02x04 - Nazis Strike Back

[bunniefuu]

September 1944. Holland.

Allied forces defend a tenuous position

in a German occupied city.

British airborne troops

try to hold off an enemy tank attack

armed only with a handheld

weapon called a PIAT.

After six rounds, the weapon fails.

The PIAT b*mb explodes prematurely,

inside the trough of the weapon.

It's extremely close to his face.

We're talking about a distance like this.

As more German tanks arrive,

it seems more likely

the whole operation has backfired.

On June 6th, 1944,

Allied forces finally

land troops in Normandy

to open the western front.

But n*zi fanatics and diehards

continue to fight ruthlessly for survival.

D-Day was a battle.

The Allies still need to win the w*r.

September 19th, 1944.

Arnhem, Holland.

Clear!

Major Robert Cain

and his elite unit

of British airborne troops

are 60 miles behind enemy lines.

Dropped into occupied Holland by glider,

they are lightly equipped

but highly trained.

They close in on the town of Arnhem,

which has been under n*zi occupation

for four years.

They are not the first British soldiers

to pass through here.

The rest of Cain's regiment

the South Staffordshires

are somewhere ahead.

Cain has orders to join them in an attack

on German defenses,

on the other side of town.

But it's getting light,

and he needs to find them,

before the Germans find him.

Cain can take no chances.

He is part of a risky and ambitious

operation to help end the w*r.

In the three months since D-Day,

the Allies had advanced

rapidly through France and Belgium.

In the early days of September

there was this astonishing advance

all the way from the River Seine

right to, into Belgium,

into even the edge of ah Germany

in a matter of days.

It was one of the fastest advances

in the whole of the Second World w*r.

Allied leadership wants to

capitalize on the chaotic German retreat

and deal a death blow to the n*zi regime.

British general, Bernard Montgomery,

believes he has the best plan.

The main objective

for Operation Market Garden

was to get across the Rhine

at Arnhem, in Holland

and then be able to encircle the Ruhr

from the north.

Operation Market Garden

has two distinct parts.

The "Market" plan calls for nearly

20,000 Allied airborne troops

to be dropped behind enemy lines

to capture and hold a series

of critical bridges in central Holland.

Operation Garden has the British

30th corps on a tank charge

along a Dutch highway

corridor from Belgium.

With bridges secured

by Operation Market,

Operation Garden would split

German defenses to cross the Rhine,

and enter Germany

north of the Siegfried Line.

Montgomery also had

a secret plan in a way

to head straight for Berlin,

thinking that this would give him

command over all

of the Allied ground forces.

If successful,

the w*r could end by Christmas.

Market Garden

will be the biggest airborne operation

in the whole of history.

Far bigger than the German invasion

of Crete

or any of the other operations

in Sicily or elsewhere.

There are so many troops,

they have to be dropped over multiple

days, by both parachute and glider.

Among the first to land on September 17th

is the Second Parachute Battalion

led by Lieutenant Colonel John Frost.

Born in India during his father's service,

Frost joins the military

and serves in the Middle East,

and returns to Britain

after the w*r begins.

Frost must make his way

the road bridge over the Rhine at Arnhem.

Colonel Frost

with his second battalion

of the parachute regiment

wasted no time at all.

He set off straight away

and that was the main reason

why they got through.

The Nazis

do not expect an attack

so far behind the front line.

The defense is disorganized.

They do not realize

the Allies target the bridges.

sh**t those Krauts!

Frost managed

to get to the north end of the bridge

by night fall and then concealed

his men as German troops

still crossed over the bridge without

realizing the British had reached it.

But even

with the north end secure,

British attempts to capture

the south end fail.

The Germans respond.

They reinforce the bridge overnight

and encircle the north end.

Frost and his men

are now cut off and surrounded.

The original plan was

for the different parachute battalions

to take up positions really encircling

the whole of the town of Arnhem.

Once Frost had got to the bridge

and they realized

that they were under heavy pressure

with German counterattacks.

The other two battalions

felt they had to get to the bridge

themselves and support him.

So this is why the whole

of the original plan

was more or less forgotten

on that first evening or afternoon

of the 17th of September.

Cain's own regiment

was originally tasked

with protecting the drop zones,

eight miles from Arnhem.

But when Cain and B Company land,

they learn of the change of plan.

They felt that they had to send

every available unit

at that particular moment

to reinforce Frost at the bridge.

