1. Battle of the Battles
By: Lindsey Simmes, Nadia Gelle, Christina Denton

2. Operation MArket Garden
-September 17-25, 1944
-Fought By: The Allied Powers (France,Britain, and Russia) against Germany
- 9 day battle that occurred 14 days after D-Day
-Operation Market Garden was an attempt to outflank the “West Wall” of the German defense line to gain access to the lower Rhine river in the Netherlands.

3. Commanders of the Operation Market Garden
Lieutenant-Colonel John Dutton Frost: Airborne Officer of the 1st Airborne Division
Bernard Montgomery, was a senior officer of the British Army and the Head General that lead the operation
General Maxwell Taylor, commander of the 101st Airborne, remembering how his forces were scattered all over Normandy during the D-Day drop, insisted on a high degree of concentration.
Gerd von Rundstedt was a Operation Market Garden commander. He was Field Marshal during World War II.

4. Big concept
The Allied Powers wanted to advance into Germany by capturing 8 bridgeheads

5. Operation Market-Garden was a twofold operation:
Market Portion:
Airborne assault raid to capture bridges across eight key waterways
Garden Portion:
The Ground advances following the airstrike to capture the bridgeheads

6. 2 Plan Action Airstrike Attack 5,000 assault planes
Stretched 94 miles by 3 miles wide
Largest airborne operation in the world
Ground Troops
Elite assault troops with little to no experience
Men ranging from age 20-56

7. BridgeHeads that were to be captured
1st Attack: 101st Airborne Division
Capture canals and river crossings between Eindhoven and Grave
2nd Attack: 82 Airborne Division
Capture the bridge over the river of Waal in the city of Nijmegen
3rd Attack: 1st Airborne Division
Known as the “Red Devils”
Capture the lower Rhine bridge in the city of Arnhem
Hold the bridge for 48 hours
The air reconnaissance carried light artillery since you could only bear so much weight in the aircraft.
Once they reached there drop point they would push each other as fast as they could out of the plane to avoid landing just a few meters off.

8. Maps 3 Airborne Divisions dropped into Holland
Troops then sprinted from Belgium to act as reinforcements

9. 16,000
Casualties

10. 'The bullets hitting the water looked like a hailstorm, kicking up little spouts of water. When we reached about the halfway point, then the mortar and artillery fire started falling. And when a boat was hit with an artillery shell or a mortar shell, it just disintegrated, and everybody was lost.'
(Moffat Burriss)

11. Succeses
Losses
Capture Bridgehead at Grave by using Shock Tactics
Son Bridge in the city of Eindhoven was blew up by the Germans
Allied Forces failed to cross the Rhine river, leading to the victory of the Germans
Issues
Keeping the road of Eindhoven to Arnhem clear for ground troops

12. “Hitler's last desperate offensive”
Ardennes Offensive
Aka
Battle of the bulge
“Hitler's last desperate offensive”

13. About the battle
Lasted from Mid-December 1944 to the end of January 1945
500,000 American troops (Largest land battle during the 20th Century)
German objective was to break up the British and American Ally lines, before crossing the river of Meuse to capture the Allied supply port in the city Antwerp as well as capturing Belgium
The Germans would then proceed to take out four allied troops, forcing the Western Allies to negotiate a peace treaty in the Axis Powers’ favor.
Code name for Ardennes Offensive was Unternehmen Wacht am Rhein ("Operation Watch on the Rhine")
Fought in the city of Ardennes in France.
Known as the ghost front that was occupied by Allied Troops

14. About the plan cont. Planned in total secrecy by the German Army
Threatened to kill the SS officers and soldiers families if secrets were leaked
80,000 soldiers died in total (Bloodiest battle for U.S. troops, losing 19,000 men)
The degree of surprise achieved was compounded by the Allies' overconfidence, their preoccupation with their own offensive plans, poor aerial reconnaissance, and the relative lack of combat contact in the area by the U.S. 1st Army

15. The Plan
The Germans came in through the Ardennes Forest with heavy artillery and tanks
The “sixth panzer” army would take the lead to attack and capture Antwerp
The “fifth panzer” army would attack the centre of american forces to capture the road of St. Vith and drive on into Brussels.
The “seventh panzer” army would attack in the south to create a buffer zone to prevent reinforcements to the Allied troops
Absurd plan, since Germany was in re-treat from D-Day. No way of recovering

17. The Third Reich would then collapse within months of the battle
The battle of the Bulge
Resulted in an Allied victory, that led to the deaths of 100,000 German soldiers
The Third Reich would then collapse within months of the battle

18. Overview Operation Market garden: Ardennes Offensive
Ground and Airstrike to create an opening into Germany
Resulted in an Allied Defeat
Ardennes Offensive
Divide the allies and capture the Allies supply drop
Germans wanted a peace treaty signed to end the war in the Axis Powers’ favor
Resulted in an Allied success bringing the Third Reich to an end

19. Work cited http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/battles_arnhem.html