From the Book-H

The invasion of Holland, from the Air Force point of view, was a textbook application of Troop Carrier operations. It was the logical extension of what had been applied successfully in Normandy and it was the next step in the evolution of the development of the Airborne-Troop Carrier delivery of the invasion spearhead. The underlying planning, however, was flawed. Political agendas and uncharacteristically poor judgment by various Allied military and political leaders combined to doom the Allied thrust through Arnhem into Germany. There were victories along the narrow corridor that linked Eindhoven, Nijmegen and Arnhem, however, and some of the battles that occurred there 67 years ago are now the stuff of legend.

These excerpts from Into The Valley include a historical summary of the circumstances that produced this invasion and several first-hand accounts by those who were there, both pilots and paratroopers, in Operation MARKET, history's largest airborne assault. The combined air and ground assault was named Operation MARKET-GARDEN.

y late summer of 1944 there was a pervasive sense in the Allied high command that the German army was teetering on the verge of collapse. An information bulletin published by SHEAF stated that “the end of war in Europe [is] within sight, almost within reach. The strength of the German Armies in the East has been shattered, Paris belongs to France again, and the Allied armies are streaming towards the frontiers of the Reich” (Bauer, 1777).

Several prominent Allied army generals were pressuring Eisenhower to abandon his broad-front approach toward the West Wall. The Nazis, in flight from the Normandy and Southern France invasions, were rapidly pulling back in the direction of Germany. Patton believed he could push into the industrial region of the Saar and then to the Rhine. Montgomery, in the northern sector of the advance, told Eisenhower in August that he could turn the left flank of the West Wall—from Holland—and capture the Ruhr, the German industrial region. By early September, Montgomery’s goal had moved beyond the Ruhr into a single, “full-blooded” thrust to Berlin (Ryan, b, 73).

Allied supply lines, however, were stretched to the breaking point. Most supplies were still coming in from the beaches of Normandy and Cherbourg; Toulon and Marseilles were just beginning to function as ports. Troop carrier groups were starting to move their bases from England into France, but most resupply missions were still being flown from England. Eisenhower’s armies now required one million gallons of gasoline per day. The “Red Ball Express,” Allied truck convoys running over the roads between Normandy and the front lines nearly 24 hours per day—some 800-900 miles per round trip—could not make all the necessary deliveries.

439th airmen unloading C-47s full of jerrycans, ready for field use by Patton's tanks.

IX Troop Carrier Command crews and aircraft were called upon to help with this critical task. At these distances a C-47 would burn approximately one gallon of fuel for every two delivered; fuel economy, however, was not the issue. According to Gen. Bradley, the Red Ball Express itself was now consuming 300,000 gallons of gasoline per day. Getting as much fuel to the front lines as fast as possible was the task at hand, and bound to its execution were many lives and large sectors of ground.

Troop carrier missions to the front were of such urgency that they were classified by SHAEF as emergency resupply, and thus took precedence over everything but airborne missions (see Chapter 15, Into The Valley). Flight crews brought in their flammable cargoes every day the weather would allow, and on many days flew in weather that airlines would have considered unsafe. Nevertheless, by the beginning of September one army corps and one entire army had already been stopped several days for lack of fuel, and others faced shortages of both fuel, food, and ammunition. None of these deficiencies were produced by shortages of materiel; all were the result of extended supply lines. The Allies badly needed a major port closer to the Front. See "Mistake at Antwerp."

6Sep44: Aircrew members of the 439th Group unload C-47s in France.

The Invasion of Holland