Just imagine being one of those guys, you, your gun crew, a jeep, a 6 pounder and 40 some rounds behind enemy lines…
Is that crazy brave or just plain brave?
lol, I think it’s Bravery mixed with gulibility:
“Don’t worry fellas XXX corp will be there in two days, plenty of time to relieve you.”
I know they were resupplied by air a couple times, so maybe they got more ammo, but I read that the usual trailer for ammo wouldn’t fit in the glider so they were limited to the amount of ammo they could cram in the jeep. I supose when the ammo for the gun ran out they became under equiped Infantry…
Was Arnhem the 82nd, 101st or the British 6th’s set of bridges?
LT
Frimmel,
I started making a scale map of the entire “Operation Market Garden.” If you go to pace 1 of WWII History here there is a topic I started. It has the entire scenario so you’ll want to just focus on you piece of it.
LT
lol, I think it’s Bravery mixed with gulibility:
“Don’t worry fellas XXX corp will be there in two days, plenty of time to relieve you.”
I know they were resupplied by air a couple times, so maybe they got more ammo, but I read that the usual trailer for ammo wouldn’t fit in the glider so they were limited to the amount of ammo they could cram in the jeep. I supose when the ammo for the gun ran out they became under equiped Infantry…
I suppose so. Undertrained as well as under equiped infantry probably without a medic or enough rifles to go around.
I think about Shelby Foote in the Burns Civil War documentary. He was talking about Picketts men and said something on the lines of “They couldn’t not go.” With as haunted a look as I’d ever seen from someone who hadn’t lived thru the event.
Thanks LT04. I’ll check it out.
When I Googled before posting I saw the link Fish posted but I’d only read the top paragraph and went “This isn’t what I need.” But it did answer the question of how much ‘liberty’ the scenario designer had taken which seems to be not very much.
I would say when you consider the number of actual guns with the number of actual men you might have been a bit heavy, but there is a base for it…
@LT04:
Was Arnhem the 82nd, 101st or the British 6th’s set of bridges?
LT
Arnham was the British Objective, the 101st landed near Eindhoven and the 82nd landed near Nijmegen
The 101st was closest to XXX corp and the british were at the “bridge to far”
Dezrtfish,
That’s what I thought. Then you may also need to consider the free Polish ABN REG. They landed in the open field across the river from the British. They were supposed to comindeer a farry there but it was destroyed before they got there. The Germans had an elevated position with the cover of the town and shreaded the Polish. Also the Pol’s didn’t get there till a day after the British.
Frimmel I hope that helps.
LT
Yeah, the Poles major contribution to the effort ended up being a distraction for a few days. I think I rememeber reading that like 8 of the Polish made it out with out being captured or killed.
