Operation Market Garden: Arnhem - Battle for the Oosterbeek Perimeter

14/12/2012

With 2 Para isolated at the Arnhem Bridge and both 1 and 4 Para Brigades thwarted in their attempts to fight their way into Arnhem and falling back, what became the Oosterbeek Perimeter started to form around Divisional HQ at the Hartenstein Hotel. Beaten but not defeated, the remnants of 1st Airborne Division fought a grim battle with the SS supported by reinforcements and armour rushed to Oosterbeek from all over the West. Veterans and experienced battlefield guides vividly relate their experiences and take the viewer to the scene of the action. The seven days of grim and bloody fighting in the Oosterbeek Perimeter was amongst the hardest fought of all the battles in the West. It was one that the SS veterans of the Eastern Front in the Hohenstaufen Division christened the Hexenkessel or “Witches Cauldron”. All the while the the airborne soldiers were waiting for XXX Corps to arrive from the south, with the enemy pressing ever closer.