Talk:Operation Market Garden
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Additional potentially useful information for the article
Casualties
Unsure how this would be best added, considering the table already in the article with extensive notes.
Charles B. MacDonald, The Siegfried Line Campaign, p. 199:
- Airborne Corps losses of 11,850 (968 killed, 2,640 wounded, and 8,242 missing) thru to 25 September:
- Corp HQ: 4 killed and 8 missing
- 1st AB: 286 killed, 135 wounded, and 6,041 missing
- 1st Pol Bde: 47 killed, 158 wounded, and 173 missing
- Brit Glider pilots: 59 killed, 35 wounded, and 644 missing
- 38 Group RAF: 6 killed, 23, wounded, and 184 missing
- 82nd AB: 215 killed, 790 wounded, and 427 missing
- 101st AB: 315 killed, 1,248 wounded, and 547 missing
- US Glider pilots: 12 killed, 36 wounded, and 74 missing
- IX US Troop: 16 killed, 204 wounded, and 82 missing.
- 30 Corps: 1,480 casualties, and 70 tanks
- 8 and 12 Corps: 3, 874 casualties, and 18 tanks
- 144 transport aircraft
Staff, 21st Army Group (already cited in article), full quote:
- "[point/paragraph] 125, The enemy lost 16,000 prisoners and 30 tanks and SP guns destroyed; 159 of his aircraft were also destroyed.
Total casualties of the Airborne Corps were 9,600, of which the Brit element was 6986 including 322 killed."
Outcome
Forest C. Pogue, The Supreme Command, p. 288: "A German analysis, captured by the Allies after the operation, concluded that the Al- lies’ “chief mistake was not to have landed the entire First British Airborne Division at once rather than over a period of 3 days and that a second airborne division was not dropped in the area west of Arnhem.”"
References
References
British Guardsmen did NOT operate tanks after dark
XXX Corps commander General Horrocks had expected that the Irish Guards would have been able to advance the 13 miles (21 km) to Eindhoven within two-three hours. However, in the event, they started out at 14:35, 2 hours AFTER the first airborne units were ON THE GROUND and only covered 7 miles (11 km) to Valkenswaard before stopping at nightfall, already 4 hours behind schedule. The plan was for Guard to reach Eindhoven [another 6 miles, (9.7 km) further] just after 17:00 in order to relieve 1st Airborne in Arhem in 48 hours. But, they did not restart for 8 hours, making them a full 12 hours behind schedule. Where was Montgomery's urgency during this loss of 12 precious hours?
Montgomery's tanks DID NOT OPERATE AFTER DARK! William Buckingham wrote in his "Arnhem 1944"(2002) pages 119-120:
"By the time the British Liberation Army set foot on the European mainland, the dictum that armour ONLY FOUGHT BY DAY and carried out maintenance and rearming after dark appears to have become set in stone. It is unclear where this originated. The practice may have grown out of the unreliability and heavy maintenance demands of British tanks earlier in the war [see example John Ellis"The Sharp End" p.126], although the advent of the US-produced M4 Sherman, with its exemplary reliability should have done much to offset this. it may also have been a carry over from the long years of training in the UK between Dunkirk [where the British lost ALL of their tanks and heavy equipment and had to train on obsolete, worn out equipment] and the Normandy invasion. Certainly, the British tank crew training in the run up to the Normandy invasion had to make a conscious effort to break potentially lethal habits engendered by peacetime-training regulations [see example John Foley "Mailed Fist" pp 17-18]. During static phases in the Normandy fighting it became standard practice for British tanks to move up to the line in the pre-dawn darkness and to withdraw after dark [I am indebted to Mr Robert Field of TankNet Military Discussion Forum for bringing this to my attention. The information appears in Tim Saunders', "Hell's Highway” (Battleground Europe Series)].
