West Point ’41: The Class That Went to War and Shaped America

10 | The Nose of the Bulge

112 10 The Nose of the Bulge The Siegfried Line, Hitler’s defensive line to protect Germany, was a barrier consisting of 390 miles of bunkers, tunnels, and tank traps, stretching from the Netherlands in the north down along the borders of Belgium, Luxembourg , and France until the line reached Switzerland in the south. Operation Market Garden was an Allied plan to circumvent the northern end of that line. “Market” was code name for the airborne side of the equation, which would be the largest airborne operation in history, while “Garden” represented the ground portion. The plan was for Allied Forces to jump into Holland over the course of several days in September and seize key bridges and canals leading to the Rhine. As airborne forces secured those sites in the vicinity of Arnhem, Allied ground forces would then rapidly advance . From Arnhem, Field Marshal Montgomery believed the Allies could sweep into western Germany, a stone’s throw away, and by doing so win the war in Europe by Christmas. Already, on September 4, the Allies had overtaken Antwerp, Belgium, to the south near the Dutch border. Operation Market Garden would cork up remaining resistance in that area, including clearing approaches to the deep-water port of Antwerp to secure it for Allied use. The capture of Antwerp had shocked Hitler and caused disorganization among German forces. Montgomery was keen to act rapidly and capitalize on the disorder, and in his view, each day meant that advantage slipping away as the enemy reorganized. General Eisenhower was unconvinced as to the overall plan and at first opposed the operation. He did not believe a “single thrust,” as Montgomery proposed, through Belgium and Holland toward the heartland of industrial Germany, the Ruhr Valley, was optimal. Instead, he preferred to continue a broad-front attack to keep the Germans guessing. This approach had been pursued following the Normandy breakout and included Montgomery’s 21st British Army Group moving east to recapture Belgium Kazel-Wilcox - West Point.indb 112 3/19/2014 5:40:12 PM the nose of the bulge ★ 113 and advance into the Ruhr Valley and General Omar Bradley’s U.S. 12th Army Group heading south then east through the Ardennes Forest of Belgium into Luxembourg and on to the Saar River Valley, Germany’s second most important industrial region. The 12th Army Group included the U.S. First, Third, Ninth, and Fifteenth Armies. General Patton’s Third Army was advancing on the southern flank to eventually meet up with Bradley. Adding to his qualms about Operation Market Garden, Eisenhower was also concerned about a shortage of supplies to support the Allies’ rapid advance, and he was not keen on diverting supplies away from Generals Bradley and Patton.1 General “Jumpin’ Jim” Gavin also expressed reservations. The commander of the 82nd Airborne disagreed with landing sites chosen by British Brigadier General Robert Urquhart because some of the insertions would place paratroopers six miles away from their objectives. The British Airborne Corps headquarters, on the other hand, generally viewed the considerable dispersion as an acceptable risk given the element of surprise and extreme depth of airborne penetration.2 Six miles, however, left time for the enemy to detect and reduce that Allied element of surprise. Gavin griped to his operations chief, Jack Norton, about Urquhart’s choices: “My God, he can’t mean it.” “He does,” replied Norton. “But I wouldn’t care to try it.”3 Field Marshal Montgomery, with the support of Churchill, soon swayed President Roosevelt and Eisenhower to go forward. There were only seven days to plan and prepare for the operation, which would combine forces of the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division, the U.S. 101st Airborne Division, and the British 1st Airborne, collectively becoming the First Allied Airborne Army under the command of U.S. General Lewis Brereton. Operation Market Garden was scheduled to launch on September 17, 1944. Norton would have to “try it” after all. Norton was going to be one of the few paratroopers to make all four major combat jumps of the war—the invasion into Sicily; the Oil Drum Drop two months later onto the beaches of Salerno, Italy, so-called for ignited drums serving as beacons for pilots; D-Day into Normandy; and now the Netherlands. The mission of the 82nd Airborne Division: Land by parachute and glider, commencing D-Day, south of Nijmegen; seize and hold the highway bridges across the Maas River at Grave and the Waal...