page_title: 1st Airborne Division (United Kingdom)
section_title: Arnhem
hierarchical_section_title: 1st Airborne Division (United Kingdom) / Operational history / Arnhem
caption_attribution_description: English: The British Airborne Division at Arnhem and Oosterbeek in Holland A wounded man being carried away from the Divisional Administration Area by stretcher (note the stocks of ammunition and fuel dumped in the background) at Oosterbeek.
context_page_description: The 1st Airborne Division was an airborne infantry division of the British Army during the Second World War. The division was formed in late 1941 during World War II, after the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, demanded an airborne force, and was initially under command of Major-General Frederick A. M. Browning. The division was one of two airborne divisions raised by the British Army during the war, with the other being the 6th Airborne Division, created in May 1943, using former units of the 1st Airborne Division.
  The division's first two missions—Operation Biting, a parachute landing in France, and Operation Freshman, a glider mission in Norway—were both raids. Part of the division was sent to North Africa at the end of 1942, where it fought in the Tunisian Campaign, and when the Allies invaded Sicily in July 1943, the division undertook two brigade sized landings. The first, Operation Ladbroke, carried out by glider infantry of the 1st Airlanding Brigade and the second, Operation Fustian, by the 1st Parachute Brigade, were far from completely successful.
context_section_description: Operation Market Garden was an airborne assault by three divisions in the Netherlands in September 1944, including the British 1st and the American 82nd and 101st, to secure key bridges and towns along the expected Allied axis of advance. Farthest north, 1st Airborne, supported by the 1st Polish Parachute Brigade, landed at Arnhem to secure bridges across the Nederrijn. Initially expecting an easy advance, XXX Corps, under Lieutenant General Brian Horrocks, to reach the airborne force at Arnhem within two to three days.
  1st Airborne landed some distance from its objectives and was quickly hampered by unexpected resistance, especially from elements of the 9th SS and 10th SS panzer divisions. Only a small force was able to reach the Arnhem road bridge, while the main body of the division was halted on the outskirts of the city. Meanwhile, XXX Corps was unable to advance north as quickly as anticipated and failed to relieve the airborne troops. After four days, the small British force at the bridge was overwhelmed and the rest of the division became trapped in a pocket north of the river, where they could not be sufficiently reinforced by the Poles, or by XXX Corps when it arrived on the southern bank. After nine days of fighting, the shattered remains of the airborne forces were eventually withdrawn south of the Rhine. 1st Airborne lost 8,000 men during the battle and never saw combat again.
caption: A wounded man being carried away from the Divisional Administration Area by stretcher (note the stocks of ammunition and fuel dumped in the background) at Oosterbeek, September 1944.
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