It is no secret that I am deeply fascinated by the events and individuals involved in Operation Market Garden. Despite being an American, I take a particular interest in the role of the British 1st Airborne Division and its desperate stand in Arnhem. This is not to say anything remotely dismissive of the American efforts at Eindhoven and Nijmegen. While not everything went according to plan at the American objectives, I think much of my curiosity stems from the notions of failure or ill-fatedness that surround the British at Arnhem and Oosterbeek. The idea that after Tuesday, September 19, nothing could save 1st Airborne other than a miracle is pervasive in my reading. This idea usually stems from the delay of 30 Corps' advance from the south, missed or delayed airborne resupply or reinforcement drops, and finally, overwhelming masses of German opposition. Of late, however, I am drawn to yet another of the fatal flaws: the absence of direct command from the General Officer in Charge. The G.O.C, in this instance was none other than Major General Roy Urquhart.
Often when we study history, we deprive our subjects of their humanness. They cannot make mistakes, they cannot have flaws, they are not allowed to suffer moral foibles. In the past, there is no room for error. The people of the past must always be held to the highest standard and never fail. They must be rigid and fixed in their place. There is no allowance for even the slightest shortcoming. Too many times then, we overlook that human beings are complex, flawed beings who when reliant upon emotion or lived experience react accordingly and make mistakes. It would not be fair to blame Urquhart alone for the failure of Operation Market Garden. In my years of reading and research on the American Civil War Battle of Franklin, I have often considered how I may have acted had I been General John Bell Hood, George Wagner, or John Schofield. In truth, if we are humble when we consider these scenarios, we likely would have made the same (if not worse) decisions. This is what draws me back to Urquhart at Arnhem. One man may not be solely responsible for the success or failure of an operation or battle plan, but their influence can certainly sway the decisions made.
This is an approach that authors Iain Ballantyne, Chris Brown, and more recently Al Murray, have taken. It is not an approach that unduly chastises Urquhart in any way nor does it seek to saddle him with sole responsibility for operational failures. Rather, and this is why it appeals to me, this approach addresses Urquhart's humanity.
He was, like all of us, a creature of habit. Urquhart's experience in command of the 231 Malta Brigade was defined by his "lead from the front" command style. Rather than rely on reconnaissance reports or communiques from the front, Urquhart preferred to assess any situation personally. Murray notes Urquhart's penchant for being in "the thick of the action." Often with only "a Jeep, a radio, and his driver and batman," Urquhart got up close and personal with the enemy as a means to gain a handle on the situation. While admirable, this could also lead to disaster or death. On one occasion in Italy along the River Amato, Brigadier Urquhart's tenacious leadership nearly spelled his end. "Going forward in a jeep to check on his vanguard," notes Murray, "Urquhart was ambushed." An armored car opened fire on Urquhart's soft-skinned jeep and projectiles tore through the vehicle, killed a wireless operator, and left Urquhart and his intelligence officer severely wounded. While the incident ended his time in command of the Malta Brigade, his tenure was remarkable and caught the eye of Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery (Arnhem: Black Tuesday, 42).
By September 1944, Urquhart once again attempted to exhibit the same "at the front" leadership" to gain a handle on the landing of the 1st Airborne near Arnhem. This time, his effort ended in disaster.
Chris Brown's Arnhem: Nine Days of Battle traces Urquhart's movements on September 17, D-Day for Market Garden. It is a useful tool in trying to untangle the G.O.C.'s route throughout the afternoon. Upon landing, Urquhart and his Headquarters Staff observed the arrival of 1st Parachute Brigade on their drop zone. Fast and efficient, the well-trained troopers landed and began to assemble before moving off to their intended objectives. Due to issues with the communication networks, Urquhart climbed into a jeep and set off to assess Brigadier "Pip" Hicks and the 1st Airlanding Brigade's progress. Once he found Hick's headquarters, which itself was no easy task, Urquhart learned, falsely, that the Reconnaissance Jeep squadron, which he intended to launch a mobile assault of the vital Arnhem roadbridge, failed to arrive. On the contrary, "almost all of Major [Freddie] Gough's squadron had landed successfully," notes Brown. With less than accurate information, Urquhart reconsidered his plan for the capture of the bridge and instead determined to send one of Brigadier Gerald Lathbury's battalions to capture the objective.
Urquhart returned to his headquarters and, still lacking the necessary wireless communications to reach Gough, again sped off in search of the missing reconnaissance troop. They, however, were busy looking for Urquhart. Rather than wait for Gough or the jeeps to escort him, Urquhart again departed his Tactical Headquarters. Only after he reached Lt. Col. John Frost's 2nd Battalion HQ, did he find Lt. Col. John Fitch's 3rd Battalion and Brigadier Lathbury. Concerned that the Utrechtseweg may have fallen into enemy hands, Urquhart and Lathbury decided to remain with Fitch and the 3rd Battalion for the night.
Both men grew frustrated with the pace of the 1st Brigade's progress toward the bridge, but both were powerless to do much about it. Urquhart and Lathbury, in Brown's estimation, felt they were "not able to influence the battle." In fact, however, Lathbury's decision to halt his brigade that night and wait to complete their advance toward Arnhem and Frost's Battalion at the bridge very much influenced the events of the next twenty-four hours and the intense house-to-house battle to come.
