A Tribute to The British Airborne at Arnhem.

From The Reader’s Companion to Military History by Robert Cowley and Geoffrey Parker:
In September 1944, after the victorious end of the Normandy campaign, Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery devised a daring operation to open the way to the Ruhr by seizing a bridgehead north of the Rhine, at Arnhem. On September 17, Operation Market, the largest airborne and glider operation in history (five thousand aircraft) was carried out by three Allied airborne divisions. Operation Garden was the ground side in which the Thirtieth (British) Corps was to link up with the British First Airborne at Arnhem by thrusting north along a narrow corridor opened by the U.S. Eighty-second and 101st Airborne Divisions. Then, the remainder of British Second Army would rapidly assault the Ruhr, thus hastening the collapse of the Third Reich and likely ending the war in 1944.

Congestion and German resistance along the single narrow road to Nijmegen and Arnhem delayed the British ground advance. The attempt to relieve Arnhem failed even though Lieutenant Colonel John Frost’s gallant paratroopers held the northern end of the Arnhem bridge against the Ninth SS Panzer Division for four days before finally being overrun and captured.

Of the ten thousand men who had landed at Arnhem, fourteen hundred were killed and over six thousand captured; only twenty-four hundred paratroopers safely crossed to the south bank of the Rhine in small rubber boats.

Market-Garden was a military disaster during which the ground force was unable to breach the River Waal at Nijmegen in time to establish a bridgehead north of the Rhine in what became popularly known as “a bridge too far.”

Arnhem was indeed a bridge too far. It is story is now the subject of books and documentaries the world over and it also inspired the classic film of the same name. I still watch that movie and it still think of all those brave men who fought there. I wanted to make my own tribute to them so I built this diorama in their honour .

This diorama took around six months to finish back in 2008, it is in 1/35 scale and comprises many different elements brought together for the effect of a scene of a townhouse in Arnhem occupied by British airborne forces.

I have posted lots of photo’s here as there is a lot of detail to take in. On display the diorama is shown on a turntable so that one can see something from every angle. This piece was designed this way to add extra interest.

Happy Modelling!

Darren.