Because if the bridge wasn't held

then obviously

the whole of Market Garden would lose

its whole point and collapse.

B Company urgently

needs to locate

the rest of its regiment, and join them.

You're talking from the center

of the landing zones

to Arnhem nearly 12 kilometers.

And Airborne soldiers

need surprise on their side.

When they move

through the outskirts of the city,

Cain hears heavy g*nf*re

on the heights behind the hospital.

The Germans have had time

to mobilize a response.

As he nears the battleground,

Cain starts seeing German

and British casualties.

He recognizes uniforms

from other regiments among the dead

and continues to press forward.

The Allied planners

had assumed that the German troops

in the area of Arnhem were very weak.

That they'd talked about you know,

old men and, uh, boys.

They knew though

that these two SS Panzer divisions

were deployed somewhere in the area.

But they had been beaten up

in the end of the fighting in Normandy.

That they assumed they weren't going

to represent a major threat.

And the Germans always punished, uh,

shall we say such assumptions.

One Panzer division

contains a battalion

commanded by SS Captain

Hauptstrumfuher Hans Moeller.

Hans Moeller is a Waffen SS veteran

who had already joined the forces

in the 1930s.

He served in the first

SS engineer regiment

that was raised up in 1934.

He initially was an NCO

and in 1940 he was commissioned.

Moeller had escaped

the Falaise Gap in Normandy,

only to lose hundreds

of men in the retreat.

He is no stranger to Arnhem.

Moeller is familiar

with the terrain and with the region,

because he had fought there in 1940,

and now he finds himself

four years later at exactly the same spot.

After arriving back

in Arnhem, the Panzer division

organizes its remaining troops

into alarm units,

Ninety men strong, as a precaution.

Alarmeinheiten translates into alarm units

that are set up specifically

for the task of reacting

and counter attacking

as quickly as possible

in the case of an Allied

airborne operation.

Moeller and the other Panzer

units form Sperrlinie or blocking lines.

A Sperrlinie is a line of defense

that the enemy must not pass.

It's quite often reinforced

with obstacles or mine fields

in order to funnel the enemy attack

and create k*ll zones.

The blocking lines run

across the west end of Arnhem

from the highroad down to the river.

They should trap Allied airborne troops

and keep them from reaching Arnhem bridge

to reinforce Frost and his men.

Go, go, go!

It is at the far end

of the k*ll zone

where Major Cain finally locates

his regimental commanding officer,

Lieutenant Colonel Derek McCardie.

By the night of the second day,

the 18th of September.

It is very clear to Derek McCardie

and all of the officers

down near the bridge,

that it was getting extremely difficult

to get to the bridge.

But there was a determination

on the part of them all,

they had to get to the bridge

to Johnny Frost

and relieve those paratroopers

who were holding on.

McCardie expects support

from a unit to the north,

to help them push through the k*ll zone.

The South Staffs

have already suffered heavy losses.

Cain's timing could not be better

as the Second Staffordshires

prepare to fend off yet another attack.

British Major Robert Cain

is part of a daring airborne operation

to seize the bridges

that cross the lower Rhine River

in Holland.

But n*zi resistance

proves stronger than anticipated.

As highly mobile airborne troops,

they have been dropped in by glider,

the South Staffordshires

are armed with what they can carry.

They have no big anti-tank g*ns here,

in what the South Staffs call the dell

but they do have PIATs.

PIAT stands for projector

infantry anti-tank.

The PIAT was a very cumbersome weapon

to put it mildly.

It was basically spring loaded.

You need to be incredibly strong,

and also it was a very difficult weapon

to fire standing up.

Fire!

Depending on the sort

of vehicle you were trying to destroy

you really needed to be within 60 meters.

Now that is incredibly close,

especially when if it was a tank

or an armored personnel carrier

and they have machine g*ns

you were going to be very, very exposed.

So, it required not just strength.

It required bravery, too.

Go, go, go.

Cain draws enemy fire

and fetches ammunition

while a Lieutenant targets the tanks.

As the tanks close to about 100 yards,

they are too far for the PIAT to destroy.

But the South Staffs hold them at bay

for several hours

before running out of bombs.

They are buying time,

hoping for reinforcement.

But German counter attacks

throughout the city

keep Allied troops tied up.

So Cain and the others do their best

to hold the dell.

One stage he sees a German NCO

and some German soldiers

coming up closely towards them.

Clearly not particularly aware

of the positions of the South Staffords

and he orders a Bren g*n to open fire.

He fires on the Germans,

but misses.

Cain proves impatient.

And now you can

tell his frustration.

He grabs the Bren g*n.

Cain opens with deadly fire.

When one of the Germans tries to rise,

Cain loads another magazine,

and empties it.

He kills all of those Germans,

just dispatches them almost,

uh, out of hand.

It is becoming clear,

that no matter how many they k*ll

more arrive to take their place.

Moving closer to the German border,

also means for the Germans, it's easier

to bring in their reinforcements.

To bring in their supplies.

The Germans must wipe out

the Allied forces in Holland.

We're getting to the Rhine.

It's the last defense line for the Germans

before the Allies

come into the home territory.

SS Captain

Hans Moeller and his men

put up some of the stiffest opposition.

In addition to attacks

from a self-propelled g*n

and half-track vehicles

Moeller's men

pummel the South Staffordshires

with Panzerfaust projectiles

and flame throwers.

The Germans are well supplied

with ammunition.

Wave after wave of

Allied soldier is shot down.

We mustn't forget

that in the entire w*r,

the biggest output of the German w*r

industry is August 1944.

So all the new kit that had been produced

just a month earlier,

can be brought quickly to the front line,

and is also one of the factors

why the Germans

are able to stabilize the front

in September.

Cain's commanding officer,

Lieutenant Colonel Derek McCardie

faces a desperate decision in his sector.

The rumors certainly

were coming through

that Arnhem Bridge had fallen

and was back in German hands

and therefore any further

attempt might be futile.

McCardie has to consider

the larger operation.

If they cannot get

to the Arnhem road bridge,

maybe they can protect

another potential bridgehead.

The whole point of this

operation is for a link up

with 30 Corps and to get a crossing

over the Rhine

and therefore the establishment

of the perimeter west of Arnhem

at Oosterbeek is a chance

to, ah, still achieve that objective.

McCardie orders his men to withdraw

from their position in the dell.

Go!

Hurry, hurry!

Cain sets a rear guard

to protect their retreat.

The South Staffs bring their wounded

to what they call the monastery

and prepare to pull back.

As they seek shelter,

a German tank blows up

the house next to them.

Get down!

Go, go!

Still determined to fight,

Cain and three others

take cover in a trench and wait.

September 19th, 1944

British Major Robert Cain

and three others occupy a trench

which provides some protection

as they retreat from Arnhem, Holland.

A German tank approaches their position,

not knowing that they are there.

This tank gets really close

and Robert Cain can see

the tank commander out of his turret

with his field glass

and his black gloves

and this extraordinary detail

and there isn't much they can do about it.

The tank is too close.

Firing at this distance is too risky.

Cain sees the tank commander

scanning for targets.

Hoping the tank will pass by,

Cain urges the men to stay down.

But one cannot resist.

He takes a shot at the tank commander,

and betrays their position.

As he says, some bloody fool

opens fire on the tank

to absolutely no effect,

so the tank is going to retaliate.

Before the German commander

even lets off a round,

the other men bolt from the trench.

Go, go!

They are immediately gunned down.

The tank advance continues.

Clearly Robert Cain

is not at the end of his tether,

but he's armed with his p*stol thinking,

what on earth can I do with a p*stol?

He crawls to the top

of the trench and out

carefully below the line of sight

of the tank commander and his g*ns.

Cain rolls over and over,

off a ledge and drops 20 feet

into the relative safety

of the hospital yard and passes out.

Some minutes, not very long

where I'm guessing he lay there

thinking I-- what am I--

this is going nowhere.

But of course gathers his senses,

the man that he is,

and manages

to extricate himself and head west

with the rest of his soldiers.

What remains

of the South Staffordshire regiment

joins 11th Battalion

having heard the rest of their unit

was gathering at Den Brink.

Stay low, stay low!

But before commanding officer

Lieutenant Colonel Derek McCardie

can also escape

he too is struck and taken prisoner.

Major Cain is now the most senior active

officer in his battalion.

As Operation Market Garden

enters its third day,

SS Captain Moeller

has gone on the offensive,

determined to eliminate

the Allied airborne threat

in the Dutch city once and for all.

Halt!

At Arnhem, there's a last bridge

of the river Rhine.

So, Moeller knows,

and his men, we must defend,

this is our last line of defense.

Otherwise the gate to Germany is open.

