With a sober ceremony this morning on the Ginkelse Heide near Ede commemorated the start of Operation Market Garden on 17 September 1944. It remained with a few speeches and a few dozen visitors. There were no veterans from abroad.
Operation Market Garden is usually commemorated on a grand scale. Just as in 1944, planes drop hundreds of mainly British, but also Dutch paratroopers. Early in the morning there are often long traffic jams of thousands of visitors in front of the spectacle. There are special receptions and reunion events for war veterans from Great Britain, America and Canada.
This year, 76 years later, none of that, reports Gelderland broadcaster. On the Ginkelse Heide this morning there were several dozen chairs for as many visitors, one and a half meters apart. There were speeches by dignitaries with solemn words and wreath laying. Two elementary school children read a poem in which they thanked the soldiers of that time “with all their heart” “and there was a minute of silence. No planes and no air landings.
Operation Market Garden
Operation Market Garden was a daring plan of the Allies to liberate the east of the Netherlands and to be able to push through to the German capital Berlin. To this end, thousands, mainly British paratroopers, landed far behind the German lines on the Ginkelse Heide. They had to recapture the bridges over the Maas, Waal and Rhine from the Germans. At the same time, the Americans would advance from the partly liberated south of the Netherlands,
The plan failed, mainly because German opposition was much greater than initially estimated. Communication between the various Allied troops was also poor. The population of Arnhem and Oosterbeek became trapped between the warring parties and had to flee in bombs. Thousands were killed.
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