Old Allied soldiers will be among those gathering in the southern Dutch village of Oosterbeek on Sunday to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the start of the Battle of Arnhem. Operation Market Garden began on September 17, 1944 with heavy bombardments by the Allied Forces. The aim was to liberate Arnhem to serve as a bridgehead to invade Nazi Germany.
There was heavy fighting in and around the town for seven days, but the Battle of Arnhem was lost. It was the last major Nazi victory of the Second World War. Despite the defeat, the British and Canadian soldiers who fought in the battle are still welcomed as heroes every year.
On Sunday, September 18, the Battle of Arnhem will be remembered at the Airborne Cemetery in Oosterbeek, one of the towns that came under fire in September 1944.
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Two small corrections: Oosterbeek lies in the East of The Netherlands, not in the South. Operation Market Garden didn't begin "with heavy bombardments"; the unique feature were the massive airborne operations near Arnhem and Nijmegen. The battle for the latter town (and its key bridge) isn't mentioned at all, nor is the role of the U.S. troops (82nd and 101st Airborne divisions) in operation Market Garden. For more details see Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Market_Garden.
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