NARRATOR He advances west

from Arnhem, slowly clearing

the airborne troops

out of houses and trenches.

Each house has to be taken individually,

often with fierce hand-to-hand combat.

Entire platoons from both sides

disappear into the urban b*ttlefield.

Because Allied forces

have failed to get reinforcements

to Arnhem bridge to relieve

Lieutenant Colonel John Frost

they now hope to set up a new position

west of Arnhem,

in Oosterbeek.

Perhaps if they hold

on there then 30 Corps

and the rest of the Second British

Army will come up

and will be able to bridge the Rhine there

and continue

and hold that particular bridgehead.

To give airborne troops time

to withdraw to Oosterbeek

Robert Cain is given orders

to take the high ground

overlooking the withdrawal route

known as Den Brink.

It's not particularly high,

but it's high enough

to be a significant feature.

- Understood?

- Yes, sir.

Cain organizes

the remaining 100 men

of his regiment into five small platoons.

He selects two,

to stage an as*ault on Den Brink.

When they reach the top,

the Germans open with heavy mortar fire.

Cain's men need to dig in to take cover

or face certain death.

They get to work with what they have.

And they find it extremely

difficult to dig in on Den Brink.

They don't have proper

digging tools with them,

just their entrenching tools.

And I suspect a number of men

would've discarded those too,

on their way into Arnhem

and during the fighting

that's taking place that day.

Cain is exposed on the hill,

with no supporting a*tillery fire.

His platoons suffer many casualties

as shells rain down around them.

After 90 minutes, Cain pulls out.

Come on, move!

To stay would be suicide.

Operation Market Garden is unraveling.

The next day,

news filters through both sides.

After defying German counter attacks

without reinforcement,

Lieutenant Colonel John Frost and more

than 100 others are taken prisoner.

Frost has to surrender

purely because they are out of ammunition,

ah, they're out of food and water,

ah, there are so many wounded

that his doctors

simply can't look after them anymore.

Frost himself was also badly wounded

in the legs

when a mortar b*mb explodes very nearby

and is incapable of carrying on.

It is a turning point.

Retaking the Arnhem

Bridge is a major victory

for the Germans.

They have got these important Rhine

crossings again in their hands.

And besides,

capturing a Battalion Commander

is something that the Germans

don't achieve very often

at this stage of the w*r.

By Thursday September 21st,

Operation Market Garden

is officially a failure.

For Major Cain

and the thousands of remaining

Allied airborne troops,

60 miles behind enemy lines,

their best hope

of getting out of Holland alive

remains the arrival of Allied tanks

and troops from the south.

But they are still days away.

September 21st, 1944.

n*zi soldiers encircle

thousands of Allied troops,

near Arnhem, Holland.

After a failed operation

to capture and secure bridges

crossing the lower Rhine River.

What remains

of the First British Airborne Division

has fallen back

to Oosterbeek, west of Arnhem.

The defense of Oosterbeek,

ah, during the latter part

of Operation Market Garden

was purely a-- a defensive measure.

It was no more than that.

They hope by holding on to the bridgehead

that maybe in the coming days

if 30 Corps came through.

But basically, they could do

no more than just hold on.

30 corps was a force

of British armor

expected to race 64 miles

through occupied Holland.

And consolidate the bridges

in two and a half days.

Entering the fifth day,

resistance to the Allied operation

has proved far greater than expected,

on all fronts.

Now 6,000 German infantry backed by tanks,

surround and close in on the remainder

of the airborne division.

When an enemy

is trapped and encircled,

the Germans call it, it's a kessel.

So it's a cauldron.

So, this is very much a German tactic,

and also on the operational level,

during the Second World w*r,

to encircle the enemy, to eneinselkessen,

so to encircle him,

to put him into a cauldron.

SS Capt. Hans

Moeller and the Panzer troops

plan to squeeze the airborne division

to death, or surrender.

And at Arnhem, the fighting

as it is particularly ferocious,

the cauldron is called

a witch's cauldron, " en hexen kessel".

A very strong word

for saying something is very, uh, chaotic

and brutal at the same time.

Moeller later describes

occupying the ground floor of a house,

with British airborne troops upstairs.

As the day wears on,

a whiskey bottle appears from above.

The Germans

send up some chocolate in return.

It shows you

that even in this ferocious fighting

there are always moments of ja, humanity,

of sharing the hardships of the w*r,

and in the next moment

they sh**t against each other again.

