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Operation Market-Garden. February, 1944
Operation Market-Garden. February, 1944

Watching the lights of Athens harbour blinking away in the night, we were leaving so many things behind as well. Having set our feet on these shores nearly a year ago, we have found here valiant people with a hope for peace, who became our friends eventually, beautiful, pristine villages and towns, some of them still untouched by war and flame, but we also said our goodbyes to so many brothers in arms, who laid down their heads on the slopes of too many mountains and hills.

We were sailing west. No clear destination was yet known to us, but single thought was in our heads - Germany! We were finally entering the lair of the beast.

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Big advance on Germany was anticipated by the press. February 8, 1944.​

We already knew that Americans and British have set their foot on German soil in several places - south, towards Freiburg, close to the Swiss border, passing the Siegfried line, also in Saar, where American armour was being massed, and further north - Aachen was in British hands already. But along the news of these advances, we also read reports of fighting getting more and more fierce as well, and no quick break-through was expected, at least not until end of winter.

Within few short days, by February 10, we have reached Marseille, and were on our way north by train in the morning of the 11th. The guys from volunteer divisions were sent by ships to Cardiff though, for some rest and re-fit, before re-joining us.

Lyon, Dijon, Paris, Amiens - off-loading, waiting, riding again, sleeping in the stations, box cars. All along the way we saw signs of war, which passed these placed not too long ago. Burned down churches, tank and truck wrecks, cratered fields with the remnants of trenches here and there, several scorched villages, which seemed empty and desolate. Of course, there were also those, which were being rebuilt, with roofs being hastily raised or fixed to have some shelter in the chill of almost-passed winter.

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It started snowing when we reached Paris, and the scars of war were not that frightening anymore. February 13, 1944​

It took us 5 days to reach Antwerp, our final destination point. Without waiting for more than it took us to find our barracks, I was summoned by our division commander Maj.Gen. Vitkus for a briefing. And what a briefing it was! After leaving one theatre just mere two weeks ago, we were being thrown into another mess, based on sketchy intelligence reports, betting on sheer luck and hoping for best results. As far as I understood, neither our Division commander, neither Corps Commander Lt.Gen. Zemaitis were overly excited about the plane, but, since this was already decided by the higher rank brass, there was not much we could do.

The command for the whole operation was assigned to Field Marshal Gough of the Royal Army (he was also the commanding officer of Operation 'Husky' back in 1942) currently in charge of the whole northern part of the Western front. Supreme Allied commander Field Marshal Davies, an American, must have had quite a dilemma on his hands, as American troops of the 2nd Army, led by General have already entered German soil and were closing on Stuttgart, with armoured spearheads reaching the Rhine further north. With reports of Germans crumbling or surrendering en masse, even if exaggerated, led to an opinion that the Rhine can be forced and even the Ruhr region could be captured on the go, and then there would be only an easy ride to Berlin, or even a capitulation of Germany by the end of spring.

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Battle plans for Operation 'Plunder' - crossing the Rhine at Coblenz and Duisburg.​

I recalled then, that when passing the straits of Messina, I had some talks with sailors, still remembering our landings in Sicily in 1942. Among other things, jokes were being passed around by Lithuanian sailors about allied ships going back and forth to Belgium and Northern France from the ports southern England - apparently part of our transport fleet was used for supply duties there. As I managed to gather, the sole available deep-water port east of Cherbourg was Antwerp, liberated just few weeks ago by Americans and Australians, and at that, Germans have managed to sabotage some of the port facilities before leaving, same as with Dieppe, Calais, Le Havre, and others.

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The supply lines for the advancing Allied armies now stretched thin for hundreds of kilometres, stalling all big operations on land and grounding the planes due to the lack of fuel. February, 1944
Under these circumstances, the common opinion among the guys was that either the Germans break real soon, or a big port was to be captured intact. And single one that could make a difference was Rotterdam, even with one third of port facilities destroyed by Germans upon taking the city back in 1940, and occasionally bombed by RAF raids in the past months.