"This practice appears to have been largely based on the assumption that tanks were too vulnerable to operate in darkness. However Germans, and more especially the Soviets, did not subscribe to this view. Nor, incidentally, did everyone in the British and Canadian armies in North-West Europe. Operation "Totalize," launched by the 2nd Canadian Corps, on the night of 7-8 August 1944 saw a large force Canadian and British tanks and armoured infantry pass virtually unscathed through strong German defences along the Caen-Falaise road. They achieved what they had repeatedly failed to do in daylight, because the darkness nullified the expertly sited German anti-tank guns. But the Guards Armoured Division being Guardsmen, and thus not the most flexible of formations, preferred to limit their offensive activities to the hours of daylight. Sbrenerkener (talk) 20:01, 24 August 2023 (UTC)
- It's obviously not true that British tanks did not operate at night, because they did so in Totalize and then again on the night of 30-31 August when Horrocks ordered 11th Armoured to keep going all night to Amiens, a 30-mile rush. It was dangerous to operate tanks at night in enemy territory because the low visibility gave the advantage to infantry, and difficult in any case because the vehicles (even American Shermans) needed laborious regular evening servicing at the end of the day's run. But at Amiens on the morning of 31 August, 11th Armoured captured General Eberbach, commander Seventh German Army, who drove into the town square in his staff car, thinking he was inspecting his own front-line positions, only to find that the British front line had advanced thirty miles overnight, a thing he had not considered possible, and he was now in British hands.
- Guards Armoured Division were not ordered to drive through the night of 17-18 September in Market Garden because Colonel Sink of the 506th PIR, US 101st Airborne, decided for reasons best known to himself that he couldn't be bothered to take his principal first-day objective of Eindhoven after all (despite it being held by only about half a dozen Flak 88 gun crews -- there really weren't many Germans there), leaving it till next day, not least because (well, hello) Sink didn't think his paratroopers could fight at night, and in addition Sink's 506th had also failed to take their other objectives, the canal bridge at Son (blown by the enemy because Sink's paratroops got distracted and were too slow), or the alternate bridge at Best (because again Sink's paratroops were too slow and allowed the enemy to reinforce the location and prevent capture), so the Irish Guards couldn't get much further until the Royal Engineers had built a replacement Bailey bridge at Son anyway. Hence no order to Guards Armoured to drive through the night. Khamba Tendal (talk) 18:59, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
- Dempsey did not want to advance too closely to Eindhoven as the Germans may have blown the bridges before the 101st had seized them. Cirillo of the US army states this. There is nothing stating that tanks would not be used at night. As it happened it made no difference as XXX Corps had to erect a Bailey bridge at Zon during the night as the 101st failed to seize the bridge. 2A01:4B00:BB18:A600:E738:4C0D:38F4:6829 (talk) 17:04, 4 July 2024 (UTC)
- Rubbish, the ONLY reason they did not advance further from Lent was because they were ambushed in the dark and had no infantry support as those troops were left in Nijmegen to clear the town that the 82nd had not done when they failed to capture the bridge early.
- there was no “dictum” and Buckingham has not reference to back this statement up. Enderwigginau (talk) 04:50, 28 July 2024 (UTC)
'Lieutenant General Wilhelm Bittrich'
This description, in the 'German preparation' paragraph, is highly inappropriate. For one thing, Nazi SS officers should not be accorded normal military ranks. For another, following his promotion in August 1944, Bittrich was an SS-Obergruppenfuhrer und General der Waffen-SS, equivalent to full general despite his only holding a corps and not an army command. The SS equivalent of lieutenant-general would be one step down, SS-Gruppenfuhrer und Generalleutnant der Waffen-SS. Khamba Tendal (talk) 19:08, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
Debate on the outcome?
This battle has been cpnsidered a failure by every historain... axis victory..100% 100.38.247.36 (talk) 21:48, 22 May 2024 (UTC)
- This has been discussed over and over and over again.
- There are only three possible outcomes allowed in an infobox: '[one side or the other] Victory' and 'See Debate'
- There is clearly a debate about the outcome of the battle, as shown by the 'Debate' section of the article, so the only possible entry in the infobox is 'See debate'. Shimbo (talk) 16:19, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
- I’m not sure which historians you think make up “every”, because a majority understand how military operations work and that a 50km salient pushing into your lines and not repulsed is most definitely not a victory.
- Did the Germans prevent the operation from achieving 100% of its sims? Yes.
