Western Europe · United Kingdom, United States and Poland vs Germany
Operation Market Garden
17 September 1944 – 25 September 1944
Three airborne divisions were dropped to seize the bridges across the Maas, Waal and Lower Rhine while XXX Corps drove up a single road from the Belgian border. The Nijmegen bridge was taken on 20 September but the British 1st Airborne at Arnhem was cut off and destroyed. The survivors were withdrawn across the Rhine on the night of 25 September.
Explore Operation Market Garden on the interactive map · Wikipedia
Day by day
— Sunday
Three airborne divisions drop along a hundred kilometres of road to seize its bridges; XXX Corps sets off from the Meuse-Escaut canal to drive up it to Arnhem in two days. The 101st takes its bridges except Son; the 82nd takes the Maas bridge at Grave; the 1st Airborne, landed thirteen kilometres from Arnhem, gets a single battalion to the north end of the road bridge.
— The corridor
XXX Corps is through Eindhoven and over a Bailey bridge at Son, and joins the 82nd at Grave; but the Nijmegen bridge is still German. At Arnhem the rest of the 1st Airborne cannot fight through to Frost, and is pushed back into Oosterbeek.
— Nijmegen taken, Arnhem lost
The 82nd crossed the Waal in canvas boats on the afternoon of the 20th and the Guards took the bridge; then they stopped for the night at Lent. Frost's force at the Arnhem bridge, out of ammunition, is overrun that morning. The Poles land at Driel, on the wrong bank.
— Berlin
The Guards never got past Elst. Operation Berlin ferries the 1st Airborne's survivors across the Rhine that night: 2,398 come out of 10,000 who went in. The corridor to Nijmegen is held, and the Rhine is not crossed until March.
