page_title: Operation Market Garden
section_title: Oosterbeek
hierarchical_section_title: Operation Market Garden / Battle / Day 4: Wednesday, 20 September / Oosterbeek
context_page_description: Operation Market Garden was a failed World War II military operation fought in the Netherlands from 17 to 25 September 1944. It was the brainchild of Field Marshal Sir Bernard Law Montgomery and strongly supported by Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt. The airborne part of the operation was undertaken by the First Allied Airborne Army with the land operation by XXX Corps of the British Second Army. The objective was to create a 64 mi salient into German territory with a bridgehead over the River Rhine, creating an Allied invasion route into northern Germany. This was to be achieved by seizing a series of nine bridges by Airborne forces with land forces swiftly following over the bridges. The operation succeeded in liberating the Dutch cities of Eindhoven and Nijmegen along with many towns, creating a 60 mi salient into German-held territory limiting V-2 rocket launching sites. It failed, however, to secure a bridgehead over the Rhine, with the advance being halted at the river.
  Market Garden consisted of two sub-operations:
  Market – an airborne assault to seize key bridges, and;
  Garden – a ground attack moving over the seized bridges creating the salient.
context_section_description: Further west, the remnants of the 1st Airborne Division were gathering at Oosterbeek for their last stand; those already there were not seriously challenged by the enemy that day. To the east of the village, the 1st, 3rd and 11th Parachute Battalions and the 2nd South Staffordshires were organized into a defensive position. In desperate fighting later in the day, they repulsed an enemy attack which threatened to cut the division off from the Rhine and seal the fate of the bridgehead.
  In the woods to the west of Oosterbeek the 4th Parachute Brigade fought its way towards the divisional perimeter but was attacked by German troops supported by artillery, mortars and tanks, (some mounting flame-throwers). The brigade had many casualties and the 10th Battalion reached Oosterbeek in the early afternoon with only 60 men.
  In the rear, the 156th Parachute Battalion fought off numerous enemy attacks before counter-attacking; the Germans did not know they were fighting men who were in full retreat. The battalion, down to 150 men, mounted a bayonet charge to capture a hollow in the ground in the woods where they were pinned down by enemy attacks for the next eight hours. Towards the end of the day, 75 men fixed bayonets, broke through the German lines and retreated to the Allied pocket at Oosterbeek.
caption: The Germans advance on Oosterbeek
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