Late start Market Garden and time schedule

[Delta Tank]

BUT when pushed, British armour could and operate at night in pursuit. So the pursuit after El Alamein continued night and day. 30 Corps drove through the night to seize the crossings over the Somme. Op Totalize was a massed armoured night attack to penetrate the Germans positions south of Caen.

Its a bit of a rock paper scissors game. If the armour presses ahead and the enemy is disorganised the armour win. If the armour presses ahed and hits an organised defence, the defenders win.

Probably the only night it would have been worth the risk Guards Armoured Division advancing was the night of 20th/21st September.
Too late for Frost's men at the bridge already though.

They should of never of voluntarily stopped!! They stopped on the first day for no reason. Their first stop should of been at the destroyed bridge, stopping before that put them behind by xx hours! William F. Buckingham’s book on “Arnhem 1944” (the first book, small about 150 pages, can’t find it on Amazon) estimated how many hours were lost due to the leading elements stopping the first night. Currently away from the vast majority of my books.

Mike

That is with the advantage of hindsight and without the partisan pressures on the armoured commanders. At the time, after four weeks, the breakout had become a bit if a victory parade with a lot of people thinking that the war would be over in '44 if not in a few weeks. Attitudes to risk may have changed with that thought. Do you want to go down in history as the gung ho commander who lost your men to pointless casualties as the war was about to end?

This is not what should have happened in Op Market Garden, but is an insight into why things don't always happen.

Have you read William F. Buckingham’s two books on Operation Market Garden?

Mike

[Delta Tank]

Tom,

I am sorry, I thought the subject was Arnhem, please forgive.

Which was why I mentioned the airborne forces stopping at night. The reference to operations in Normandy was to show that we could complain about the fact that forces often STOPPED AT NIGHT!

I am afraid you appear to be obsessed by MARKET GARDEN which was, after all, just one of many operations on the way from the Normandy beaches to the Elbe/Baltic, etc.

The mission of the airborne forces was to aid the ground forces to gain their objectives; NOT to desperately need help.

Look forward to hearing about the conference.

Regards

Tom

Tom,

As you know, all us Yanks are rich!! . We (my wife and I) bought a “Hunting Camp” (38.5 acres with an off the grid house on it near Genesse, Pa.), and my notes from the World War II Conference are at our legal residence 77 miles away. So, it will be the middle of December before I can tell you the specifics of the WWII Conference, but it was lots of fun! You should fly over next year!! The conference is in Gettysburg, Pa. where the most famous battle of the American Civil War occurred! You come fly over, I will pick you up at the airport and take care of the rest!!

Mike

[Delta Tank]

BUT when pushed, British armour could and operate at night in pursuit. So the pursuit after El Alamein continued night and day. 30 Corps drove through the night to seize the crossings over the Somme. Op Totalize was a massed armoured night attack to penetrate the Germans positions south of Caen.

Its a bit of a rock paper scissors game. If the armour presses ahead and the enemy is disorganised the armour win. If the armour presses ahed and hits an organised defence, the defenders win.

Probably the only night it would have been worth the risk Guards Armoured Division advancing was the night of 20th/21st September.
Too late for Frost's men at the bridge already though.

They should of never of voluntarily stopped!! They stopped on the first day for no reason. Their first stop should of been at the destroyed bridge, stopping before that put them behind by xx hours! William F. Buckingham’s book on “Arnhem 1944” (the first book, small about 150 pages, can’t find it on Amazon) estimated how many hours were lost due to the leading elements stopping the first night. Currently away from the vast majority of my books.

Mike

That is with the advantage of hindsight and without the partisan pressures on the armoured commanders. At the time, after four weeks, the breakout had become a bit if a victory parade with a lot of people thinking that the war would be over in '44 if not in a few weeks. Attitudes to risk may have changed with that thought. Do you want to go down in history as the gung ho commander who lost your men to pointless casualties as the war was about to end?

This is not what should have happened in Op Market Garden, but is an insight into why things don't always happen.

To All,
“Arnhem 1944” by William F. Buckingham, series editor, Hew Strachan, ISBN 0 7524 3187 0. first published 2002, this edition first published 2004.
page 120:
“To be fair, there is evidence that the Irish Guards Group were willing to push on after clearing Valkenswaard toward 22:00, but they were ordered to remain in place until first light when a prearranged relief by another infantry battalion was countermanded. Be that as it may, the combination of 30 Corps’ late start time and fierce German resistance put the Garden advance four hours behind schedule by nightfall, and the decision to stop increased the shortfall to twelve hours. It was not an auspicious start, although it was the beginning of an unfortunate pattern.”

I will find appropriate passages from his recently published book: “Arnhem, The Complete Story of Operation Market Garden 17-25 September 1944”.

Mike

[Delta Tank]

To All,
From the book entitled: “Arnhem, The Complete Story Of Operation Market Garden, 17-25 September 1944” by William F. Buckingham. First published 2019. ISBN 978 1 8486 8109 5.

Page 89:
“This rather leisurely start was due to 30 Corps setting H-Hour for GARDEN at 14:30 on 17 September. This meant that the ground advance was not scheduled to begin until the whole MARKET first lift was on the ground, and thus sacrificed the element of surprise and, arguably more importantly, several hours of precious daylight; sunrise and sunset occurred at 06:13 and 18:47 OST respectively at Arnhem on the day MARKET GARDEN was launched. The mid-afternoon start also militated against the already tight timetable the ground advance was to follow, which envisaged reaching Eindhoven by c.17:00 on Sunday 17 September.”

Mike

[Delta Tank]

To All,
From the book entitled: “Arnhem, The Complete Story Of Operation Market Garden, 17-25 September 1944” by William F. Buckingham. First published 2019. ISBN 978 1 8486 8109 5.

Page 143:
“There was a little more to it, however. The Guards Armoured Division’s halt in Valkenswaard was not made of its own volition. Major-General Alan Adair was in fact conforming to Operational Instructions issued by 30 Corps on 15 September, which specifically forbade movement on the main axis of advance after dark, and it is worth quoting the relevant paragraph in full:

There will be NO movement on the main axis during the hours of darkness. The only exceptions to this rule will be i. tactical necessity [or] ii. when a Group Commander is satisfied that his Group can complete its move without disrupting traffic arrangements within two hours of last light. Groups leaguering for the night will probably have to do so on the main road owing to the nature of the ground, though it may be possible for them to pull off into fields adjacent in some places. If units leave the road for leaguering they will leave a representative on the road to indicate the point at which the tail of the column was when it started to leave the road. Following serials will NOT pass this point except under provision of i. And ii. Above [original emphasis].”

Mike

[Tom from Cornwall]

Hi Mike,

I'm not I get what Buckingham is saying, the Corps instructions specifically say that movement on the main axis is allowed for "tactical necessity". I thought that his argument was that there was such "tactical necessity"?

I guess 30 Corps orders didn't forbid 506 Parachute Infantry Regiment continuing south down the main axis over night 17-18 September either!

I also don't think 30 Corps was granted freedom to choose its own start time, I think that was agreed between 2nd Army and First Allied Airborne Army but would have to check that as going off memory.

Regards

Tom