Market Garden Day 5, the final assault on Arnhem begins.
Having secured the bridges at Nijmegen, controversy has continued over the perceived failure of the Guards Armoured Division to then push on towards Arnhem across ‘the island’ and relieve the beleaguered forces of 1st Airborne Division. As was seen at Valkenswaard, pushing on in the dark was not part of XXX Corps’ orders, and the difficulty in getting reinforcements up through the single ‘Airborne Corridor/Hell’s Highway’ route to the tip of the spear was clear given the need to protect the corridor as well as was seen at Son. Added to this was the need to replenish the Grenadier Guards’ tanks, but criticism has been levelled at the command failure to use the Irish Guards to push on in the early hours of the 21st or to have an operational reserve available to exploit the opportunities once the bridges had been captured.
Tantalisingly close, the battle for the bridge at Arnhem, just ten miles further up the road, had been lost, with the rail bridge blown and the ferry ignored. Those who could get across the river back to Allied forces did, whilst the majority of the survivors of 1st Airborne became POWs for the rest of the war.
Despite ferocious fighting, failures in planning, execution, and intelligence, and the German’s strong response, the audacious operation ultimately proved to be a bridge too far. The Allies would use the areas they captured as a springboard for crossing the Rhine in March 1945. A long six months away.
For the Dutch citizens still under Nazi control, the next few months would be brutal. Known as the Hunger Winter, the Nazis cut off food supplies to the Western Netherlands, creating a famine. To the citizens of Arnhem, the fighting had given them a moment of hope, which was to be cruelly crushed by the Nazis, being forcibly evacuated whilst their homes and town were destroyed. It would be a long seven months before the infantry of 49th West Riding Division marched in on 14 April 1945 to liberate the town.
