On
17 September 1944 thousands of paratroopers descended from the sky
by parachute or glider up to 150 km behind enemy lines. Their goal:
to secure to bridges across the rivers in Holland so that the Allied
army could advance rapidly northwards and turn right into the lowlands
of Germany, hereby skirting around the Siegfried line, the German
defence line. If all carried out as planned it should have ended
the war by Christmas 1944.
Unfortunately
this daring plan, named Operation Market Garden, didn't have the
expected outcome. The bridge at Arnhem proved to be 'a bridge too
far'. After 10 days of bitter fighting the operation ended with
the evacuation of the remainder of the 1st British Airborne Division
from the Arnhem area.
This
website tells the complete story of this historical operation and
is a tribute to all those men who fought and died in September 1944.
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