Thus in early August 1944 the 101st Airborne Division was slated alongside the 1st Airborne Division, the 52nd (Lowland) Division and 1st Polish Independent Parachute Brigade to carry out Operation TRANSFIGURATION.71 The Operation was originally intended to support a US armoured break-out from Normandy, and a warning order on 4 August saw the Pathfinders of the 21st Independent Parachute Company move to RAF Broadwell in preparation to mark drop zones for the 1st Parachute Brigade. The Company was stood down on 6 August when the plan was reconfigured, and interestingly does not appear to have been involved in the Operation thereafter; while the 1st Parachute Brigade’s constituent units received their first warning order for TRANSFIGURATION on or around 10 August, the 21st Independent were busy with Exercise STOPGAP, a joint scheme with the US Pathfinder School at North Witham.72 The Operation was rescheduled for 16 August, with the participating units moving to their marshalling areas, drawing kit and fitting parachutes from 15 August. The Airborne units slated for TRANSFIGURATION also despatched a large sea tail to France, made up of transport and other administrative elements from the Division’s constituent units. The 1st Parachute Battalion’s Motor Transport section left the Battalion billets at Grimsthorpe Castle in newly issued, factory-fresh Bedford trucks at 20:00 on 12 August, for example. Similarly, the 2nd Parachute Battalion’s section left Grantham on the same day and embarked on the SS Sammesse at London’s West India Docks on 14 August,73 while the 101st Airborne Division’s seaborne element left the Divisional concentration area around Newbury the same day.74 In the event, TRANSFIGURATION was cancelled on 18 August after a twenty-four-hour postponement because the ground advance had rendered it superfluous; as we have seen, US troops reached the River Seine near Mantes the following day. The fact that SHAEF had directed Allied air transport resources to ferrying supplies for the US 3rd Army might also have had some bearing on the cancellation.75 Whatever the reason, by the time of cancellation the British sea tail was in France and the fact that it included virtually all the constituent unit’s organic transport loaded with the airborne component’s spare clothing and kit caused problems until both groupings were reunited at Nijmegen over a month later.76
TRANSFIGURATION was joined and then succeeded on 17 August by Operation BOXER, the primary objective of which was the capture of the French port of Boulogne, using the same forces. According to the British official history they remained on standby in their marshalling areas, but the operational records suggest that they returned to their billets before BOXER was officially cancelled on 26 August. The 1st Parachute Battalion, for example, returned to Grimsthorpe Castle on 22 August, assisted RE troops in erecting Nissen huts after carrying out a fifteen-mile forced march on 24 August, and despatched a third of the Battalion on thirty-six hours leave the same day BOXER was cancelled.77 Interestingly, the 1st Parachute Battalion War Diary makes no mention of that operation, and neither do the 2nd Parachute Battalion or 21st Independent Parachute Company War Diaries. Operation LINNET is the next operation specifically cited after BOXER in all three.78 BOXER may therefore have been one of the provisional operations that did not move beyond Corps or Divisional planning staffs before being cancelled. Whatever the reason, the cancellation also marked a change in the focus and source of provisional Allied airborne operations. Up to and including BOXER, they had originated with SHAEF, and been focussed upon reinforcing and/or enlarging the beachhead area, or securing dock facilities to assist in supplying the invasion force. Once 1st Allied Airborne Army HQ became active on 2 August however, it assumed responsibility for framing missions, and focussed upon support for the break-out from Normandy.
