MARKET GARDEN ALL OVER AGAIN? WHAT THE HELL?

MARKET GARDEN ALL OVER AGAIN? WHAT THE HELL?

The disastrous operation Market Garden was over. The losses were considerable
as was our sense of defeat in an operation that promised to shorten the war.
Well you can't win 'em all. Upward and onward. On the 6th of October 1944
weeks after Market Garden had failed, we entered our operations tent before the
days mission and got quite a surprise. The map was uncovered and the operations
officer (forgot his name) announced, " "Gentlemen, the target today is the
bridge at Arnhem".

The reaction was surprise and confusion. "Arnhem? Wasn't that disaster over?
Are we going to fight that one all over again? What the hell is going on here?"


No reaction from the operations officer. He just continued with the briefing as
though this was just one more of hundreds of bridge bustings. But one thing we
all found odd. When we were shown the photographs of the target area, the area
to be destroyed was the East side of the bridge. That bridge straddled an
island in the river, and the bridge not only crossed the river but gave access
to the island. They wanted us to take down the bridge from the Island East. In
other words the Germans couldn't access it but our troops when they arrived
could. What the hell was this about? The briefing ended with the usual "good
luck men", and we all went out to our planes wondering what this mission was
all about.

We flew the mission with good results. We lost one crew from the 495th that
day. We lost Bert Moore pilot; Al Allen copilot, Eddie Sadula Bombardier, and
gunners Sam Belienski, E.H Neilsen and Charlie Boyer.

When we got back the story of this mission slowly came out. It seems that as
the allied troops were approaching that bridge the Germans were fortifying the
island in the river turning it into a fortress. Our mission, although we didn't
know it at the time was to cut that bridge isolating the Germans troops on the
island so we could make short work of them. We were glad to get that
information justifying the mission. But as I have said many times before, they
never tell us nuthin'



Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer