VIII and XII Corps in Operation Market Garden



VIII and XII Corps in Operation Market Garden
With Edwin Popken
Part of our Arnhem Week series
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDG3XyxGI5lA_2tt2i7Qyx2n8dX3UnSRc&si=HTEWdwIUJ7uwuA6u
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Also part of our 80th Anniversary Series
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The battles and actions of the British XXX Corps on their push to Arnhem are well known. Today Edwin Popken will talk about the two other British Corps on the ground supporting Market Garden.

Edwin Popken https://battlefielddiscovery.nl/
https://twitter.com/BattlefieldDisc

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26 thoughts on “VIII and XII Corps in Operation Market Garden”

  1. Excellent presentation by Edwin with some really good maps up to the standard of the two books I would recommend on the left and right flanks of MARKET GARDEN respectively:

    Autumn Gale (Herbststurm) – Kampfgruppe Chill, schwere Heeres Panzerjäger-Abteilung 559 and the German Recovery in the autumn of 1944, by Jack Didden and Maarten Swarts (2013) – this covers the fall of Antwerp to the battles around Woensdrecht.

    Kampfgruppe Walther and Panzerbrigade 107 – A Thorn in the Side of Market Garden, Jack Didden and Maarten Swarts (2018) – this covers the action around Nuenen during MARKET GARDEN and the two battles of Overloon later on.

    These are specialist coffee table books and can be quite hard to come by (worth it if you can), but the genesis of Autumn Gale was Jack Didden's PhD thesis, which you should be able to find as a free pdf download online:

    Fighting Spirit – Kampfgruppe Chill and the German recovery in the West between 4 September and 9 November 1944, a case study (Jack Didden 2012 Radboud University Nijmegen thesis)

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  2. Sounds like the flank guard was very ineffective I suppose. I haven’t finished watching the episode. Watching taped show. Aside, I’m learning so much more about MG other than “high diddle diddle, 30 corp up the middle”!

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  3. Missed the live show due to call out. On catch-up, excellent presentation by Edwin on the complexities of MG. It makes me wonder if it was such a terrible Op in its objectives and indeed planning, but more an Op of missed opportunity, poor decision making and stretched logistical support, and to a degree under estimating German defence strategy

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  4. Another fascinating episode which adds to yesterday’s fine presentation. It still kind of boggles my little mind that if logistics were such a problem for the entire western allied advance why the opening of Antwerp wasn’t prioritized?

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  5. 01:14:49 that tank misidentification still happens today. In 2019, Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, US Congress visited Northern Ireland and recounted when she last visited Belfast in 1990, she saw "barbed wire & tanks". The only problem with that statement is the British never deployed tanks or indeed even the tracked Warrior APC (looks like a turreted tank at a distance) in Northern Ireland.
    Reference: Irish Independent 19th April 2019.

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  6. Fantastic presentation and new information given to better shape the overall plan of OMG. My takeaway is that the hope of a quick victory was a double edged sword. It gave reasonable groubds to try that advance at short notice into the southern Netherlands but it also put strain on Allied assets to facilitate the XXX Corps. If the two Corps were there to protect the flanks up to Son Bridge, things would be different. We certainly wouldn't have Easy Co in Neunen perhaps :). Anyway, take a bow Edwin for your masterclass and expect your Overloon Battle to be an equally detailed sequel.

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  7. Wow! What a presentation! More Edwin Popken please, about the battle for Overloon and veghel.

    They should host this presentation at the Overloon War Museum.

    They show so little about the battles in the area. But display a lot of vehicles and how bad war is.

    Also Dick Winters writes about the rain in his book: ‘Beyond band of brothers.’

    I also wonder why they didn’t focus at some places to fall back to the west of Arnhem in case of failure. Or dropping those troops different.

    There are a lot of forests and area’s for the Germans to retreat to in the Netherlands. Ideally to hide and recover.

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  8. I disagree entirely that Market Garden was not a 100% success because of the Germans attacked the road.

    If the US 82nd had seized the Waal bridge at Nijmegen on the first day, a bridge they could have walked on whistling Dixie, XXX Corps would have relieved the First AB at Arnhem. Then the troops at the northern part of the road to Arnhem could be additionally re-supplied via air.
    • XXX Corps moved the 26 miles from Son to Nijmegen in 2 hours 45 minutes. The road was pretty well empty 40 hours after the jump.
    • The 82nd moved out of Nijmegen entirely giving the town and bridge back to the Germans. This took manpower and resources from XXX Corps to get them back out when entering Nijmegen.
    • All this delay gave the Germans an elongated time window to bring in armour in from Germany. And more time to attack the road.
    • The salient created was immediately fleshed out with the Germans not retaking one mm of land the German effect was so minimal.

    Arnhem was the ultimate destination. Any territory north north was a bonus. Market Garden was a small operation being just to establish a bridgehead, then consolidate for the next phase, the pincer on the Ruhr. All those garbage History Channel documentaries say Monty wanted to end the war by Christmas and failed. That is complete nonsense. Monty had little involvement in the operation, as it was an FAAA operation, who were answerable only to SHAEF, using elements of Dempsey's Second Army for the ground element. Monty was largely a bystander.

    As the FAAA was only answerable to SHAEF, Bradley wanted zero to do with them, as he wanted full control of his army group. He also described Brereton, its commander, as incompetent on a good day.

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  9. As Salaam Woody and Edwin. A fascinating in depth look at the British attempt to win the war. I speak Dutch and have heard in a interview that Dutch SS units initially engaged the British around Arnhem? Will investigate this myself. Anyway, Thanks Woody and Dank je wel Edwin. X

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