It was also the position of Field Marshal Gough, a long-time advocate of well-supplied and cautious, calculated advances. It was thus surprising to many that the operation proposed for alleviating the supply situation for the whole front was so daring and unconventional, if not, some would say (and some did say), reckless and outright stupid.

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The operation consisted of two main parts - Market - a series of amphibious landings, and Garden - a dash along the Eindhoven - Arnhem highway to link-up with the Market troops.

Market forces, led by Operational HQ of Lt.Gen.Zemaitis consisted of 1 Marine Division, 2 Infantry, supported by one Volunteer division - 35,000 men in total.
'Market' was firstly designed to secure the dam - Afsluitdijk, a 32 km long dike, separating the sea from inner Ijsselmeer, along with its shipping locks and discharge sluices. Only then could the second phase commence - swift and unexpected landing in the newly reclaimed land, to the north west of Zwolle with the objective of seizing the polder system there, which was presumably mined by Germans in order to inundate the lands in case of Allied attack. Second objective was to secure the bridges at Zwolle and Deventer (just to the east from Apeldoorn) over the river Ijssel and then link-up with Garden forces at Arnhem.

Garden forces were led by Gen Liatukas himself, and comprised of 1 Infantry division, 3 volunteer divisions, directly supported by combined Australian brigade of engineers and mounted rifles, lead by Maj.Gen. Cliffton - 25,000 men in total. Their mission was to seize the bridges over the Maas and Lower Rhine at Nijmegen and Arnhem, in order to secure the supply route for Market forces.

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Map of Dutch lands under the threat of inundation by Germans. We had to do everything possible in order to avert the catastrophe. February, 1944.
 
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Thanks for a reminder, vidmizz :D It actually gave me enough motivation to sit and finish my update, which was pending for so long.
 
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It's back, hurray! ove the update, very nice alternate version of Market Garden!
I still find it strange that you can invade the Netherlands in the IJsselmeer when at war with whoever controls the Afsluitdijk, no way that should be possible, but okay:) At least the rivers in TFH are a lot better positioned. Now if only they could move around with the province names a bit and I am fully happy (the real IJssel flows through Deventer, not Apeldoorn)
 
Cool you could do it.
Thanks for continuing this.
 
Ah, so we should bump the thread every now and then if it falls silent? Noted. :D

That is correct! ;) :D

It's back, hurray! ove the update, very nice alternate version of Market Garden!
I still find it strange that you can invade the Netherlands in the IJsselmeer when at war with whoever controls the Afsluitdijk, no way that should be possible, but okay:) At least the rivers in TFH are a lot better positioned. Now if only they could move around with the province names a bit and I am fully happy (the real IJssel flows through Deventer, not Apeldoorn)

Yeah, and at that, in order to attack Afsluitdijk you HAVE to get into the IJselmeer first :) Btw, corrected the town, I actually went through the real map to check the bridges, just slipped my mind when writing the update:)

Yay it's back!
Cool you could do it.
Thanks for continuing this.

Thank you for support, guys :) The hardest part is not playing or writing the update, it's fighting the game engine/features to keep the game believable :) But I have played until April now, so at least one update is in the works.
 
Hope this works out alright and doesn't end the way another certain operation (that won't be named!) with the lithuanian forces cut off and dieing in Arnhem. Glad to see it is back!
 
Thank you for the support guys, and happy New Year!

Also, it seems I passed my 2 years anniversary with this AAR, hopefully it will not take another two to finish it :)
 
Winter Storm. February, 1944
Winter Storm. February, 1944

Just less than a month since our last engagement in Bulgaria, we were not entirely sure how well planned the operation was, but this was not too much on our minds at that time. We were finally getting really close to pushing Germany back to their own land, and, perhaps, will be able to march to Berlin by summer - and that was much more inspiring than playing decoys and slugging through the mountains in the Balkans.

Being one of the junior commanders, I was acquainted with the operation plan 5 days before D-day, while soldiers under my command got their orders just after packing their belongings and right before boarding the ships in Antwerp.