As the day began on September 18, 1st Airborne found itself in an increasingly bewildering position. The road bridge remained unsecure, Frost's Battalion was isolated from the rest of 1st Brigade, and the division's commander still could not be found. To make matters worse, German resistance was stiffening all around the thinly manned perimeter and enemy armored units were being diverted to Arnhem. Though fashionable to refer to SS units as "elite" or "battle-hardened," in reality even the SS units now being thrown at 1st Airborne were not of the same quality of those of the early war years. Instead, the consisted of experienced officers and some non-commissioned personnel, but by and large their ranks were made up of untested, poorly trained troops. An assortment of SS training units, Luftwaffe ground troops, anti-aircraft battalions, and even a contingent of Kriegsmariners, were hastily thrown into the contested zones in Arnhem and Oosterbeek. If the Germans were complicating the 1st Airborne's plans for the day, so too were problems within the division beginning to cause a stir.
Not only had Urquhart disappeared, but prior to his departure from his headquarters he failed to properly communicate his order of succession to his subordinate officers. Only his Chief of Staff, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Mackenzie, had been made aware of Urquhart's planned successor in the event something should happen to him either in the landing or once engaged. On the morning of September 18, with no word from Urquhart, Brigadier Hicks assumed command of 1st Airborne. This angered Brigadier John Hackett who, based off the date of his commission alone, rather than his experience, believed he should have been next in line. In truth, Urquhart's chosen successor was neither Hicks nor Hackett, but Lathbury, who he now found himself attached to with Colonel John Fitch's 3rd Battalion.
The 1st Airborne advances throughout the day dragged and came at immense casualties. Moving about, Urquhart and Lathbury joined the men of No. 5 Platoon, B Company of the 3rd Battalion under Lieutenant Jimmy Cleminson. By 4:00PM, aware of the urgency of the moment, Urquhart determined to get back to his headquarters. Along with Lathbury and Lieutenant Willie Taylor, the division commander struck out for Oosterbeek. Cleminson, who noticed the men were setting off in the wrong direction joined them and together they maneuvered the rows and back gardens of the neighborhood. Caught crossing an open roadway, German machine gun fire ripped down the street and Lathbury collapsed. Seriously wounded, the brigadier was taken into house for treatment. As a German soldier peered through a window he glimpsed Lathbury. Immediately a volley of fire poured out from within as Urquhart, Taylor, and Cleminson shot out the window and "riddled" the German soldier with bullets. At the pleading of the Dutch civilians, the remaining three officers left Lathbury in their supervision and fled from the house. Once again traversing the narrow back gardens, they could hear German soldiers moving all around them. Trapped, they spotted a man pointing them toward his home's attic. Urquhart, Taylor, and Cleminson climbed into the confined space above 14 Zwarteweg (Pegasus Archive).
As enemy patrols passed nearby, the hope had been that once things outside settled down they might be able to venture out again. That changed when a self-propelled gun clacked down the street and parked right in front of the house. As the battle developed all across the division's front, the man most capable of coordinating his command and gaining a handle on the situation was forced to shelter in the attic for almost another twenty-four hours.
Only in the early morning hours of Tuesday, September 19, would men from the 2nd South Staffords enter the area as part of the ill-fated 1st Battalion breakthrough efforts at the Bottleneck. With heavy presence of British paratroopers swarming into the area near the St. Elisabeth Hospital, the self-propelled gun drove away and opened the door for Urquhart to make his escape. Upon his arrival at the division's headquarters, Urquhart found a situation that was at coming undone and bordering on unsalvageable. By the end of the day on "Black Tuesday," the situation looked to be impossible.
One is left to wonder if Urquhart had been present with his divisional headquarters rather than at the front, how things may have differed? Would he have been able to overcome the obstacles presented by the arrival of 9th and 10th SS Panzer Divisions? How might he have adjusted the arrangements of his division to respond to the rapidly evolving situation? Would he have been able to coordinate with a healthy Lathbury to push through to Frost at the bridge? Might he have consolidated his strength before striking out into the bottleneck? How might Urquhart have fared over Hicks? Certainly, there would have been less friction between Hicks and Hackett had Urquhart remained in command of the division. How might the men in the town and at the bridge have fared if the situation had been handled by Urquhart? In my estimation, Urquhart likely would have faced the same challenges that Hicks did, though he may well have handled them differently.
While always wary of the "what-ifs" of history, Market Garden presents a treasure trove of opportunities for armchair generalship. What if the first and second day's drops had been consolidated and more troops had been available for the push into Arnhem? What if the Poles had arrived on schedule? What if the 82nd Airborne had captured the road bridge at Nijmegen? What would a complete revision of time tables, air power interdiction, and a reassessment of command and control from the strategic planners on down have done to stave off disaster?
The simple fact of the matter is that we will never know. We know instead what did happen and we can only hypothesize what could have been different. Sebastian Ritchie sums up this sentiment best by concluding, "as with so many other counter-factual attempts to re-plan military operations, this alternative vision of Market Garden doubtless depends too much on hindsight" (Arnhem: Myth and Reality, 261).
Still, the curiosity remains and like so many others, my desire with each new book on Market Garden to see the paras finally hold out long enough is just as intense today as it was the first time I watched A Bridge Too Far more than a decade ago.
References:
Ian Ballantyne, Arnhem: Ten Days in the Cauldron, (Canelo History, 2023).
Chris Brown, Arnhem: Nine Days of Battle, (The History Press, 2019).
Al Murray, Arnhem: Black Tuesday, (Bantam Books, 2024).
Sebastian Ritchie, Arnhem: Myth and Reality, (Crowood Press, 2019).