Thus the next projected mission, codenamed AXEHEAD and scheduled for 25 August, envisaged the 1st Airborne Division and 1st Polish Independent Parachute Brigade securing crossing points over the River Seine; like TRANSFIGURATION it was rendered superfluous by the rapid advance of Allied ground forces detailed above. AXEHEAD was superseded by Operation LINNET, which involved deploying all three of 1st Allied Airborne Army’s divisions in the area of Lille on or after 3 September 1944, in order to block the German line of retreat eastward and seize a foothold on the east bank of the River Escaut. LINNET was the reason for the Guards Armored Division’s forty-eight-hour pause at Douai from 1 September, and it is unclear from British accounts whether it was cancelled because the Guards Armoured Division resumed the advance toward the Belgian border on 3 September, or whether the latter moved on because LINNET had been cancelled. However, one US participant account refers to the Operation being cancelled on 3 September because Lieutenant-General Courtney H. Hodges’ US 1st Army had already reached the objective,79 which is backed up by another US account that refers to Montgomery ordering Brereton to implement the cancellation at 22:24 on 2 September, after Hodges’ troops reached Tournai, just east of Lille.80 The same account also refers to Bradley unsuccessfully arguing with Eisenhower against LINNET, because it meant diverting airlift from supplying the ground advance, and to Bradley claiming that LINNET cost the latter a minimum of 5,000 tons of supplies.81
Either way, the Airborne units again went through the entire sequence of preparation. The 21st Independent Parachute Company again moved to Broadwell on 29 August, and prepared to drop in and mark seven landing areas at first light, twenty minutes ahead of the main force.82 The 1st Parachute Brigade began to move to their marshalling area after receiving a warning order the same day, while their counterparts from the 101st Airborne Division began the same process two days later.83 All three divisions remained on stand-by in their respective marshalling areas while LINNET morphed into LINNET II, which proposed shifting the location of the operation east to the area of Maastricht on the German border. The intention was to exploit the US 1st Army’s momentum and assist it in crossing the Westwall defences and push into Germany near Aachen, and possibly on up to the River Rhine. The scheme sparked a fierce dispute between Eisenhower, Bradley and Montgomery over the allocation of resources, and the underlying motivations for the resultant dispute between Brereton and Browning vary according to the source. One British source, for example, claims that Browning was motivated by concerns over the haste with which LINNET II was being launched, in particular a lack of maps for junior commanders, and because he was unwilling ‘…to see his troops thrown carelessly into battle’,84 while a US source suggests that Browning’s resignation was a ploy to corner Allied resources for Montgomery’s 21st Army Group.85 The latter would appear to rely largely on the still-popular US view that the British were more interested in exercising their Machiavellian tendencies to gain control over US assets than in fighting the Germans. Browning’s conduct and demeanour did little to allay such concerns, and his behaviour hitherto does not really suggest a man overly concerned with the well-being of his subordinates either, quite the contrary. He blatantly interfered with and potentially compromised Frost’s plan for the Bruneval raid in February 1942 for example, and he did nothing to rein in Hopkinson’s virtually criminal mishandling of the 1st Airlanding Brigade in the invasion of Sicily in July the following year. This tendency was to become even more noticeable during the 1st Allied Airborne Army’s deployment into Holland.
LINNET II was cancelled on 5 September, and the cancellation coincided with another shift in the 1st Allied Airborne Army’s operational focus, from supporting the Normandy breakout to extending post-break-out exploitation. To this end, the formation was placed at the direct disposal of 21st Army Group, primarily to assist in 30 Corps’ advance over the Albert Canal and on into Holland that began the same day. However, one other Airborne operation under the 1st Allied Airborne Army’s earlier mandate was briefly considered before attention turned to the new brief. Operation INFATUATE was intended to secure the fortified island of Walcheren in the mouth of the Scheldt Estuary, in order to clear the way for supplies to be run into the port of Antwerp. Walcheren was too small to make a parachute assault a viable option, and the fact that virtually the entire island apart from the perimeter dyke was below sea level,
dotted with flooded areas and criss-crossed with dykes effectively ruled out a glider landing. As a result, planning for INFATUATE did not progress beyond the feasibility study stage before it was abandoned.
