar more formidable than predicted.)
Extending almost continuously southward from the river bankis a vast area that might be thought, from a glance at a small-scale map oreven from a superficial view on the spot, to be ideal Airborne terrain, flatand free from walls or hedges. But all this is reclaimed, low-lying, soft polderland,cut up by countless ditches and banks into small fields, with very sparse roador track access. In a 3-mile radius from the bridge, only one group of fieldsdeserved closer study: the ‘Malburgsche Polder’. This was enclosed on two sidesby power transmission lines, and ringed all round by a dyke 8 feet high. The flakmap showed a battery of 6 heavy and 6 light A.A. guns on this perimeter, andthe tugs would have had to fly on after release over the airfield areapredicted to be thick with flak. If a tug had to jink, and shed its glider, orif the glider was shot down, they might just as well never have started. Duringdeplaning and unloading (which often took half-an-hour) the whole area wouldhave been under observation and fire from good cover on the higher north bank. Weaccepted the Malburgsche Polder as a D.Z. for the parachute reinforcements todrop on the third day, by which time the Division should be concentrated aroundthe bridge and able to offer some protection, but Chatterton and his staffsupported our view that it was quite unfit for mass glider landings.
The only really good air landing terrain was W.N.W. of thetown. In Holland, an elevation of a few feet greatly affects the firmness ofthe surface and the need for ditches, and here the level rises above 65 feet,in large grass clearings in a wooded belt offering excellent cover forassembly. A high railway embankment intersected the area, but left amplespaces. The one serious drawback was that when sufficient ground had beenchosen to accept the two successive lifts (and it was unlikely that many of thefirst could be moved to make room for the second) the line of landing zonesextended from 2½ to 8 miles from the objective [i.e. defining the perimeterline as well as the bridge as the objective].
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| The DZ/LZ locations at Arnhem; it is often forgotten that the 1st Airborne Division plan was substantially based on the creation of a perimeter around Arnhem - the theoretical objective for many of the troops put down in the Wolfheze area |
Command of 1st Airborne had been taken over by MajorGeneral R.E. Urquhart, D.S.O.; this was his first experience in Airborne. We hadthoroughly thrashed out the landing zone problem with his Intelligence officersfor about a fortnight, when I went to Moor Park for a final agreement withthem. My arrival threatened to spoil their plan to take an hour off for awell-earned swim, but the General hearing of this, sent them off and summonedme; thus I was honoured with a first-hand exposition of his thoughts aboutArnhem. I found him alone in the garden, seemingly painting a landscape, but hiseasel held the battle picture. He was of course fully aware of the basicdilemma. Although his initial force, with the advantage of surprise, mightassemble successfully at an objective so distant, the protection of the zonesfor the next day’s landings would require all the glider-borne troops from thefirst lift, leaving only the lightly-armed Reconnaissance Squadron and 1stParachute Brigade to hold the bridge for 24 hours. – We shall be too thin onthe ground, he predicted, and he reopened the question of landing gliders onthe polder, making me restate the pros and cons of the terrain. It was not forthe Air side, nor even for Holly [Hollinghurst] or for Leigh-Mallory, to saywhether greater losses would be suffered in landing on bad ground near theobjective, in a flak area, than in fighting several miles towards it with aforce initially intact. That was for Urquhart to judge, and he chose thelatter. We were soon writing our orders accordingly.’
In his concluding comments on Market Garden, Wrightreferred to the barrage of criticisms later directed at the RAF concerning theDZ/LZ selection issue, and particularly to Urquhart’s assertion that gliderscould have landed in the polderland south of the Neder Rhine.
‘The 38 Group forecast, accepted and urged byLeigh-Mallory, was not that it was impossible to land gliders in the polder,but that the polder was unfit for a mass glider landing. This view can beconfirmed by a simple test, though it could not have been made before theoperation. The actual glider landings of the first and second days werecarefully plotted, from photo cover, on map overlay. Let this overlay besuperimposed on the map of the Malburgsche Polder. Even ignoring the maze ofditches (substantial enough to feature on a 1:25,000 map) and assuming(absurdly) that gliders could have landed there at the same high density as wasattained on the great clear spaces actually used, there is room for only afraction of the number that landed on the first day alone. Many, probably most,of the loads would have been damaged, and others marooned amid impassableditches. The use of Hamilcars was unthinkable; even on the comparatively firmground used, two nosed in and another broke up. Some Horsas did the same on thefar better fields in Normandy.’
The only viable alternative, as Wright himself acknowledged,would have been a division of force – a parachute brigade landing on the polderwith limited glider support. The drawbacks of such an approach are obvious. First,the parachute brigades themselves depended heavily on gliders to convey theirequipment and supplies – not least the anti-tank guns that played such a vitalrole in the defence of the Arnhem bridge. Gliders also carried the divisionalelements that underpinned brigade-level operations. Hence, a parachute brigadecould only have landed with small-scale glider support by accepting a substantialloss of combat power.
Second, it would still have been necessary to land themajority of the gliders eight miles away from the parachute brigade and on theother side a major water obstacle – the Neder Rhine. The disadvantages thatthis would have involved seem so obvious that they require no further comment.There is no record that any senior Allied commander seriously considered orpromoted such a scheme at the time.
