A Bridge Too Far

Indeed. Several Dutch villages were completely evacuated by the Allies, especially in Limburg/Noord-Brabant in the winterof 1944-1945, when some Dutch civilians, still sympathetic to the Germans, relayed information about the Allied positions across the rivers....which resulted in quite a number of Allied casualties in some cases....

"Better safe than sorry" was the motto of many Allied units at that time....

 

Actually its debatable whether much of the info would have made much difference anyway.

Given that most of the senior officers knew of the intel there was little that could be done in the short timeframe of planning the op. It simply wasnt feasible. Some did distrust the intel given its source, some felt that it would make little difference in acting on it as the only realistic option would have been to cancel the operation.

Where the Dutch resistance could have proved useful would have been in the Arnhem area. The maps the British used were pretty awful and its quite probable that with the use of local guides many troops could have been taken through the confused German lines and into the bridge area during the night before the blocking line was firmly established. The help was offered but refused by Officers on the ground.

Its also debatable if the junior commanders had known of the info it would have made much difference. Frost states that had he known what to expect he would have dumped the mortars and taken more PIATs... All well and good but whether it would have made a real difference with all the other problems encountered is debatable.

The problem is that once an intel source is found to have been penetrated by the enemy it is very difficult to then place any trust in further info from that source. Its a shame but looking at it from a 1944 perspective it was the correct thing to do. Its easy to criticise with hindsight but at the time who woud have had the picture we have 60 years later.

I dont think the reluctance to use the intel really played that greater role in the operational failure. Far too many other 'big' issues were faulty; the air plan, the two-stage drops, the lack of air-support, the broad advance into Arnhem etc... not too mention the weather.

Im not trying to play down the role of the Dutch resistance, merely stating that even if it had been taken onboard I doubt it would have made a great difference if all the other things were the same... Doomed to failure from the start...

 

Personally I have not been too keen on checking further the data on the operation North Pole or whether the Germans were fooled by the SOE.Either way so many people were killed and guns,ammunition etc lost that I just don´t wanna think about it. War is cruel....

 

well in holland the few surviving soe agents have been fighting to get the truth out, they simply wouldnt accept that all their comrades died because someone at SOE made a stupid mistake.
And only recently documents surfaced that indeed suggest SOE knew about their agents being captured and turned but decided to play the game along.
The news came to late for the soe agents who are all dead now.
A shame because I feel they might have had a easier time living with the idea that their friends didnt die in vain but perhaps to secure D-day.

 

You're most likely right and many of the goings-on at SOE will now probably never be known.

Theirs was a very strange kind of war indeed.

 

I don´t think any of them died in vain. It is just that (possibly) sending people to certain death even if that means saving lives elsewhere in huge numbers - You gotta have steel nerves to cope that.