LINNET II and INFATUATE were succeeded by Operation COMET, scheduled for 8 September and tailored specifically to spearhead 30 Corps’ advance into southern Holland. According to Major-General Stanislaw Sosabowski, commanding the 1st Polish Independent Parachute Brigade, COMET was originally dubbed FIFTEEN, being renamed on 5 September; this is supported by the 1st Parachute Brigade and 156 Parachute Battalion War Diaries which both refer to ‘Operation Fifteen’ on 5 and 7 September respectively.86 Warning Orders and briefings for the Operation appear to have begun to circulate from as early as 1 September, when the 11th Parachute Battalion was confined to barracks in preparation for the Operation.87 Sosabowski refers to learning of it on 2 September, but most units received word on or around 6 September, the day the commander of the 1st Airborne Division, Major-General Robert Urquhart, gave a detailed briefing at RAF Cottesmore. The 3rd Parachute Battalion, for example, received the warning order on 4 September and immediately authorised local leave for the troops, before holding a Battalion Orders (O) Group at 17:30 on 6 September.88 The 1st Parachute Battalion only appears to have received the order on or around 6 September, given that the Battalion War Diary refers to an O Group for COMET being held on the following day.89
The COMET plan envisaged the 1st Airborne Division, reinforced with the 1st Polish Independent Parachute Brigade, seizing crossings over the Rivers Maas, Waal and Lower Rhine ahead of 30 Corps’ advance. In essence the plan was a slightly modified repeat of the 6th Airborne Division’s assault into Normandy the previous June, with an insertion just after first light rather than at night; the original plan appears to have been for the latter, but was possibly altered due to the bad scattering suffered by the 6th Airborne’s parachute elements on D-Day. The crossings at Grave were to be seized by the 4th Parachute Brigade, those at Nijmegen by the 1st Airlanding Brigade and 1st Polish Independent, and the 1st Parachute Brigade were responsible for the road and pontoon bridges at Arnhem. The latter, codenamed WATERLOO and PUTNEY respectively, were to be seized in a coup-de-main glider attack by a company from the 2nd Battalion South Staffordshire Regiment at 04:30 on D-Day. Two hours and fifteen minutes later, around or just after first light, the 21st Independent Parachute Company was to jump in and mark the main drop and landing zones west of Arnhem proper. They were to be followed at 07:33 by three Hamilcar gliders carrying 1st Parachute Brigade HQ element, followed three minutes later by gliders carrying the 1st Airlanding Anti-Tank Battery. The final glider increment, twenty-five Horsas carrying the 1st Parachute Brigade’s vehicles and heavy equipment, was scheduled to arrive fourteen minutes later, at 07:54. The main parachute insertion was to commence at 08:00, spearheaded by the 2nd Parachute Battalion accompanied by a parachute-trained Dutch liaison officer and a party from the Royal Army Service Corps (RASC); the latter was tasked to commandeer vehicles for use by the Airborne force. They were to be followed by the 1st and 3rd Parachute Battalions at five-minute intervals. After reorganising, the force was to move along two parallel routes into Arnhem to relieve the South Staffords holding the bridges: TIGER, running along the Heelsum to Arnhem road through Oosterbeek and LEOPARD, which ran along the northern edge of the latter. The second lift, consisting of twenty Horsas carrying the remainder of the Brigade’s non-parachute elements, was scheduled to arrive just before dusk, at 18:41.90
The COMET plan was not greeted with unalloyed enthusiasm when Urquhart unveiled it at Cottesmore on Wednesday 6 September, and there were two interlinked matters of concern. These were that the selected drop and landing zones were around seven miles from the objective and that the plan took no account of possible German reaction to the landing, relying on intelligence reports that there were no German forces in the Arnhem area. What appears to have been the general reaction was succinctly summarised by the commander of the 4th Parachute Brigade, Brigadier John Hackett. In common with some of the earlier aborted missions, he condemned COMET as a potential disaster, and laid the blame firmly upon the RAF planners for drawing up plans without regard to anything outside the narrow technical parameters of their craft and with no regard whatsoever for the tactical and operational realities facing the troops they were delivering.91 Hackett’s appreciation was correct with regard to the RAF planner’s priorities, which were a matter of deliberate institutional policy rather than merely bureaucratic indifference, the roots of which lay in the inter-service horse trading between the Air Ministry and War Office when the British Airborne force had been established in 1940. On the other hand, Hackett does not appear to have acknowledged the fact that the designated landing zones were the only option available, as there was no suitable terrain closer to Arnhem. Hackett’s comments appear to have come after the event, but Sosabowski made his opinion absolutely clear at the time, interrupting Urquhart’s briefing several times before uttering his much-quoted query, ‘But the Germans, General, the Germans!’92 Sosabowski’s reservations were so strong that he asked Urquhart to confirm his orders in writing on 8 September, the day COMET was to have been launched. As a result, when the Operation was postponed for twenty-four hours due to bad weather and German resistance to 30 Corps’ advance over the Albert Canal, Urquhart flew him to Browning’s 1 Airborne Corps HQ at Moor Park to explain his case. After trying and failing to brush the matter aside via small talk and flattery, Browning asked Sosabowski for his solution; the Polish commander responded by pointing out that the three individual COMET missions required a division apiece rather than a reinforced brigade.
