Accomplishing the latter mission was complicated by Browning directly interfering in Gavin’s planning. In his Operation Instruction No. 1 dated Wednesday 13 September, Browning stated that securing the Groesbeek Heights, a wooded plateau south and east of Nijmegen, was of equal importance to securing the Nijmegen and Grave bridges. He went further at the 14 September briefing. After Gavin had finished outlining his Divisional plan, Browning specifically forbade him from moving on the Nijmegen bridges until the whole of the Groesbeek Heights had been secured.68 Browning’s edict raises two points. First, it presents the interesting spectacle of an officer with no operational airborne experience whatsoever and whose sole combat experience was restricted to a brief period of platoon-level command on the Western Front during the First World War, telling arguably the most competent and combat-experienced Allied Airborne commander of the war how to go about his business. Second, it shows that despite being the titular head of British Airborne Forces for three years, Browning had failed to grasp the basic principles of Airborne operations and, more importantly, the capabilities of the formations created to fulfil them. Browning’s concern stemmed from the fact that the western end of the Groesbeek Heights overlooked the roads into Nijmegen and the city itself, and presented a potential conduit for German counter-attacks from the nearby Reichswald Forest, which lay just inside the nearby German border; according to Gavin, the British were convinced that German armoured units were stationed inside the Reichswald.69
Interestingly, Gavin shared Browning’s concern regarding the ridge overlooking Nijmegen and the approaches to the city, rather than the Heights in their entirety. Even allowing for this, however, the Groesbeek Heights were still a secondary priority and one that could and should have been left largely to the relieving ground forces, not least because the lightly armed Airborne troops lacked the means to withstand armoured attack. Browning ought therefore to have been concentrating upon securing the road and rail bridges over the River Waal, without which the advance north to Arnhem and beyond simply could not take place. In the event, Browning’s edict forced Gavin to deploy his three lightly armed Regiments around a perimeter twenty-five miles in circumference, which left him no option but to spread his men wide and thin across key terrain features and road and track junctions. Browning therefore elicited precisely the opposite result to that intended, insofar as his injunction undermined the 82nd Airborne Division’s collective ability to defend against serious attack from the Reichswald or anywhere else. It was also arguably unnecessary, given that the Nijmegen bridges were not actually visible from the Groesbeek Heights as claimed, and it would have been perfectly feasible to establish a much tighter perimeter running through the more defensible urban terrain in the outskirts of Nijmegen.70 In short, possession of the Nijmegen bridges was absolutely crucial for a successful execution of MARKET GARDEN while possession of the Groesbeek Heights was not, and seizing the bridges should therefore have been the first priority. By ordering otherwise, Browning had clearly failed to identify the primary aim and was seemingly oblivious to the crucial need to concentrate upon it rather than peripheral issues. As we shall see, the 82nd Airborne Division was to pay a high price for Browning’s fixation with the Groesbeek Heights, and neither was this to be his sole deleterious intervention in the MARKET planning phase.
Gavin’s memoir gives no hint that he was anything other than in full accord with Browning’s concerns and instructions over the Groesbeek Heights, while the US official history based on his post-war testimony only mentions Browning in passing and gives the impression that Gavin decided to prioritise the Heights over the Nijmegen bridge on his own initiative.71 However, this is undoubtedly due to Gavin’s scrupulously neutral and unfailingly courteous attitude to superiors and subordinates alike, which characterises his writings even when he would have been more than justified in complaining or criticising. Furthermore, despite claiming to fully concur with Browning’s edict, Gavin nonetheless admitted to being ‘deeply troubled by the prospect of failing to accomplish some of my objectives’. Even