Operation Market Garden

Operation Market Garden began on 17 September 1944 as an attempt to open a rapid route through the Netherlands into Germany. American, British and Polish airborne forces were to seize a chain of bridges while British XXX Corps advanced north along a narrow road corridor to link with them.

Bridges at Eindhoven and Nijmegen were eventually secured, but the British 1st Airborne Division at Arnhem could not hold the bridge over the lower Rhine until the ground column arrived. The operation ended on 25 September after the surviving airborne troops withdrew, leaving the Allies short of their main objective.