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The joys of travel are perhaps only matched by the anticipation. And so, it’s with great excitement that I’m writing this - while preparing to visit several extraordinary places this fall to celebrate the 80th anniversary of Operation Market Garden, the greatest airborne operation in history.
With fellow travelers on Friends’ Last Battles Tour, we’ll start in Eindhoven in Holland on 16th September, on the eve of the Allies’ audacious yet ill-fated attempt to end the war in Western Europe by Christmas 1945.
The plan, hastily conceived after the liberation of Paris, was to cross the Lower Rhine River and establish a 60-mile-long salient into enemy territory – a pathway to the heart of the Third Reich. Allied paratroopers would drop in unprecedented numbers – some 40,000 - seizing nine bridges. Meanwhile, a British armored force would storm along a narrow road, Highway 69, later dubbed “Hell’s Highway”, linking the bridges and arriving in the town of Arnhem within 48 hours.
Although now regarded as a noble failure, much of Market Garden worked. Montgomery himself, usually cautious and deliberate, claimed that his highly risky operation was 90 percent successful because the Allies seized that fraction of the route to Arnhem. Of course, in war the last ten percent makes all the difference, but Monty had a point - in particular regarding the airborne troops.
This September 17th, my fellow travelers will look up into the skies and hopefully see re-enactors dropping from the heavens, honoring the 101st Airborne and 82nd Airborne who landed to the south of Nijmegen the very same day in 1944. The 82nd, commanded by my favorite WWII general, Jim Gavin, just 37 years old, achieved astonishing success, with almost 90 percent of troops landing within just 1000 meters of their targets.
The 101st Airborne – the so-called Screaming Eagles - also put on a terrific show, taking four of the five bridges assigned on day one, the fifth being blown up by the Germans. We’ll savor this success, visiting the drop-zones around Son en Breughel and Paulushoef. Then we’ll pay our respects at a memorial to Lieutenant Colonel Robert Cole, killed on 18th September, recipient of the Medal of Honor for leading an amazing bayonet charge near Carentan on 11 June in Normandy.
Incredibly, only three men from the 101st Airborne received the Medal of Honor for actions in World War II – a staff sergeant who was killed during the Battle of the Bulge, Lt. Colonel Cole and Pfc. Joe Mann, who also died on 18th September - after smothering a grenade even though he was badly wounded with his arms bandaged to his body. There’s a memorial to Mann a short drive from the one dedicated to Cole.
Then we’ll visit Nijmegen, scene of one of the most daring actions in US military history – the Waal River Crossing. In folding boats, Jim Gavin’s men crossed the swirling river under intense fire, suffering high casualties, but eventually securing the bridge at Nijmegen on Hell’s Highway late on 20th September.
Gavin’s All Americans had nailed it. But sadly the critical British armored force did not push on that night and invaluable time was lost, for meanwhile British and Polish airborne troops at Arnhem, just fifteen miles to the north, had been surrounded and were in dire straits.
The epic story of what happened at Arnhem, just one bridge too far along Hell’s Highway, has been oft told, most famously in the 1977 movie based on Cornelius Ryan’s wonderful book. On our tour, we’ll visit the John Frost Bridge, named after Lt. Colonel John Frost, whose force of less than 800 men seized the final bridge assigned during Operation Market Garden.
Frost’s 2nd Battalion of the Parachute Regiment fought one of the most heroic last stands of all time – no mean feat, fighting in many cases to the last bullet, before being forced to surrender on the night of 21st September. Frost and around a hundred of his men, bloodied and defiant and proud, were marched off to POW camps. The plan had been for the armored force to reach them in 48 hours and they had managed to fight on against overwhelming odds for another, horrific two days. The combat was often hand to hand, as desperate as any in World War II.
Our final stop in Holland will be at the Margraten Cemetery and Memorial, where over 8000 US service personnel are buried. There is no better place to visit as an American to witness the deep gratitude of those who were liberated eight decades ago. Since 1945, the local Dutch have adopted the graves, honoring the fallen, leaving flowers every year.
The Dutch who live all along Hell’s Highway know the price of liberty. Some share one of the aims of this organization, Friends of the National WWII Memorial: to make sure the sacrifices and immense achievements of the Greatest Generation – namely restoring decency and democracy to a benighted continent – are never forgotten.
This September, in Margraten and elsewhere along our journey, children and their parents and even a few great grandparents will welcome us. They will join us in paying tribute to the young men and women who gave everything so that we and they can live joyously today, free from Nazi evil and oppression.
