Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery's plan sent over 34,000 British and American airborne troops by parachute and glider to capture a string of bridges culminating at Arnhem, opening a corridor into Germany's industrial heartland. British 1st Airborne Division landed too far from Arnhem's bridge and met unexpectedly strong German panzer forces, leading to a costly nine-day battle that ended in withdrawal.
The plan was audacious even by the standards of a war full of audacious plans: drop three airborne divisions in daylight along a sixty-mile corridor in the Netherlands, then race ground forces up a single road to link them all before German defenders could react. If it worked, Allied forces would bypass the Siegfried Line entirely and cross the Rhine before winter.
At Arnhem, the northernmost and most critical bridge, things went wrong almost immediately. Radios failed, drop zones were placed miles from the objective, and intelligence had missed that two SS panzer divisions were resting nearby to refit. Lieutenant Colonel John Frost's battalion managed to seize the north end of the bridge and held it for four days against overwhelming odds, awaiting relief that never came in time.
The ground advance up 'Hell's Highway' bogged down under constant German attacks on its flanks, and by the time British XXX Corps neared Arnhem, the battle there was already lost. Of roughly 10,000 men dropped near Arnhem, fewer than 2,500 escaped across the Rhine. The failure ended any hope of finishing the war in 1944 and inspired the book and film 'A Bridge Too Far.'
Key people: Bernard Montgomery, John Frost