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Boarding ships at Antwerp harbour. Freezing to the bone. February 19, 1944

First stage of the Market plan - until we reach Garden forces or are otherwise re-supplied, was intended to take up to 4 days, and at that, most of the time supposed to be simply marching, unloading and securing the strategic points along the way - access to Afsluitdijk, Zwolle and Deventer bridges and Arnhem itself.

According to the latest reconnaissance data, the bulk of still battle-worthy forces were concentrated in the South Holland in anticipation of all-out Allied assault on Rotterdam, and at that, most of them were lightly armed infantry from minor Axis countries. All we were planning to meet in the north, however, were garrison troops sent to man the Atlantikwall, being unfit for front-line duty - after injuries, too young or too old, even former prisoners of war from the East front.

Our transport flotilla sailed out at night of February 19, bound for British port of Hull, same as many other re-supply ships did, but turned around during the night of Feb 20, and managed to pass the Wadden islands under cover of darkness and wet snow storm without being spotted by German observer posts.

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Anti-aircraft and anti-ship radar antennas on nearby Schiermonnikoog island were knocked down during recent bombing raid. February, 1944

The marines off-loaded in the first wave and headed for the beach at Harlingen - a small harbour town west from Leeuwarden, mere 10 kilometres from the East end of the Afsluitdijk. This spot was chosen since the west end of the dam was strongly protected by the forts in and around Den Helder, armed with naval artillery and mined approaches to the harbour - part to the Atlantikwall. Besides, the and shipping locks of the Afsluitdijk at Kornwerderzand - the gate to the Ijselmeer - was way closer to the east end of the dam. We only had to break through the fortifications and the defenders, if any.

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According to latest reconnaissance photos made by our own pilots, all the Afsluitdijk forts housed a full garrison of more than 6000 men. Too late to turn back now. February 20, 1944

In a two-pronged attack - one coming from the land, the other - from the sea, by inflatable boats, marines caught the defenders unaware, but this was clearly not enough, and the assault now turned into slaughter on both sides. Machine guns from fortified nests blasted away the boats in the water, while the narrow approach by land was closely guarded as well.

It took more than 36 hours to break them and secure the dam, with the cost of more than 600 of Marines, against more than 1100 Germans lost. All further attacks by almost depleted Romanian and Yugoslav troops were easily brushed away.

With the way cleared, we pushed on full steam further south - "Vilnius" division landed near Zwolle, while we secured a strategically important road and rail crossings near Amersfoort, all quite uneventful. Except, of course, for the reception received from the Dutch population. Even from the first landing in Harlingen, everywhere they saw us, we were greeted by crowds of jubilant people bearing food, drinks, flowers, waving flags and flying orange ribbons, happy to get rid of Moffen, as they were calling Germans.

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Most of the times this made our task a number of times harder, as it was simply difficult to push through all that sea of handshakes and smiles. February 23, 1944

After first troubles with getting the operation started, everything seemed to go fine. Axis forces, stationed in the eastern part of the Netherlands, such as they were, appeared to flee towards Germany, leaving quite a lot of equipment behind. We also got reports from our Garden forces of no resistance or outright surrender of straggling German troops when Nijmegen was captured. They expected to reach and secure Arnhem within 24 hours at most, as all the important bridges were being captured intact.

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On the 25th of February, I got orders to stop digging-in at Ameersfoort and get my soldiers on the move - we were liberating Amsterdam!​

By the 28th of February, we could consider ourselves lucky and proud to achieve what we have just in a mere week. But we knew better than to rejoice ahead of time. Apparently, this week was used by German commanders to regroup and consolidate their scattered forces - our supply convoys coming through Arnhem were being harassed constantly, with a threat to cut-off our single life line- at least until the port facilities at Den Helder and Amsterdam were working again. Besides, we still had more than 30000 Axis troops holed-up in and around Rotterdam.

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Bitter street to street fighting was still ahead of us. February 28, 1944
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Very nicely done!

You're going to have to leapfrog across North Germany to get to Lithuania before the Soviets do.
 
Good to see you'r back! Great operation liberating the Netherlands, good going.
 
Wonderful! :) Great job liberating the Netherlands, I assume Germany is next?
 
Great