more pertinently, in the run-up to MARKET Gavin held regular discussions on the matter with Colonel Roy E. Lindquist, whose Regiment was tasked to secure the north end of the Heights and was thus nearest the Nijmegen bridges. These discussions culminated in Gavin verbally ordering Lindquist to ‘…commit his first battalion against the Nijmegen bridge without delay after landing but to keep a very close eye on it in the event he needed it to protect himself against the Reichswald’.72 Gavin went so far as to work out and provide a circuitous route to the road bridge intended to avoid becoming disoriented in Nijmegen’s streets. With hindsight, it is clear that Gavin was trying to subtly encourage Lindquist to circumvent Browning’s order, but subsequent events would show that Lindquist did not fully grasp Gavin’s intent; the latter later admitted to being ‘a bit ambiguous’ and that Colonel Tucker’s 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment would have been better placed to go for the Nijmegen bridges, and Tucker presumably more perceptive to subtle hinting as well.73
Be that as it may, Gavin was obliged to re-jig his plan to conform to Browning’s wishes, and the 82nd Airborne Division’s two remaining Regiments thus utilised two separate DZs selected to permit a rapid seizure of the Groesbeek Heights. Colonel William E. Ekman’s 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment was to drop onto DZ N, five miles east of the 504th Regiment’s main landing area, at the southern edge of the Heights. The DZ, which was also to be used by Gavin’s Division HQ and Lieutenant-Colonel Wilbur Griffiths’ 376th Parachute Artillery Battalion, was midway between the Reichswald to the south-east and the village of Groesbeek to the north-east. Ekman was therefore tasked to secure Groesbeek village, establish a perimeter along the southern edge of the Heights, and establish contact with the 504th Regiment to the west across the Maas-Waal Canal. Colonel Lindquist and the 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment’s DZ T was located roughly two miles to the north-east, between Groesbeek and the village of Wyler, which lay just inside the German border. Lindquist was tasked to secure the Heights, establish a perimeter along their eastern and northern edges, and to protect the landing area for Colonel George Billingslea’s 325th Glider Infantry Regiment which was scheduled to arrive with the second lift on 18 September; two adjacent glider LZs had been selected just east of Groesbeek, in the area separating the parachute DZs. Occupying the whole of the Groesbeek Heights created a perimeter of around twenty-five miles, which was a tall order even for a formation as experienced and professional as Gavin’s, and he was therefore obliged to spread his units wide and thin as a result. As Powell points out, occupying a smaller perimeter extending three miles of so from the centre of Nijmegen would have denied the Germans access and observation over the city and approach roads, but that would not have complied with Browning’s insistence on occupying the Groesbeek Heights in their entirety.74
The third and final contributor to the 14 September briefback was Major-General Robert Urquhart, commanding the 1st Airborne Division. Urquhart’s plan was essentially COMET minus the glider coup-de-main landing to seize the Arnhem road bridge. As we have seen, the RAF planners had elected to put the 1st Airborne Division down on an area of heath and farmland approximately seven miles west of Arnhem. The first lift employed two landing areas, a combined drop and landing area south-west of Wolfheze and a smaller landing area just north of the town. The former extended north from Heelsum to the Arnhem‒Ede railway line just west of Wolfheze, and was divided almost equally down the middle by a convenient belt of trees. The western half, dubbed DZ X, was assigned to Brigadier Gerald Lathbury’s 1st Parachute Brigade, the 1st Parachute Squadron RE and the 16th Parachute Field Ambulance. The adjacent LZ Z was allotted to Lathbury’s glider-borne elements, Major C.F.H. ‘Freddie’ Gough’s 1st Airborne Reconnaissance Squadron, the 1st Airlanding Anti-Tank Battery RA, the 1st Airlanding Light Regiment RA, 9th Field Company RE and the 181st Airlanding Field Ambulance. Urquhart’s Tactical HQ and Brigadier Philip Hicks’ 1st Airlanding Brigade was assigned LZ S, the s
