Which Market Garden division is your favorite and why? You can choose two.
The German 712th represents the entire German LXXXVIII Corps, which wad stationed in Holland before D-Day. I attempted to pin down which of these occupation divisions were in the thick of these battles. The 712th continued to come up.
Afternoon Worsham.
I chose the two halves of IISS Panzer Korps commanded by Wilhelm Bittrich,
a seasoned Eastern Front commander who found himself and his badly depleted 9th, Hohenstaufen, and 10th, Frundsberg, Divisions in the right place at the right time. They were just what was needed to slow the Allied advance.
I love how many were Knight’s Cross holders(Grabner had just been awarded his) and that they made do with the little equipment and personnel they had. They were seasoned professionals and their backs were to the wall and they fought to a stalemate the best Infantry the Allies had.
I can’t really pick a favourite because I only know a few of the units involved (the 82nd, the 101, the 1st Airborne and the Polish Brigade), but Market-Garden always brings to my mind the scene in A Bridge Too Far in which General Horrocks stands in front of a big room of XXX Corps officers and jovially declares: “Gentlemen, this is a story you will tell your grandchildren…and mightily bored they’ll be.”
