An Allied victory in World War II began to seem closer when German forces undertook their retreat following the D-Day invasion. A strategy was hatched to speed up the end of the war with a new offensive code-named Market Garden. Field Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery’s plan called for three Allied airborne divisions (the “Market” part of the operation) to drop by parachute and glider into the Netherlands and seize key territory and bridges so that the ground forces (“Garden”) could cross the Rhine. Supreme Allied Commander General Dwight D. Eisenhower reluctantly agreed to greenlight the operation and Market Garden launched on September 17, 1944

However, poor crucial decisions at the beginning created confusion, and dense fog interrupted radio communication when it was desperately needed. The parachute drop was too far away, and the only road for access into Arnhem, the rendezvous town, was so narrow that it took the ground troops too long to reach their destination. The combined Allied force of mostly American and British troops tried, but ultimately failed, to achieve their objectives—and sustained devastating losses in the process. Military historian Mitch Yockelson highlights the plan and the results of this operation to end the war.

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