History - Operation Market Garden 
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| September 4, 1944 Belgium The British 11th Armored Division races into Antwerp. And the prize is doubled: Members of the Belgian resistance, employed as engineers at the port, stop the Germans from destroying the port facilities. Still, the port can’t be used until the banks of the Scheldt Estuary (54 miles long and 3 miles wide at its mouth) are cleared of German forces. To clear the estuary’s banks, all the British need to do is cross the Albert Canal east of Antwerp, drive a few miles north to the base of the South Beveland Peninsula, and then continue along the north bank of the Scheldt Estuary. Standing in the 11th Armored’s way is a single German division (the 719th) “composed entirely of elderly gentlemen who hitherto had been guarding the north coast of Holland and had never heard a shot fired in anger.” But Montgomery orders the 11th Armored to halt in order to rest and refit; the field marshal wants all XXX Corps units for another operation - a drive around the West Wall (Siegfried Line), over the Rhine, and on into the heart of Germany. Eisenhower has been clear with Montgomery; making Antwerp a working port is the paramount objective of the 21st Army Group. Any other operations must be subsidiary. Montgomery assures the supreme commander that the 21st Army Group can handle both clearing the Scheldt Estuary and his proposed drive around the West Wall. But in one of the greatest missed opportunities of World War II, Montgomery does not commit the forces necessary to clear the Scheldt Estuary. The failure to capture the north bank of the estuary is compounded; it leaves an escape route open for the German Fifteenth Army. Over the next 20 days, more than 85,000 men, 6,000 vehicles, and 600 guns are ferried to the north bank of the Scheldt Estuary, moved down the Beveland Peninsula, and on into defensive positions from Antwerp to Arnhem. France Field Marshal Montgomery, suffering under the double indignity of having his single-thrust strategy rejected and having General Eisenhower take direct command of ground forces, tries once again to get the supreme commander to agree to the single-thrust strategy, a single-thrust commanded by the field marshal himself. When Eisenhower receives the cable, he is frustrated and angry; frustrated that an issue he thought was settled on August 23 is still being discussed and angry that Montgomery continues to peddle himself as overall ground commander. His response to Montgomery is the same as it was nearly two weeks earlier - capture a port to solve the supply problem. For Lt. Col. Walther Harzer, September begins with frantic preparations to defend the approaches to the French town of Cambrai. Harzer's men are to delay the Allies as long as possible, thereby enabling the remainder of the division to escape toward Holland. The colonel's command, the 9th SS Panzer Division, has no tanks left; the division does have 18 PaK 43 (88-millimeter antitank) guns, along with halftracks armed with 37-millimeter antitank guns. The crews of these halftracks derisively refer to them as "door knockers," for their inability to knock out the Sherman tanks they oppose. Now just west of Cambrai, 200 tanks of the U.S. XIX Corps (from Gen. Courtney Hodge's U.S. First Army) advance toward Harzer's positions. The flat crack of an 88-millimeter gun announces the action; the hollow plunk of the shell piercing a Sherman's armor and the muffled thump of an explosion are heard by the crew 3,000 meters from the target. Mortar and artillery fire scatters the infantry supporting the tanks. The Allied superiority in numbers is nominalized by surprise and the time it takes to deploy. But as the morning slips into afternoon, the weight of the Allied attack begins to tell on Harzer's force. Individual positions are attacked from several directions or simply overwhelmed by numbers. By 1500 hours, 40 Allied tanks are knocked out; an Allied attempt to force a crossing of the Escaut Canal is finally blasted to a halt with panzerschreck fire. But Harzer knows he's losing the battle; as he gives the order for his force to pull out, Allied tanks cut off the escape route. Harzer and his men hunker down in the woods until darkness, then begin their drive north to catch up with the rest of the division. When the little force has to cross the American line, the military police attached to Harzer's unit brazenly flag an Allied convoy to a stop; the darkness, dust, and exhaustion cloak the German vehicles rolling past the convoy. The dawn of September 3 finds Harzer's vehicles safely hidden from the advancing Allies. East Prussia Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, after