|
| combatant1 = Poland (Polish forces in the West) Netherlands | combatant2 = | commander1 = Bernard Montgomery Lewis H. Brereton Miles Dempsey Frederick Browning Brian Horrocks | commander2 = Gerd von Rundstedt Walter Model Kurt Student Wilhelm Bittrich Gustav-Adolf von Zangen | strength1 = 41,628 airborne troops 1 armoured division 2 infantry divisions 1 armoured brigade | strength2 = Unknown | casualties1 = 15,326–17,200 casualties〔 88 tanks 144 transport aircraft | casualties2 = incomplete estimates:〔 3,300–13,300 casualties 30 tanks and SP guns 159 aircraft | notes = | campaignbox= }} Operation Market Garden (17–25 September 1944) was an unsuccessful Allied military operation, fought in the Netherlands and Germany in the Second World War. It was the largest airborne operation up to that time. Field Marshal Montgomery's goal was to force an entry into Germany over the Lower Rhine. He wanted to circumvent the northern end of the Siegfried Line and this required the operation to seize the bridges across the Maas (Meuse River) and two arms of the Rhine (the Waal and the Lower Rhine) as well as several smaller canals and tributaries. Crossing the Lower Rhine would allow the Allies to encircle Germany's industrial heartland in the Ruhr from the north. It made large-scale use of airborne forces, whose tactical objectives were to secure the bridges and allow a rapid advance by armored units into Northern Germany. Several bridges between Eindhoven and Nijmegen were captured at the beginning of the operation but Lieutenant-General Brian Horrocks' XXX Corps ground force advance was delayed by the demolition of a bridge over the Wilhelmina Canal, an extremely overstretched supply line at Son, and failure to capture the main road bridge over the river Waal before 20 September. At Arnhem, the British 1st Airborne Division encountered far stronger resistance than anticipated. In the ensuing battle, only a small force managed to hold one end of the Arnhem road bridge and after the ground forces failed to relieve them, they were overrun on 21 September. The rest of the division, trapped in a small pocket west of the bridge, had to be evacuated on 25 September. The Allies had failed to cross the Rhine in sufficient force and the river remained a barrier to their advance until offensives at Remagen, Oppenheim, Rees and Wesel in March 1945. The failure of Market Garden ended Allied expectations of finishing the war by Christmas 1944.〔Chant, Chris (1979). ''Airborne Operations. An Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Great Battles of Airborne Forces''. Salamander books, p. 108 and 125. ISBN 978-0-86101-014-1〕 == Background == After major defeats in Normandy in July and August, 1944, remnants of German forces withdrew across the Low Countries and eastern France towards the German border by the end of August. In the north, in the first week of September, the British 21st Army Group, under Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, sent its British Second Army commanded by Lieutenant-General Sir Miles Dempsey advancing on a line running from Antwerp to the northern border of Belgium while its First Canadian Army, under Lieutenant-General Harry Crerar, was pursuing its task of recapturing the ports of Dieppe, Le Havre and Boulogne-sur-Mer. To the south, the U.S. 12th Army Group under Lieutenant General Omar Bradley was nearing the German border and had been ordered to orient on the Aachen gap with Lieutenant General Courtney Hodges' U.S. First Army, in support of Montgomery's advance on the Ruhr. Meanwhile, the group's U.S. Third Army, under Lieutenant General George S. Patton, moved eastward towards the Saar. At the same time, the U.S. 6th Army Group under General Jacob L. Devers was advancing towards Germany after their landings in southern France. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Operation Market Garden」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|