Mesch, Netherlands. (September 12, 2024): For eighty years, the Dutch citizenry here has celebrated the heroic deeds of Allied Paratroopers who attempted to liberate them from the Nazi’s. In this photo by Sergeant Austin Robertson, a World War II veteran gives a thumbs-up as he rides in a vintage Army Jeep during the opening ceremony commemorating Operation Market Garden and the 82^nd Airborne Division.

Each year, U.S. Army Paratroopers assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division join Dutch communities to share history, personal experiences, and to express gratitude for the sacrifice of so many young men.

Operation Market Garden, a brainchild of British General Bernard Montgomery, was a plan for an Allied invasion of Germany from the North, through Holland. Although a huge gamble, the plan predicted the Allies would be across the Rhine on Germany's frontier and end the war by Christmas 1944.

This was to be achieved by a combined British and American Airborne force that would seize nine bridges and hold the terrain until land forces arrived. Over forty thousand paratroopers from the American 101^st and 82^nd and British 1^st Airborne Divisions jumped into Holland in what turned out to be a military catastrophe. Allied planners underestimated the size of the German forces in the area including reports of two SS Panzer Divisions.

As dramatized in the 1977 movie A Bridge Too Far, the overly ambitious plan failed resulting in thousands of Allied and civilian casualties. The Germans punished the once jubilant Dutch by cutting off food supplies resulting in twenty thousand deaths from starvation. The City of Arnhem was finally recaptured by the Allies in April 1945.

Despite these horrors, the Dutch have never forgotten the angels that dropped from the sky to their rescue eighty years ago this week.