69th Anniversary of Operation Market Garden
 

Time to remember the largest airborne operation of its time and an ambitious offensive to cross the Rhine to ultimately end the war by Christmas 1944.

Salute to those brave men who participated in the struggle!

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...in_Holland.jpg

:salute:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWBoMWZJkeI

:salute: To all of those Brave men that took part in this operation.

HunterICX

Salute to those involved.

:salute: :salute: :salute: :salute:

~SALUTE~

http://i1086.photobucket.com/albums/...69/savaKp2.jpg

We did a BB war with this battle as the theme a few years ago only we changed the name to "Operation Park It Marvin".

Jim did you really post a picture of a movie? :-?

Here are the real folks:

http://www.generals.dk/content/portr...sby_Evelyn.jpg
Brigadier John Vandeleur

http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/etexts/W.../WH2Bar44b.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...F_Sink506e.png
General Robert F. Sink

http://www.ritterkreuztraeger-1939-4...rmel-Heinz.jpg
General Heinz Harmel

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...m_Bittrich.jpg
General Wilhelm Bittrich

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ulian_Cook.jpg
Major Julian Cook




http://www.dobroni.pl/foto_kontent/g...wski_x4699.jpg


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...John_Frost.jpg
Major John Frost

http://www.watfordobserver.co.uk/res...ticleLandscape
Brigadier Hicks, Major-General Urquhart and Lt Gen Browning

http://www.saak.nl/battlefield%20tou...er%20horst.jpg
Kate ter Horst

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...s_M._Gavin.jpg
Major General James Gavin


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi..._D._Taylor.jpg
Major General Maxwell D. Taylor

I think I might have to play Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway.

:har:

To the brave heroes :salute:

Acting is harder than the real thing. Just ask Brad Pitt. :yep:

Market Garden is a good example of a great battle plan that was flawed because it relied to heavily on faulty intelligence assessments.

It was believed that the Germans had mainly low quality troops in the Netherlands and that it was a good place to attack.Well we all know that it did not turn out that way.I have read that Allied high command received decrypted intelligence that crack German units had very recently been placed in the but that intel was not passed down to lower commands.

It proves the advice from the Art of War "appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak" a similar suggestion was "pretend inferiority and encourage his arrogance".

There was a German plot to lure the Allies into launching an invasion of Holland? That's news to me.

The Germans were just recovering from their headlong flight across France. Had Market-Garden gone off a week earlier while they were still running, or if the Germans had moved those SS divisions somewhere else to rest and reequip the Allies may well have pulled it off.

Call it what you want, even arrogance in the Allied high command, the fact is the Germans just lucked into being in a position to counter it. No Sun Tsu judo tactics involved.

Thanks for the visual references. It really humanizes it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yE_CT0n1kqo
:salute::salute::salute::salute:

Yeah, why not?

It was a great move and a fitting tribute to those who were really there.

Just teasing Jim.

Oh I realised that...I should have put a smiley up :salute:

I'd have said that it was more:

There were warning signs, many warnings signs, but Browning ignored them all and dropped the paras right on top of the hornets nest.

I also wouldn't be so dismissive of the writings of Sun Tzu, and his ideas that have been practiced for over two millennia. Senior generals of the American civil war took their theories from the French general Antoine-Henri Jomini who was a keen studier of The Art of War, and it's on the Marine Corps recommended reading program, and essential reading for military intelligence and the CIA. Not bad for someone who died before the Roman Empire was created. :03:

I'm not being dismissive of Sun Tsu's writings, just with the idea that the Germans laid a trap for the Allies in Holland. There was no attempt on their part to "appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak" a similar suggestion was "pretend inferiority and encourage his arrogance". They were completely surprised by the offensive.

Well, I can't disagree with that, both sides were just as surprised as each other. Although certainly the encouragement of arrogance could be laid at the feet of Browning, and whilst the German army were certainly not perceived as inferior, it was arrogance, bullishness or some sort of failure which made Browning ignore the intelligence that was placed in front of him and the concerns raised by all around him. I guess we will never truly know.