maller landing area north of the railway line. Another parachute landing area two miles or so west of Wolfheze, codenamed DZ Y, was earmarked for use by the 4th Parachute Brigade for the second lift on Monday 18 September while the remainder of the 1st Airlanding Brigade were to be delivered onto LZ S and a redesignated LZ X. The third lift, scheduled for Tuesday 19 September, envisaged putting the 1st Polish Independent Parachute Brigade onto DZ K, on the polder land just south of the Arnhem road bridge, while the Poles’ transport and heavy equipment were put down on LZ L, two miles east of Wolfheze, along with the 878th US Airborne Engineer Battalion.75
Urquhart’s plan once on the ground was relatively straightforward. Hicks’ 1st Airlanding Brigade was tasked to protect the landing area for the second lift on Monday 18 September, along with Urquhart’s Tactical HQ and all the Divisional units brought in on the first lift. Major Gough’s 1st Airborne Reconnaissance Squadron was to speed off from the landing area in its armed Jeeps, trailed by Brigadier Lathbury’s 1st Parachute Brigade. Gough’s men were to seize the Division’s primary objective, the Arnhem road bridge, and hold on until Lathbury’s men arrived to erect a properly defensible perimeter around it. Once the second lift, consisting mainly of Brigadier John Hackett’s 4th Parachute Brigade, was down on the second day, it and the 1st Airlanding Brigade were to expand the Division perimeter in Arnhem to the north, picking up the Polish and other glider-borne elements from LZ L en route. The arrival of the 1st Polish Independent Parachute Brigade near the Arnhem road bridge on the third lift was thus somewhat superfluous, and the Poles were tasked to cross the bridge and set up defensive positions in Arnhem’s eastern suburbs.76 The intent may have been to employ the Poles in the subsequent advance to the Zuider Zee or east across the River Ijssel to Deventer or Zutphen; according to one participant from the 44th Royal Tank Regiment (RTR), his unit was briefed to support a Polish parachute drop near the Zuider Zee.77
Urquhart was soon to join Gavin in suffering the interference of Browning. On Friday 15 September Urquhart had somehow managed to find time amidst the preparations for MARKET for a round of golf on the course adjacent to the Moor Park HQ. While playing he was approached by his Operations Officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Mackenzie, who informed him that ‘a few’ gliders were being trimmed from 1st Airborne Division’s first lift; Urquhart acquiesced without objection, apart from instructing Mackenzie to ensure that the reduction did not impinge on delivery of the guns of the 1st Airlanding Anti-Tank Battery RA.78 Urquhart’s reaction was rather surprising, not least because the 1st Airborne Division was already short of airlift. The ‘few’ gliders actually numbered thirty-eight, thirty-two of which were Horsas, sufficient to lift two-thirds of an Airlanding infantry battalion; the remaining six were Waco CG4s of unknown provenance.79 Even more surprising, given that Urquhart’s first lift was light on infantry, the gliders appear to have been trimmed from the 2nd South Staffords, allotted only twenty-two of the fifty-six machines necessary to move the Battalion in its entirety in the first lift, with the remaining thirty-four Horsa loads being bumped over to the second lift.80
Urquhart’s lack of reaction may well have been due to the reason for the glider trimming. The thirty-eight machines had been earmarked to carry Browning and his Advanced 1st Airborne Corps HQ into the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment’s landing area south of Groesbeek.81 This was the means by which Browning had chosen to remedy his total lack of Airborne operational experience, and thus shore up his claim to the top Allied Airborne post. He intended to do it in some style. According to Colonel George Chatterton, who flew Browning’s Horsa, Browning was accompanied by an entourage that included his batman, Corps Medical Officer, personal cook, tent and Jeep.82 There was no practical or operational justification for Browning’s inclusion in the first lift or indeed for being in Holland at all, as there was nothing he could do there that could not be done from his 1st Airborne Corps HQ at Moor Park. His presence in Holland was therefore superfluous and nothing more than an exercise in self-promotion at the expense of the men under his command, as subsequent events were to show.
