Band of Brothers_ E Company, 506th Regim - Stephen E. Ambrose [58]
Code name was MARKET-GARDEN. The objective was to get British Second Army, with the Guards Armored Division in the van, through Holland and across the Rhine on a line Eindhoven-Son-Veghel-Grave-Nijmegen-Arnhem. The British tanks would move north along a single road, following a carpet laid down by the American and British paratroopers, who would seize and hold the many bridges between the start line and Arnhem.
The British 1st Airborne Division, reinforced by the Poles, would be at the far end of the proposed line of advance, at Arnhem. The 82nd Airborne would take and hold Nijmegen. The 101st's task was to land north of Eindhoven, with the objective of capturing that town while simultaneously moving through Son toward Veghel and Grave, to open the southern end of the line of advance. The task of the 2nd Battalion of the 506th PIR was to take the bridge over the Wilhelmina Canal at Son intact, then join the 3rd Battalion in attacking Eindhoven, where it would hold the city and its bridges until the Guards Armored Division passed through.
It was a complicated but brilliant plan. Success would depend on execution of almost split-second timing, achieving surprise, hard fighting, and luck. If everything worked, the payoff would be British armored forces on the north German plain, on the far side of the Rhine, with an open road to Berlin. If the operation failed, the cost would be the squandering of the asset of the Airborne Army, failure to open the port of Antwerp (Eisenhower had to agree to put off the commitment of troops needed to open that port in order to mount MARKET-GARDEN), a consequent supply crisis throughout ETO, and a dragging out of the war through the winter of 1944-45.
In addition to putting off the opening of Antwerp, Eisenhower had to stop Patton east of Paris to get sufficient fuel for the British Second Army to mount MARKET-GARDEN. In short, the operation was a roll of the dice, with the Allies putting all their chips into the bet.
On September 14, Easy took the buses back to the Membury marshaling area. On the fifteenth, the company got its briefing. It was reassuring. The men were told this was to be the largest airborne landing in history, three divisions strong. It would be a daylight landing. Unlike Normandy, it would come as a surprise to the Germans. Flak would be light, the initial ground opposition almost nonexistent.
In the marshaling area, waiting to go, there was a great deal of gambling. One of the recruits, Pvt. Cecil Pace, was a fanatic gambler. To the chagrin of the veterans, he won $1,000 at craps.
Colonel Sink gave the regiment a pep talk. "You'll see the British tanks," he said, "some of them Shermans and the others Cromwells. Don't mistake the Cromwells for German tanks.
"And those Guards divisions—they're good outfits. Best in the British army. You can't get in 'em unless you've got a 'Sir' in front of your name and a pedigree a yard long. But don't laugh at 'em. They're good fighters.
"Another thing," he went on, rubbing his face. "I don't want to see any of you running around in Holland in wool-knit caps. General Taylor caught a 506th man wearing one of those hats in Normandy and gave me hell for it. Now, I don't want to catch hell, see, and I know you don't, so if you've got to wear a wool-knit cap, keep it under your helmet. And don't let General Taylor