Eisenhower about Market Garden
General Dwight D. Eisenhower about Operation Market Garden in “Crusade in Europe”
On the extreme left the attack against Arnhem went off as planned on the seventeenth. Three airborne divisions dropped, in column, from north to south. The northernmost one was the British 1st Airborne Division, while farther southward were the American 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions. The attack began well and unquestionably would have been successful except for the intervention of bad weather. This prevented the adequate reinforcement of the northern spearhead and resulted finally in the decimation of the British airborne division and only a partial success in the entire operation. We did not get our bridgehead but our lines had been carried well out to defend the Antwerp base.
When, in spite of heroic effort, the airborne forces and their supporting ground forces were stopped in their tracks, we had ample evidence that much bitter campaigning was still to come. The British 1st Airborne Division, in the van, fought one of the most gallant actions of the war, and its sturdiness materially assisted the two American divisions behind it, and the supporting ground forces of the Twenty-first Army Group, to take and hold important areas. But the division itself suffered badly; only some 2400 succeeded in withdrawing across the river to safety.