Hare and Hounds with the Heins

Around the time of the battle for the little town of St. Oedenrode, the 101st Airborne, 3rd Battalion, 502nd PIR, sent patrols through the Zonsche Forest, trjdng to move toward the town of Best and its bridge. German resistance was tough in the vicinity of Best. Major Elkins, 377th Parachute …

1944-09-19

Comp25

Around the time of the battle for the little town of St. Oedenrode, the 101st Airborne, 3rd Battalion, 502nd PIR, sent patrols through the Zonsche Forest, trjdng to move toward the town of Best and its bridge. German resistance was tough in the vicinity of Best. Major Elkins, 377th Parachute Field Artillery Battalion, set out by jeep, early morning to report to the 502nd CP to plan artillery support or when guns became available. He was accompanied by a Reconnaissance Officer and three enlisted men. While going through unfamiliar the woods of Zonsche, the party was fired upon and then surrounded by superior forces. It quickly became an “every man for himself’ situation.

Near Best, Holland

Operation Market Garden was a failed World War II military operation fought in the Netherlands from 17 to 25 September 1944. It was the brainchild of Field Marshal Sir Bernard Law Montgomery and strongly supported by Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt. The airborne part of the operation was undertaken by the First Allied Airborne Army with the land operation by XXX Corps of the British Second Army. The objective was to create a 64 mi (103 km) salient into German territory with a bridgehead over the River Rhine, creating an Allied invasion route into northern Germany. This was to be achieved by seizing a series of nine bridges by Airborne forces with land forces swiftly following over the bridges. The operation succeeded in liberating the Dutch cities of Eindhoven and Nijmegen along with many towns, creating a 60 mi (97 km) salient into German-held territory limiting V-2 rocket launching sites. It failed, however, to secure a bridgehead over the Rhine, with the advance being halted at the river.

Wikipedia: Operation Market Garden

American

Germany