Nijmegen: Grave and Groesbeek : Us 82nd Airborne and Guards Armoured Division (Battleground Europe: Market Garden)

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Summary: Another fine addition to a wonderful series!
Review: I have a more recent edition of this book with a much more action oriented cover- historical military artist James Dietz's depiction of the 82nd Airborne attacking Nijmegen bridge on Sept. 20, 1944.

Tim Saunder's "Nijmegen" is the first of a trilogy of travel log/historical narratives about the fighting along the route to the Dutch city of Arnhem during Operation Market-Garden in Sept. 1944. The efforts of the U.S. 101st Airborne and British Guards divisions to secure the route from the Belgian border to the Dutch town of Veghel are covered in the second volume, "Hell's Highway." And a third volume, "The Island," will cover the action between Nijmegen and Arnhem. "Nijmegen," of course, covers the middle sector of the operation- the area between the Dutch cities of Grave and Nijmegen which was the responsiblity of the famed U.S. 82nd Airborne.

These books are part of a larger series called Battleground Europe whose purpose is to combine the historical narrative of a military operation with travel information for tourists wishing to view the battlefields. I was intially turned off by this concept because in my opinion the history detailed in most travel logs was often extremely lightweight and inaccurate. However, the purpose of the Battleground Europe series is to correct that perception of historical travel logs. I really can't say that the Battleground Europe Series are good travel books. They do have driving instructions, points of interest locations, very general lodging and eating recommendations, and photos of how these battlefields look today. But I can say that the books of this series are really, excellently detailed history books.

The books of this series are thin volumes with none of them being much more than 200 pages. The books themselves are physically small since they were designed to be travel books. Also, they're are plenty of photos, many of them historically rare, and maps spread throughout the books which further cuts down on the text. So what remains is a bare bones narrative which is occassionally intercut with veteran recollections. There is little analysis, although in "Nijmegen" and "Hell's Highway" the British author makes an occassional apologia for British XXX Corps. Also, no footnotes or bibliography are provided.

However, the narrative format is very well done. Since "Nijemgen" only concentrates on a portion of the massive Market-Garden operation, it's able to offer a much more detailed description of the 82nd's fight than most books that deal with the operation as a whole such as Cornelius Ryan's legendary "A Bridge Too Far." Also, the attention to historical detail is impressive with the author giving the correct types of vehicles and planes present during the action. (He even corrects some of the veterans' recollections such as when an American veteran mistakenly recalls the Typhoons supporting his unit as "Spitfires." An understandable mistake since I'm sure that man had more important things on his mind at the time than figuring out what type of plane was blasting the German positions opposite, but it sure makes it confusing to those who want to know the actual details. Stephen Ambrose should take note because he unquestionally accepts often inaccurate veteran descriptions of every German tank being a "Tiger" and every German gun being an "88.")

These are really a terrific set of books for any serious WWII buff. Please do not be scared off by the Dietz covers or the travel log format since these are actually excellent military history books. If you're looking for a straight narrative and some very interesting historical photos then I cannot more highly reccommend "Nijmegen" and the Battleground Europe series.

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Summary: This Is the Way to Do Military History
Review: Tim Saunders has written another excellent Battleground Europe series title, this time on the role of the American 82nd Airborne Division and the British Guards Armored Division in the struggle for the bridges around Nijmegen in September 1944. Even readers who have read other books on the infamous Operation Market-Garden should pay attention to Saunder's book, since there is a wealth of information that rarely if ever appears in other sources. Normally, the fight of the British 1st Airborne Division at Arnhem gets most of the coverage in accounts of Market-Garden, with very little space reserved for the fighting at Nijmegen. Interestingly, it was German veterans after the war who noted that it was the fighting at Nijmegen that decided the battle, and the fate of the British 1st Airborne. Saunder's book, which forms a part of the Battleground Europe series covering all phases of Market-Garden, goes a long way toward redressing the lack of coverage of this critical battle.