It is unclear whether or not Sosabowski got his orders in writing, but the matter swiftly became moot. Operation COMET was cancelled at 14:00 on Sunday 10 September, just four hours short of take-off. Unlike the previous fifteen or more cancelled missions, however, that was not to be the end of it, for COMET was not simply abandoned after cancellation. It formed the basis for an expanded mission with the same objectives codenamed MARKET GARDEN.
3
COMET to MARKET: The Evolution of Operation MARKET
10 September – 11 September 1944
On the surface, the reason for the cancellation of Operation COMET was the resistance presented to the Guards Armoured Division’s push across the Albert Canal by Kampfgruppe Chill and 1 Fallschirmjäger Armee. Whilst this was a key factor, the reasons also ran wider and deeper than the immediate tactical situation on the Belgian-Dutch border, and arose from the way in which the pursuit phase of the Falaise breakout across northern France and Belgium had taken on a life of its own. The Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, had envisaged a measured and systematic advance on a broad front with a pause to regroup on the River Seine. However, by the beginning of September the Allied advance east from Normandy had not only exceeded expectations in geographic terms but had also split into two divergent axes running north and south of the rugged Ardennes region. As we have seen, in the north Montgomery’s 21st Army Group was on the Dutch border, while to the south Patton’s 3rd Army had penetrated deep into the French province of Lorraine. This divergence was not a problem in itself, for Eisenhower had anticipated precisely such a development at least a month before the invasion was launched; a planning paper from May 1944 explicitly referred to the two axes of advance, with priority being given to the northerly advance into the Ruhr.1 The problem lay in the speed with which the divergent axes of advance had developed, and more specifically the impact this had upon Allied logistical planning and resources.
This impact was considerable, for it totally derailed Allied logistical arrangements, which were already under considerable strain before Falaise. The Germans had expected the Allies to launch their invasion with the seizure of a major port and had thus expended a great deal of effort and resources to counter such a move. In order to avoid tackling the resulting formidable defences head on, the Allies therefo
re planned to supply the invasion force over the beach initially via two specially designed and prefabricated harbours codenamed MULBERRY. These were towed across the Channel and assembled in place, MULBERRY A off the OMAHA landing area in the US sector, and MULBERRY B off the GOLD landing area at Arromanches. Both were complete and functioning by 9 June 1944, just three days after the invasion commenced. In the event, MULBERRY A was destroyed by a storm ten days later, on 19 June. Had matters run according to plan this would not have been so serious a setback, for US forces were scheduled to capture the port of Cherbourg on the tip of the Cotentin Peninsula by 21 June, thereby opening an additional, high-capacity supply conduit. However, Cherbourg was not fully secured until 29 June, when the last German defensive fortification surrendered, and as expected the defenders had made the most of the opportunity for demolition.2 All the cranes and other equipment for servicing the port’s deep water quays had been blown into the water with the quays themselves demolished atop them, while the harbour area had been extensively blocked with sunken ships and sown with mines, many of which had also been modified with anti-sweep devices and booby-traps to prevent handling by divers. Clearing the latter cost three minesweepers and seven other vessels, but the outer harbour was able to accept its first deep draught ship on 16 July, although the need to unload vessels via DUKW amphibious trucks restricted the flow of supplies to little more than a relative trickle for a considerable period.3
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