- Did they win the battle? Most definitely not, having lost Eindhoven, Grave, Nijmegen and very significant numbers of troops and equipment, including almost the entire complement of the Armour School and dozens of other armoured vehicles. Enderwigginau (talk) 04:56, 28 July 2024 (UTC)
Ryan's book
This article is heavily influenced and based on Cornelius Ryan's book, a 'A Bridge Too Far'. The article is spattered with references to the book. In a letter by Ryan's assistant to a Daphne Du Maurier, it says "Mr Ryan's book will not be factual and documentary". Letter is in the Ohio University papers, box 107. All passages referencing Ryan should be reviewed and/or removed. . 143.58.176.154 (talk) 13:07, 27 July 2024 (UTC)
- Please provide references to support your assertion. 10mmsocket (talk) 13:11, 27 July 2024 (UTC)
- It was given. Read again. 143.58.176.154 (talk) 13:15, 27 July 2024 (UTC)
- Tell us here exactly where it is determined by modern historians (or equivalent) that Ryan's work is no longer a reliable source. Please don't edit war on the article until you obtain proper consensus here. 10mmsocket (talk) 15:06, 27 July 2024 (UTC)
- You are confused. A reference that Ryan's book is not a reliable factual account was given in this talk page, as was a passage from the letter. Twice you have written one was not given. No passages with Ryan references have been removed from the article.
- The article was improved with references added according to Wikipedia guidelines.
- You deleted text inserted by a few editors asking justification to satisfy YOU rather than act in accordance to Wikipedia guidelines. You must not delete referenced text because you do not like or do not understand it.
- YOU are entering into an edit war, no one else, you persist in deleting referenced text by a number of editors. It is also obvious you know next to nothing about this historical event. 143.58.176.154 (talk) 15:28, 27 July 2024 (UTC)
- The reference given above is an unverifiable Primary source and hence not suitable for use here - where has this been discussed in reliable sources? In addition, edits by IP editors (who appear to be the same person) have removed high quality sources (including Beevor) and replaced them by vague references that are unverifiable. Bring your sources here so they can be discussed.Nigel Ish (talk) 15:36, 27 July 2024 (UTC)
- Note that this editor is under investigation for block evasion and sockpuppetry at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Wisdom-inc. In the meantime this article has been semi-protected for a month. @Nigel Ish has there been any damage to the article by this editor that would merit revering back to a version in the past? 10mmsocket (talk) 15:40, 27 July 2024 (UTC)
- The obvious changes today appear have been reverted - I don't know whether this goes back any further though.Nigel Ish (talk) 15:43, 27 July 2024 (UTC)
- Thank you. 10mmsocket (talk) 15:43, 27 July 2024 (UTC)
- Numerous issues with Ryan and other have been presented here in the past and ignored by those of you gatekeeping the article.
- Perhaps you should attempt to perform some actual research, unlike Cornelius Ryan, before labelling others as sock puppets.
- It is very interesting that similar comments on this talk page in the past have been removed. Enderwigginau (talk) 05:01, 28 July 2024 (UTC)
- Numerous issues with Ryan do not appear to have been discussed here - apart from the above, the only discussion is Talk:Operation_Market_Garden/Archive_5#Reliability_of_Sources - which did not present any real arguments about why his work should be discounted.Nigel Ish (talk) 08:23, 28 July 2024 (UTC)
- Have the comments been removed or archived? There's a difference. As for your allegations of "gatekeeping", what has happened is nothing like the unacceptable behaviour set out in WP:OWN. Instead it has been about reverting damage to the article caused by a block-evading sockpuppet. Nobody else's contributions have been challenged, so I fail to see how that is "gatekeeping" or ownership behaviour. I would encourage you to read WP:AGF before making further comment. 10mmsocket (talk) 11:50, 28 July 2024 (UTC)
- The obvious changes today appear have been reverted - I don't know whether this goes back any further though.Nigel Ish (talk) 15:43, 27 July 2024 (UTC)
- Note that this editor is under investigation for block evasion and sockpuppetry at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Wisdom-inc. In the meantime this article has been semi-protected for a month. @Nigel Ish has there been any damage to the article by this editor that would merit revering back to a version in the past? 10mmsocket (talk) 15:40, 27 July 2024 (UTC)
- Tell us here exactly where it is determined by modern historians (or equivalent) that Ryan's work is no longer a reliable source. Please don't edit war on the article until you obtain proper consensus here. 10mmsocket (talk) 15:06, 27 July 2024 (UTC)
- It was given. Read again. 143.58.176.154 (talk) 13:15, 27 July 2024 (UTC)
The Germans punished the people
The Germans did not “cut off” supplies to the Netherlands, they were stripping the country to feed their own retreating soldiers. The Winter Hunger is discussed thoroughly in many books, and not one states that it occurred purposefully to punish the Dutch people. If they intentionally did it, why did they allow aid shipments from Allied forces to be dropped? Enderwigginau (talk) 05:10, 28 July 2024 (UTC)