Nijmegen consists of ten chapters, beginning with a short 17-page section on the strategic background of the Market-Garden plan. The remaining nine chapters cover each of the sub-actions that formed the Nijmegen fighting: the capture of the Grave bridge; the Maas-Waal canal bridges; the Molenhoek; the Groesbeek Heights; Bergen Dal, Beek and Devil's Hill; Nijmegen and the Waal bridges; capture of the Waal bridges; Lent and north of the Waal; and Oousterhout. There are also three appendices covering orders of battle, cemeteries and comparative rank structure. While an index is provided, there is unfortunately no bibliography. Most of the photographs in the volume while excellent will be familiar to readers of Robert Kershaw's It Never Snows in September, and Saunders has also culled that source for much of his information on the Germans around Nijmegen.

The actual coverage of each of the sub-action is simply superb. In the case of the seizure of the Grave Bridge by the 2/504th PIR for example, the author provides an annotated 1:50,000 scale map of the objective, 1944-vintage aerial photographs of the objective, eyewitness accounts of the action, photographs of key terrain around the objective and the aftermath of the action. Most of the other actions are equally supported by aerial photographs, excellent maps depicting tactical movements and dispositions, and photographs of key terrain features. Many of the smaller actions in this area, such as the fighting around Groesbeek Heights, are virtually ignored in other accounts. The incredible assault crossing of the Waal River by the 3/504th PIR is covered in great detail and the comments of the SS commander opposing it are telling: "crossing one of Europe's widest and fast flowing rivers in daylight was inconceivable and dismissed as suicidal." Consequently, the Germans were caught by surprise when the Americans actually did it.

The author also manages to dig up new details about the fighting around Nijmegen that do not appear at all in other accounts. Due to the failure of British tactical communications at Arnhem, most people tend to believe that all Allied airborne units suffered from poor communications during Market-Garden. Not so. As Saunders convincingly details, the American 82nd Airborne Division's radios worked fine and the excellent division radio net allowed Brigadier General Gavin to shift his small forces around to fight off repeated German counterattacks. Furthermore, the 82nd Airborne exploited the still-functional Dutch telephone network and used it for communications, unlike the British. One episode that is rarely mentioned concerns the air-landing of Lieutenant General Browning's Corps headquarters near Groesbeek on 17 September 1944. Apparently, Browning wanted to be one of the first British soldiers to cross the German border and he and some of his staff members apparently made a brief sortie into the neighboring Reichswald to claim this honor. British records appear to corroborate this tale. If true, the schoolboy behavior of "Boy" Browning will surely further diminish that general's already poor reputation.

Saunders also addresses two controversial aspects of the Nijmegen fighting. Why did the 82nd Airborne not make a major effort toward the poorly guarded Nijmegen Bridge right after the airdrop? Only two companies were dispatched toward the bridge late in the day and they were stopped by hastily deployed SS reinforcements. Saunder's assessment is that while Gavin's overall generalship was excellent, that he erred on the side of force protection over mission accomplishment. Gavin wanted to secure his vulnerable flanks before pushing into the city and did not expect significant German defenses. This was a mistake, but an understandable one. Consequently, the 82nd Airborne did not secure the Nijmegen Bridge until D+3, which doomed the British effort at Arnhem. Commanders should keep Gavin's dilemma in mind when evaluating force protection versus mission accomplishment. The other controversy concerns the British failure to exploit the American seizure of the Nijmegen Bridges on 20 September; the Americans on the spot criticized the British armor units for failing to push on the 10 miles to Arnhem. Saunders effectively demonstrates that a successful push to Arnhem on the night of 20 September was unlikely for a number of sound military reasons, and probably would have yielded a column of burning Sherman hulks along the road to Arnhem. Nevertheless, the issue of exploiting fleeting opportunities - particularly ones that could decide battles - is a vexing one. To his credit, Saunders examines these controversial issues objectively. Nijmegen also has interesting points to make about the role of luck in combat, particularly concerning the German failure to destroy any of the primary bridges in the area.