All that, however, lay in the future. Although it does not appear to have been generally expressed overtly, Urquhart’s plan was not especially well received by the more experienced Airborne officers present on 14 September. In his memoir Gavin admitted to not believing his ears when Urquhart unveiled his plan and at the time remarked to his Operations Officer, Colonel John Norton, ‘My God, he can’t mean it.’ The latter responded, ‘He does, and he is going to try to do it.’83 Although he astutely noted that it was beyond Urquhart’s control, Gavin’s comment was initially directed at the seven-mile distance between the 1st Airborne Division’s landing area and its primary objective, although it should be noted that the nearest of the 82nd Airborne Division’s DZs was five miles from the Nijmegen bridges, and on the wrong side of the Groesbeek Heights to boot. However, Gavin’s appreciation ran deeper, as his subsequent comment that Urquhart’s plan ‘seemed more like a peacetime exercise than war’ clearly shows.84 The options available to Urquhart’s first lift were externally dictated and thus arguably acceptable, although that is a matter to which we shall return, but the same cannot be said of the plan for the second lift. While risky, assuming that the 1st Airborne Reconnaissance Squadron and the 1st Parachute Brigade would be capable of pushing through to the Arnhem road bridge was nonetheless reasonable, given that they had the element of surprise and providing they moved with sufficient speed. To expect the 1st Airlanding and 4th Parachute Brigades to repeat the feat after giving the Germans up to twenty-four hours’ notice of their intent was anything but reasonable, especially as they would also be saddled with the task of shepherding the Divisional units as well. It is therefore difficult to view Urquhart’s assumption that they could do so as anything other than a combination of overconfidence and naivety, arguably to the point of stupidity. It was likely this factor that moved Major-General Sosabowski to reprise his vocal objection to the COMET plan by rising from his seat behind Gavin and calling out ‘But the Germans, how about the Germans, what about them?’85
The underlying problem here was Urquhart’s lack of airborne experience, which is evident in almost every facet of his plan. Bitter experience had taught both Gavin and Taylor the crucial importance of starting with the maximum number of fighting troops to hand; consequently the 82nd and 101st Airborne Division’s first lift included all three of their organic parachute infantry Regiments, each equivalent to a British brigade, augmented with a few engineer and artillery elements. In contrast, Urquhart filled approximately a third of his first lift with Divisional troops including an entire light artillery regiment and two full field ambulances, while permitting one of his two infantry brigades to be ‘trimmed’ of almost a third of its strength by Browning’s appropriation of the thirty-four Horsas from the Divisional glider allocation. In part this can be ascribed to the structure of British airborne divisions, in which two-thirds of the infantry component was made up of parachute troops, even though the Air Ministry had no intention of providing sufficient aircraft to deliver more than a fraction of them at any one time. Consequently and leaving aside the impact of Browning’s interference, as things stood from Urquhart’s perspective he had to fill almost a third of his glider lift with Divisional troops because the only infantry available were from the 4th Parachute Brigade. As paratroopers tended to view gliders as a half-step away from outright suicide, turning them into impromptu airlanding infantry would likely have been problematic but not impossible.
However ‒ although it does not appear to have occurred to Urquhart or anyone else ‒ there was a solution that would have permitted him to emulate his more experienced US counterparts and deliver most if not all his infantry component in the first lift. The RAF contribution to the first lift into Arnhem consisted of two formations: Nos. 38 and 46 Groups. The former consisted of six Squadrons of Short Stirlings, two Squadrons equipped with Handley Page Halifaxes and a Squadron of Armstrong Whitworth Albemarles
; all were configured as glider tugs, while the Stirlings and Albemarles were also configured to deliver parachutists. No. 46 Group consisted of five RAF and one RCAF Squadrons equipped with C-47s/Dakotas. All these appear to have been configured for parachuting too, given that the bulk of their sorties during MARKET were parachute supply missions. No. 46 Group therefore had sufficient aircraft to deliver most if not all of the 4th Parachute Brigade alongside the USAAF aircraft dropping the 1st Parachute Brigade, while No. 38 Group towed in the 1st Airlanding Brigade’s gliders and those earmarked for vital support units. This would have allowed Urquhart to despatch two infantry brigades to secure his primary objective while still keeping the third back to protect the landing area for the second lift. On the downside it would also have meant bumping most of the Divisional units over to the second or possibly third lifts, but of these arguably only the guns of 1st Airlanding Light Regiment RA proved useful and then largely after the original plan had failed and the 1st Airborne Division was trapped and fighting for its life in Oosterbeek. The trick would have been getting Air Vice-Marshal Hollinghurst and the RAF planners to agree to the change in loading schedules. It might have been possible with the support of Brereton, but as a product of the British Army patronage system and thus totally beholden to Montgomery and Browning for his position, Urquhart was likely unwilling if not simply incapable of rocking the boat vigorously enough. However justified, such an action would likely have spelled the end of his Army career.
All this strongly suggests that Urquhart had simply failed to grasp the essential differences between conventional and Airborne operations, and especially that the latter were very much a ‘come as you are’ affair for which commanders were required to mix, match and balance their units to suit the mission. Lieutenant-Colonel John Frost, commanding the 2nd Parachute Battalion, highlighted the danger of placing non-Airborne commanders in charge of Airborne units:
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