British Major Robert Cain

and his 40 men

must defend the southeastern sector

of the horseshoe defense,

near a church.

It guards one of the roads

into the perimeter

and also it is next to the River Rhine

and this is extremely important

to hold onto

because they're still hoping

for a link up with 30 Corps

and they had to protect the crossing.

As Major Cain

holds this position,

he spots Panzer troops setting fire

to the laundry house.

It is a scorched earth policy

to punish the Dutch

and flush out Allied troops.

Robert Cain throws a hand grenade,

but he throws it upwards and it hits

a rafter and bounces back towards him.

He threw himself into the burning embers

of the laundry

as a safer place to be than

where his hand grenade was going to land,

and he emerged scorched

but otherwise untouched.

So far behind enemy lines,

airborne troops

rely on relief and resupply.

Operation Market Garden

was planned

to last only three or four days,

by getting on well beyond four days,

and the fighting more or less

24 hours a day,

ah, means

that they were all totally exhausted.

And also, one sees the way

that the rates of battle shock

or of psychological collapse, ah,

start to increase pretty rapidly.

Surrounded by the enemy

and unable to defend their drop zones,

Allied supplies fall out of reach.

The Germans are able to seize

the British airdrop zones.

As a consequence, all the supplies

or 90% of the supplies,

comes into German hands.

And this is of course for the Nazis,

great propaganda material.

So you have got Germans

now with British food,

with British cigarettes.

Within the Oosterbeek perimeter,

things get worse for the civilians

and airborne troops,

as the Germans cut off the water.

Food and ammunition also run out.

Starving and exhausted,

the airborne troops

cannot hold out for much longer.

More equipment arrives on the German side.

The arrival of new tanks

for the Germans

means that they can split now

the Witch's Cauldron into two parts

and the British forces face

now annihilation.

Panzer troops

are ordered to attack Oosterbeek

to finish off the trapped airborne

division holding out in the cauldron.

Once again, Major Robert Cain

finds himself defending their sector

with little more than a PIAT.

All right!

September 1944.

Now into their fifth day

of Operation Market Garden,

the First British Airborne Division

has been trapped

and surrounded

by two German Panzer divisions

at Oosterbeek, Holland.

Major Robert Cain's position

is under attack by tanks.

With only a handheld weapon called a PIAT,

he takes aim at a tank 100 yards away.

As the smoke clears,

he sees that he has damaged the tracks

but he has also alerted

the tank to his position.

Cain fights with the supporting fire

of Bren gunners.

The Bren gunners keep

the German's heads down

and certainly the commanders of the tanks

who like to stick their heads up

because it was much better observation,

kept them inside their turrets.

With Cain's next shot,

the tank is disabled,

and the crew bails out.

Cain approaches the tank,

shouting for the Bren g*ns

to continue firing.

The German crew is eliminated.

As more tanks approach,

Cain holds his ground.

Robert Cain hits on the idea of firing it.

Firing the PIA

in almost vertical position.

Not anything to do with range,

but to try and drop

the PIAT bombs on top of the German armor,

where the thickness of their armor

is weakest.

But after six rounds,

Cain's PIAT g*n misfires.

The PIAT b*mb explodes prematurely,

inside the trough of the weapon,

uh, it's extremely close to his face,

when I say extremely close, we're talking

about a distance like this

semi blinds him certainly gives him

a couple of black eyes.

Cain has to be dragged

from the trench

to the regimental aid post.

We know that his fury boiled over.

He issued a stream of obscenities.

I suspect towards the soldiers

who were trying to escort him

out of further danger.

Reload!

As the battle resumes,

Major Cain

brushes off his PIAT b*mb injuries

and leaves the aid post,

to return to his trench.

So determined is this man

to be an example

to his soldiers that in about

half an hour, he is back with them.

The battle of attrition

takes its toll.

Robert Cain says this thing

about you call for someone

and they don't answer,

or the answer comes he's had it.

He was k*lled yesterday or he's wounded.

Or he's a prisoner.

Too often by these last days,

he's calling for men

who are no-- no longer there.

No longer answering the call.

And by the next day

Major Cain has fired so many rounds

that his eardrum bursts.

He stuffs field dressing into his ears,

and continues to fight.

They hold off the Germans

trying to gain ground near the river.

With limited supplies

and under constant counter attack,

it becomes increasingly difficult

for the British to care for their wounded.

A cease fire is negotiated.

