Market Garden

Operation Market Garden 75th Anniversary

South Dorset Radio Society Commemorates Dorset’s key role in the 1944 “Bridge Too Far” Operation Market Garden at ex RAF Tarrant Rushton near Blandford.

On the 17^th of September 1944 the Allies launched a daring initiative to “end the war by Christmas”.

The plan developed by British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery and his staff would entail a stiletto thrust to the German Ruhr by opening up a corridor through Holland using British and American airborne forces to capture key bridges across major rivers and canals which would then be used by British armour and infantry to drive into Germany.

The American 82^nd and 101^st airborne divisions would capture crossings near Eindhoven and Nijmegen while the British 1^st Airborne Division launched from Tarrant Rushton near Blandford would capture the bridge over the lower Rhine at Arnhem.

The airlift (Operation Market). involved parachute troops and glider-borne jeeps, anti-tank guns and infantry and was a massive undertaking. The armoured thrust from Belgium (Operation Garden) involved tanks and infantry of the Guards Armoured Division as part of 30 Corps.

Despite initial success in capturing key elements of the corridor, things quickly started to go wrong because the ground advance through Holland was delayed by fierce German resistance, and an SS Panzer division happened to be refitting in the Arnhem area.

The final verdict was summed up in the book and subsequent film “A Bridge Too Far” by Cornelius Ryan.

To commemorate the dogged determination and bravery of the huge British airborne force which was launched from RAF Tarrant Rushton Airfield, the South Dorset Radio Society set up tented amateur short-wave radio stations on the airfield near the moving memorial at “Windy Corner” on Tuesday 17^th September.

Over the next few days the SDRS team made contact with other amateurs all over the World, including the USA, Canada, most European countries, Africa and of course the UK, achieving 180 contacts in all.

The use of radio to commemorate the operation is particularly poignant because one of the problems faced by the British airborne units around Arnhem was the poor performance of their low power short wave radio equipment due to the very sandy soil in that area.

Tarrant Rushton airfield is now an arable farm and the SDRS team are very grateful to Nick Harding the farm Manager for letting them operate on site.

Ray Coles, Chairman, South Dorset Radio Society.