Field Notes · AAA-001Preview
Why Market Garden Stopped Eleven Miles Short — Field Notes
Preview. These Field Notes go live alongside the AAA-001 video on @AfterActionArchiveYT. Until then this page lists the sources the review leans on. There are no shop links here yet.
The question
On 17 September 1944, three and a half airborne divisions dropped into Holland, and a tank column started up one road toward the Rhine. The plan needed every bridge, on schedule. This after-action review looks at the five assumptions under the plan and where each one held or broke.
Sources the review leans on
Official and staff histories:
- Charles B. MacDonald, The Siegfried Line Campaign (U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1963)
- L. F. Ellis, Victory in the West, Vol. II (HMSO, 1968)
- John C. Warren, Airborne Operations in World War II, European Theater (USAF Historical Study No. 97, 1956)
Histories:
- Martin Middlebrook, Arnhem 1944: The Airborne Battle (1994)
- Robert Kershaw, It Never Snows in September (1990)
- Antony Beevor, Arnhem: The Battle for the Bridges, 1944 (2018)
- William F. Buckingham, Arnhem 1944 (2002)
- Cornelius Ryan, A Bridge Too Far (1974)
Memoirs: Montgomery (1958); Urquhart, Arnhem (1958); Frost, A Drop Too Many (1980); Gavin, On to Berlin (1978).
Where the record is contested
The timing at the Nijmegen bridge, the halt on 20 September, how intelligence warnings were handled, and casualty totals all differ between accounts. The full notes will show which sources say what.