|
On 4 September the British 11th Armored Division of
the British Second Army, with vital assistance from the Belgian
underground, captured Antwerp, the second largest port in Europe, with
its gigantic 1,000-acre harbor, still intact. This port was adjacent to
the area occupied by Montgomery’s forces, and little more than 100
airline miles from Patton’s Third Army. Many other Allied ground
troops in the ETO were in-between. Unfortunately, no order was
given the beleaguered British troops to move in on the German 15th Army,
now in retreat from Calais. Soon, the 15th Army had moved into the area
along the vital 54-mile Scheldt Estuary that controlled entrance
to the port facilities at Antwerp from the North Sea. In what has been
referred to as one of the major tactical blunders of World War II,
Montgomery’s forces came to a premature halt, failing to seal off
South Beveland from the mainland. Consequently, nearly 80,000 men, just
recently removed from Field Marshal Model’s command and placed under
von Rundstedt, had time to position defensive forces on either side of
the Scheldt, and mine the estuary. This action delayed the use of the
port to the Allies for over two months. The bulk of the German troops,
along with their equipment, continued across the southeast corner of
South Beveland, and from here quickly moved into position on the
mainland, adding vital reinforcements to the German troops defending
against the Allied invasion of Holland.
Montgomery had previously secured a promise from
Eisenhower for use of the First Allied Airborne Army in the effort to
aid the northern thrust of his British 21 Army Group in taking Antwerp
and the Channel ports. The British Field Marshal now had other ideas,
however. Montgomery proposed an uncharacteristically bold plan to lay
down a carpet of airborne troops—during three days of daylight paradrop
and glider missions—on a pathway 60 miles into enemy territory over
which his ground forces could advance. American, British, and Polish
airborne troops were to secure a single narrow road, with many bridges
over the canals and rivers of the Dutch coastal plain, after which the
XXX Corps of the British Second Army would make a quick dash up to
Arnhem and secure a bridgehead over the Rhine, and from there to points
in the German interior.
Since the successful airborne assaults in Normandy
and Southern France, Eisenhower had been under increasing pressure from
both U.S. Chief of Staff General George Marshall and Chief of the U.S.
Army Air Force General Hap Arnold to use airborne forces in a more
aggressive manner. In addition, relations between Montgomery and
Eisenhower had reached a new low. Not helping in these matters was the
fact that Eisenhower, on direct orders from Gen. Marshall on 1
September, had personally taken over control of all ground forces in the
ETO from Montgomery, who had held this power since December, 1943. This
was largely the result of public pressure from the U.S., based on the
larger number of troops coming from the States, as compared with Great
Britain.
Montgomery’s Second Army commander, Lt. General
Miles C. Dempsey, argued unsuccessfully with Montgomery that the Second
Army would have difficulty with this push to Arnhem, and lobbied for a
Rhine bridgehead at Wesel, which could be approached jointly with the
U.S. First Army.
Eisenhower, though he realized that efforts to open
Antwerp would have to be delayed, agreed to Montgomery’s plan to take
Arnhem, but firmly ruled out any “full-blooded thrust” to Berlin or
into the German interior from there. U.S. General Omar Bradley strongly
opposed Montgomery’s proposed operation, called MARKET (airborne
assault) GARDEN (ground assault), but Eisenhower overruled him (see
Battle Area map). Bradley
was incensed, and said later that he never understood Ike’s
“equivocating response.” According to Bradley, because of mounting
pressure to use the new First Allied Airborne Army, airborne forces were
“like coins burning a hole in SHAEF’s pocket.” Bradley stated that
his preference would have been “to use the airlift to bring gasoline
to my stranded tanks,” but the Arnhem proposal “offered Ike a golden
opportunity to stage a splashy airborne spectacle.” However, Bradley
conceded that there were other intervening influences. On the evening of
8 September 1944 the first V-2s (an early ballistic missile) landed on
London, and another near Paris, both launched from The Hague in western
Holland. These rockets, according to Bradley, were “terror weapons
without precedent,” and could not only be directed against London, but
also against “our vulnerable supply bases” (Messenger, 189; Bradley
& Blair, 328).
|