It was arranged

for the Germans to take them

and basically to transport them

in most cases back to Appeldorn

rather than in the immediate area.

The wounded were then put on stretchers

and taken away.

During a two hour cease fire,

1,200 wounded Allied soldiers

are taken into German captivity.

For those left behind,

pressure continues to build.

Fifteen new Tiger tanks appear

on the b*ttlefield,

having arrived from Germany

the night of September 23rd.

With the arrival of the Royal Tiger Tanks

their fate was sealed.

Desperation sets in

for the remaining airborne division.

The next day, Cain no longer

has even a PIA

to defend his men or their position.

He uses whatever he can find.

He locates a two-inch mortar.

Not a handheld weapon,

it is usually fired from the ground.

It's not even meant

to be used against tanks.

He's firing the two-inch mortar

at very short range

to try and get these rounds

onto the German armor

and certainly in amongst German infantry.

Anything to thwart

the enemy attacks on their perimeter.

Despite the heroics

of Major Cain and many others

General Urquhart the

commander of the First Airborne

got the message across to General Browning

in Nijmegen, they were out of ammunition.

They could not hold on any longer.

After five days

holding out at Oosterbeek

and eight days from the start

of Operation Market Garden

the order comes for the airborne troops

to abandon their posts.

Oosterbeek, Holland.

In the aftermath

of Operation Market Garden,

Allied airborne troops

can no longer hold a potential bridgehead,

north of the lower Rhine River.

Perhaps the most difficult part

of this operation is about to come

to hold this perimeter,

and to continue to hold it convincingly,

so that the Germans think that

it continues to be a solid perimeter

while as many men as possible

are withdrawn across the Rhine.

The First Airborne

Division is to be evacuated,

across the river, by night.

In preparation, Major Robert Cain

shaves for the first time in a week.

Later, his efforts attract

the notice of Brigadier Philip Hicks,

who notes, there's one officer

at least who's shaved.

But before, Cain remains

on the north side,

to ensure all his men board the vessels,

but when he is ready to evacuate,

there are no boats left

to take him across.

So, Cain and the other stragglers,

locate a damaged as*ault craft,

and use their r*fle butts as paddles.

Their boat leaks badly,

but they make it to the other side,

to safety.

The First Airborne Division

goes in some 12,000 strong,

ah, with the reinforcements,

which arrive later.

By the time the end of the battle comes,

less than 3,000 are evacuated.

Thousands are taken prisoner,

missing, or k*lled in action.

Market Garden

did not just constitute a massive loss

in terms of Airborne troops

and certain degree, 30 Corps as well.

It was above all the suffering

of the civilians,

having helped the airborne troops

so bravely, so generously.

Thousands of Dutch civilians

are k*lled

and many more injured in the fighting.

Almost immediately, the Dutch then faced

retribution from the Germans.

They took their revenge

basically by cutting off food

from the major cities

and this led to the Hunger Winter

where at least another 20,000

died from starvation.

After being captured

at the bridge,

Lieutenant Colonel John Frost

spends the rest of the w*r as a POW.

He is later awarded a bar

to his distinguished service order

for his leadership at Arnhem.

Major Cain earns the Victoria Cross

for his actions throughout the operation.

It is the highest honor for valor

in the British Empire.

He is the only man

to receive the medal at Arnhem,

and live to tell the tale.

His citation reads,

"His coolness and courage

under incessant fire

could not be surpassed".

n*zi propaganda portrays Arnhem

to be a major German victory,

it's actually only partly a victory.

Further south

in Holland, at Nijmegen

the Germans cannot throw back

all the liberating Allied forces.

But for Arnhem,

and this is the crucial bridge,

the Germans achieve a major victory.

And it's the only time in '44, '45

that the Germans destroy

an entire Allied Division.

Montgomery's version

has its own spin.

General Montgomery tried to claim

that Market Garden was a 90% success.

I think that Prince Bernhardt,

the Dutch Commander in Chief,

said, uh, "My country cannot afford

another Montgomery victory, in that case."

Even more scathing

was Air Chief Marshall Tedder

who was Eisenhower's deputy.

Tedder said, "One has even more success

jumping off a cliff

until the last few inches."

After the retreat

from Arnhem and Oosterbeek,

the Allies establish a new front

further south around Nijmegen,

to launch their next offensives

to the German border.

Arnhem itself will only be liberated

by Canadian troops

in April 1945

as the w*r in Europe rages on

for another seven and a half months.