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Chapter 8. “Hell’s Highway”; Holland, September 17–October 1, 1944

Summary 

Easy Company’s move into Holland for Operation Market Garden goes smoothly. As the American Airborne prepares to take control of the five bridges along a north-south road to clear a path for the British to approach northern Germany, Dutch people greet them as heroes. Ecstatic to be liberated from German control, each village welcomes the soldiers warmly with meals and accommodations.

On Easy Company’s march to secure their first objective, the Eindhoven bridge outside the town of Son, German artillery fires upon the column to give the Germans time to prepare the bridge with explosives. As the column approaches the bridge, it explodes. It takes hours for the American battalion to get across. Fighting through scattered resistance and sniper fire, they enter Eindhoven the following day. Winters receives orders to march fifteen kilometers northeast to engage the enemy preparing to mount counterattacks with some fifty tanks. In the resulting engagement, the British tank operators communicate poorly with Easy Company’s men, and the Germans destroy four out of six British tanks. The remaining two tanks and Easy Company retreat to Nuenen.

Despite the shelter of the town, casualties continue to mount. The Germans aim to sever the highway that leads from Eindhoven to the fourth bridge at Nijmegen, but Easy Company’s resistance in Nuenen thwarts them. While Easy Company stops the Germans’ advance, the American soldiers are not able to push them back. Under cover of darkness, Easy retreats to Eindhoven, which they defend for two days. The Dutch townspeople are no longer in a welcoming mood as they expect Germans to reoccupy their home.

On September 22, Winters receives orders to travel north to Uden to defend against a German Panzer tank attack. After loading into trucks, Easy Company, Regimental HQ Company, and three British tanks enter Uden without incident. Once there, German tanks cut off the route from Veghel to Uden. Easy Company drives back a patrol coming toward Uden and then establishes defensive roadblocks on all the roads entering Uden. The Germans overestimate the strength of the forces occupying Uden and focus their assault instead on Veghel. Artillery fire and the German air force shell Veghel with an intensity the Americans have never experienced. This continues for two days until British planes and tanks finally drive German forces off. The 506th moves out and enters Uden in the afternoon, rejoining the separated men of Easy Company.

Next, the Germans establish an offensive line across the road between the cities, blocking supplies from reaching units stationed north of Veghel. On September 25, the 506th marches in heavy rain toward the area held by the Germans. The fighting is horrible. The Germans were dug in, forcing the American battalions to do the same. Winters and Easy Company begin a flanking maneuver to the west to break the stalemate. They make their way to an open field with little cover before German machine guns halt their advance. They switch tactics and begin raking the road with artillery fire day and night. In the early hours of September 26, the Germans withdraw.

Later, the overly ambitious Operation Market Garden is recognized as a costly failure of crucial information about enemy strategy and unrealistic planning. Easy Company went toe to toe with German paratroopers with training and skill equal to theirs. Easy lost twenty-two men.

Analysis

The chapter title “Hell’s Highway” comes from the name the 101st Airborne gives to the road leading from Eindhoven to Nijmegen in the Netherlands, a town that they were to liberate and defend from German control. The name reflects the torment of Operation Market Garden. This narrow route of passage that British troops intended to use for a drive into northern Germany was not suited to a combined Allied mission involving tanks, transports, and infantry. German forces easily perceive the Market Garden strategy and converge on them from both sides of the contested road. Their enormous Panzer tank divisions surprise the British and American paratroopers, reflecting a major failure of intelligence on the Allied side. The breakdown of communication between the British tank operators and Easy Company contributes to disarray in the field operations. The Allies are undersupplied with transports and tanks and outmanned and outgunned by the much more numerous enemy troops. Easy Company meets their match in the well-trained German paratroopers, and while they hold their own, they also lose men.

The Dutch citizens the Allied soldiers encounter represent the immediate effects of the hostilities. These people first greeted the Allied forces filled with jubilant hope that the Germans would be driven out, their gratitude raising Easy Company’s spirits. As events unfold, however, the people withdraw into silent despair, which Easy remembers equally as vividly when looking back on the events. With the intense German bombardments of the villages brought on by the presence of Allied forces, the Dutch find themselves worse off than they were before, and they can’t help but blame the presence of the Allied troops for their continued sorrow.

The narrator’s analysis of Operation Market Garden’s effectiveness supplements his research of the historical record with his interviews with the men of Easy Company. Their firsthand accounts support the author’s fresh insights into the operation’s failures. For example, the men remember exchanges with condescending British tank drivers rejecting their scouting reports. Winters recalls his surprise at the appearance of the German tanks. The enemy uses overwhelming force in its resistance to the Allied drive through the Netherlands toward its border, which the British were not committed to meeting. The Allied strategy doesn’t take into account the Germans’ preparedness to commit their elite troops and considerable armament to not only defend but mount a counteroffensive.

This chapter portrays the extremes of the fortunes of war. In their first campaign in France, Easy Company experiences success, commendations, and promotions. In this next campaign, in the Netherlands, they undergo failure and hardship. Their readiness for battle has not changed, but their effectiveness is limited by poor leadership decisions above them, starting with the mission itself. The battlefield presents stark evidence that the objective is an exercise in futility. The goal of shortening the war is laudable, but the strategy is unrealistic. Allied command sends a task force with limited resources into the enemy’s backyard, and it is met with the full resources of the German army. The benefit of hindsight brings valuable lessons to future observers and readers of this book, but Easy Company only feels the visceral results of failure in the loss of men, a decline in confidence, the destruction of targets, and the loss of goodwill among the citizens they intended to help.

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