four days of waiting, is summoned for an audience with Adolf Hitler. Two months earlier, Hitler relieved Rundstedt of his position as Commander in Chief West. Now Hitler surprises Rundstedt by giving the field marshal back his job. Hitler has ordered port cities such as Dunkirk, Calais, Le Havre, and others held; the importance of the fall of Antwerp is not lost on the Führer. He orders the Scheldt Estuary to be defended to the last man. However, Hitler tells Rundstedt that he is “not unduly worried about the situation in the west.” By holding fast through the winter, Hitler believes the initiative can be regained. But Rundstedt has no illusions; he knows the situation is hopeless. The field marshal sees nothing that can stop the Allies from rolling through the Low Countries, over the Rhine, and into Germany. Rundstedt believes the war will be over in a matter of weeks. Still, his Prussian military background has taught him to carry out his orders, so he starts the journey to his new headquarters at Koblenz. In Berlin, another officer is equally surprised. General Kurt Student, founder of Germany’s airborne forces, receives a phone call at 1400 hours from Hitler’s operations chief, Gen. Alfred Jodl. Student is commander of the newly formed First Parachute Army, Jodl tells him. As commander, he is responsible for mobilizing his army; they are to be deployed along the Albert Canal. Jodl explains that Student’s army will include as many parachute units as can be scraped together, the hapless 719th Division (the division of “elderly gentlemen” defending the Dutch coast), and the 176th Division (comprised of semiinvalids and convalescents). Student refers to his force as a “grotesque improvisation on a grand scale.” Like Rundstedt, he sees the situation as virtually hopeless. Holland A flood of German soldiers and Dutch Nazis flows through Holland. Many Dutch civilians are sure their country is about to be liberated. Radio broadcasts from the Queen and Prime Minister (both exiled in London) and Eisenhower have led to great expectations. In the north, Lt. Gen. Wilhelm Bittrich (based on Field Marshal Walter Model’s orders) has disengaged his II SS Panzer Corps from the front line and moved it to a quiet area near the city of Arnhem. One division (9th SS Panzer) is hidden in the forests of a national park spread across the high ground north and northeast of Arnhem. The other division (10th SS Panzer) is also hidden in patches of woods to the northeast, east, and southeast of Arnhem. A fully formed German panzer division normally has 18,000 men. By September 4, 1944, the 9th and 10th SS Panzer Divisions have no more than 7,000 men between them; the ranks of officers and NCOs (noncommissioned officers such as sergeant and corporals) are especially thinned. In Normandy these panzer divisions hold their own at first; practically all German tanks are at least an even match against their Allied foes. However, the sheer weight of Allied numbers, devastating fire from the invasion fleet, and most importantly, Allied air attacks, doom German tank forces. According to German commanders, counterattacks are defeated before the first tanks roll off the start linetanks and troops are bombed and strafed from dawn to dark in the summer of 1944. For Capt. Hans Moeller, commander of the 9th SS Panzer Division's Engineering Battalion, the main problem with the retreat from Normandy is ... the unknown ... one was dependent upon hearsay and rumors. ... There was always a feeling of uncertainty. Although not admitting it openly everyone was preoccupied with the thought that chance of the fortunes of war may yet change. I kept my thoughts to myself, but I knew all these sleeping forms, exhausted, wrapped in blankets and tents were thinking the same. We were absolutely worn out.
Sergeant Erich Hensel, at 23 a veteran of both the Eastern Front and Normandy, traveled north with his signals company. The retreat from Normandy troubled Hensel: "Discipline was normally very good. The retreat from France was the first time I had ever seen demoralized German units." For Corp. Alfred Ziegler of the 9th SS Panzer Division, the "... eight day break we had after the shambles in France and Belgium was decisive. During this time we regrouped and re-equipped." The division's Engineer battalion is transformed into an infantry "alarm" company. SS Captain Hans Moeller's men receive new MG42 machine guns, ammunition, explosives, and two flamethrowers that the resourceful captain has managed to obtain. These flamethrowers are used effectively when Moeller's unit defends the Red Devils' route to Arnhem. 
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