John C. McManus - September Hope: The American Side of a Bridge Too Far

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S EPTEMBER

H OPE

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The American Side of a Bridge Too Far

John C. McManus

NAL C ALIBER

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First published by NAL Caliber, an imprint of New American Library,

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First Printing, June 2012

Copyright John C. McManus, 2012

Unless otherwise noted, maps Rick Britton, 2013

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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA:

McManus, John C., 1965

September hope: the American side of a bridge too far/John C. McManus.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-101-58539-9

1. Arnhem, Battle of, Arnhem, Netherlands, 1944. 2. World War, 19391945CampaignsNetherlands. 3. World War, 19391945Aerial operations, American. 4. United States. Army. Airborne Division 82ndHistory. 5. United States. Army. Airborne Division 101stHistory. I. Title.

D763.N42A7356 2012

940.54'219218dc23 2011053222

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C ONTENTS

In the years to come everyone will remember Arnhem, but no one will remember that two American divisions fought their hearts out in the Dutch canal country and whipped hell out of the Germans.

L IEUTENANT G ENERAL L EWIS B RERETON , F IRST A LLIED A IRBORNE A RMY C OMMANDER , DIARY ENTRY , N OVEMBER 21, 1944

For Nancy, with enduring love and gratitude

And for Cornelius Ryan and Charles B. MacDonald, who both made sure the American side of a bridge too far would never be forgotten

F OREWORD

A t the end of August 1944, the Allied world was filled with hope. The Allies had experienced what was, for them, the greatest month of the war. In the Pacific, the Americans had taken the Mariana Islands, and the Japanese were in full retreat throughout the theater. In Europe, Soviet armies had annihilated more than twenty German divisions and had pushed the hated enemy from Russian territory. Indeed, Soviet forces were deep inside Poland, at the edge of Warsaw. In the West, General Dwight D. Eisenhowers burgeoning armies had liberated Paris, along with the rest of France. Flush with victory and the possibility of an imminent end to the war, British, Canadian, and American armored columns plunged into Belgium, Holland, and Luxembourg. Rumors swirled among the troops that Germany would surrender any day now and that everyone would be home for Christmas. The Germans were supposedly in disarray, overwhelmed on all fronts. They were losing soldiers by the thousands, even as Allied bombers pulverized their cities. For the Third Reich, it seemed, the end was near. At least that was the hope. Then came September 1944 and Holland.

Beyond all the sunny talk of impending victory and white Christmases at home (as if the soldiers would not be needed for postwar occupation duty even if Germany did collapse) loomed a disturbing, gloomy reality, for those who chose to see it. That reality can be summed up in one word: logistics. By September, as Eisenhowers armies advanced closer to Germany, their supply situation steadily worsened. The issue was not a lack of matriel. The Allies had plenty of fuel, food, ammunition, trucks, jeeps, tanks, and the like. But, three months after D-day, the vast majority of these supplies were still entering continental Europe over the Normandy beaches. This ungainly situation seriously limited how much matriel could be unloaded from the ships at any given time. The larger problem, though, was transporting it all from the beaches to the fighting fronts hundreds of miles to the east. Before the Normandy invasion, Allied planes had bombed French railroads, bridges, and highways, mainly to impede the movement of German reinforcements to the invasion beaches. Now these same transportation nodes had to be repaired and used to move cargo-laden locomotives and trucks to the front. All of this would take time. Nor did the Allies possess the airlift capacity to sustain their armies that way.

The solution to the entire mess was possession of deepwater harbors, especially Antwerp, the greatest port in northern Europe. Capable of handling at least ten thousand tons of freight per day, Antwerp alone could fill the supply needs of the majority of Eisenhowers armies. Incredibly, on September 4, soldiers from Britains 11th Armoured Division captured most of the city and all of the extensive harbor facilities intact, with barely a fight. Yet this was only the first step in making use of Antwerp. They also needed to seize control of the Scheldt estuary, a sixty-mile waterway leading from the city to the English Channel. The Scheldt was studded with narrow islets, canals, and low-country islands, all of which could be fortified to prevent the passage of ships. Without control of the Scheldt estuary, Antwerp was useless. In the absence of any orders from higher command to cut off or begin clearing the estuary, the men of the 11th Armoured, who were desperately weary after many frenetic days of advancing, settled down for a well-earned rest. The estuary remained uncleared. With Germany ostensibly on the verge of collapse, though, few Allied commanders worried much about the Scheldt. It was a stunning oversight and one that was to have profound consequences.