Operation Market Garden

“A Bridge Too Far”

HIST 314 World Wars

Fall Semester 2006

Chris Anderson

Why did Operation Market-Garden fail? Since the battle was fought over sixty-two years ago, historians and tacticians alike have been searching for an answer. This paper is intended to summarize the operation’s plan and objectives while assessing several different theories about this extraordinary battle along one stretch of highway that would last for ten days and become known as Hell’s Highway. This paper will suggest that while intelligence analysts are regularly blamed for the failure of the operation, they are not totally at fault. Those that planned the operation both at the strategic and operational levels should be blamed as well, for despite many warnings and known obstacles they continued forward with the operation just so they would be able to use airborne operations again before the war concluded. Additionally, Field Marshal Montgomery, who was the overall commander in charge of the operation, has to take responsibility for the failure as he refused to recognize certain dangers as well as dismissed intelligence reports that challenged the situation in Holland that he believed to be true. As such Operation Market-Garden went ahead as planned.

Many different authors and historians have offered several possible reasons for the failure of Operation Market-Garden. Some have concluded that poor intelligence was the downfall of the operation. Others however, blame certain planners for failing to listen to legitimate intelligence about German troop movements. Others still are convinced that the Germans were able to predict exactly where the Allies would attack next, and make a fortified stand at Arnhem. These are all valid reasons for why Operation Market-Garden was such a dismal failure and truth be told it is probably a combination of these and other factors that contributed to the failure of the operation. But I have decided to focus on the role of intelligence in...