Battleplan 02. Assault From The Air (6 of 19)

Battleplan

They will capture the bridges and lay what the military calls an airborne carpet along the route which the planned Allied advance will take.
The man who must turn Montgomery's bold vision into a detailed battleplan is American General Lewis Brereton, the man who devised the first ever plan for assault from the air.
This operation was the boldest, most audacious airborne operation of the Second World War, potentially of all time.
Dropping 35,000 troops of three nations behind enemy lines, some of them 64 miles behind enemy lines, was a massive undertaking and a remarkable thing to do so late in the war.
But the potential gains were massive.
The aim - to end the war in Europe by Christmas 1944.

lncredibly, Brereton and his airborne commanders are given just six days to plan and prepare.
This is the battleplan they come up with.
The American 101st Airborne will drop into southern Holland and take the bridges and choke points between Eindhoven and Grave.
The American 82nd Airborne will drop ten miles further north and take the bridges in the area between Grave and Nijmegen.
20 miles further north, the British 1st Airborne Division, to be joined by the 1st Polish Parachute Brigade, will seize and hold the most northerly target - the bridges at Arnhem.
Each group will be reinforced by further parachute drops and glider landings of men and equipment.
And all three groups will be relieved by the tanks of the British 30 Corps, racing hard and fast from Belgium - first the 101st, then the 82nd, and finally the British 1st.
If all of these elements come together, the road to Germany and to Berlin will be open.
But for Brereton and his battleplanners, victory is anything but certain.
Operation Junction City, Vietnam, 1967.
Elite members of the US 82nd Airborne Division are briefed before dropping into the battlezone in their assault from the air.