HTY/POL 301 Career Prep and HTY 339: Historiographical Essays and HTY 499/POL 499 Senior Seminar: Operation Market Garden

In September 1944 the Western Allies mounted an audacious attempt to seize a crossing over the Rhine into Germany in a bid to end the Second World War quickly. Yet despite the deployment of thousands of American, British and Polish airborne troops, in conjunction with the efforts of ground forces to link up with them, ultimately at Arnhem in the Netherlands, the plan failed spectacularly and the war continued well into 1945. Famously depicted in the blockbuster film A Bridge Too Far (1977) the operation, code named Market Garden, has attained iconic status and is the subject of countless books, documentaries and articles, and is subjected to more speculation than almost any other Allied operation of the war.After 70 years it is time to reevaluate the importance, impact and outcome of Market Garden, alongside a wider reappraisal of the fighting in the Low Countries in the autumn of 1944. This collection of essays addresses such questions as: * Why did Market Garden take place?* Why did it fail?* What were the consequences of the operation?* How did it impact on the experience of war in the Low Countries in 1944?* How and why has it been depicted, studied and commemorated in the years since 1944?* How did Market Garden fit into the overall campaign in the Low Countries in the autumn of 1944?Operation Market Garden: The Campaign for the Low Countries, Autumn 1944: Seventy Years On is the result of a major international conference held at the University of Wolverhampton in September 2014. The contributors are drawn from a body of historians, military professionals and researchers who met to reevaluate these questions after the passage of 70 years. It highlights many new areas of interest and forces us to rethink our understanding of this pivotal period of the Second World War.

List of Illustrations; List of Maps; Notes on Contributors; Series Preface; Introduction; 1 Learning to Lose? Airborne Lessons and the Failure of Operation Market Garden; 2 Market Garden and the Strategy of the Northwest European Campaign; 3 Operation MARKET GARDEN: T he Manpower Factor; 4 A Week Too Late?; 5 Allied Close Air Support during Operation Market Garden: A Lesson in Planning; 6 Mission Impossible? The Mobilization of the German Replacement Army and its Role in the Thwarting of Operation 'Market Garden', 17-18 September 1944.
7 "Dangerously Overexposed?" -- Divisional Operations on the flanks of MARKET GARDEN, September to December 19448 The Viktor Graebner Assault, 0900 hrs Monday 18th September 1944; 9 Taking the Nijmegen Bridges: Personal Stories from the Cornelius Ryan Collection; 10 The Defence of the Most High: The Role of Chaplains in the Battle of Arnhem; 11 A Medical Bridge Too Far: Medical Support to Operation Market-Garden, September 17-26, 1944; 12 Exploiting "Market-Garden"? Operation "Gatwick" -- The Offensive That Never Was; 13 Starvation and Sacrifice: The Reality of MARKET GARDEN.
14 Crossing Water Obstacles in the Low Countries: The First Polish Armoured Division's Forcing of the Axel-Hulst Canal 16-19 September 194415 Command, Control, Co-Ordination and Communication at Westkapelle in November 1944 -- Operation Infatuate II; 16 A Return to Static Warfare: The New Brunswick Rangers and the Breskens Pocket; 17 Shadows of Arnhem: British Airborne Forces and the Aftermath of Operation Market Garden; Index.

As its name suggests, The Second World War reached all over the world, and penetrated into every aspect of existence for almost all the people then alive in it. In the remotest parts even of the New World the war brought dislocations galore, of society, trade, methods of work and play; andfrom the New World fighting men travelled by millions to the Old, where it had begun, to share in the dangers. It was a war that shaped the world of yesterday, and even those born after it ended have had their fates moulded by it. Churchill, Hitler, Mussolini, Roosevelt, Stalin: the names of wartimeleaders have assumed mythic proportions, while the memories of Auschwitz and Hiroshima offer haunting reminders of horrors still relevant in our modern age. Published to coincide with the 50th anniversary of VE Day, The Oxford Companion to the Second World War is the most wide-ranging and balanced work on the Second World War, the ultimate reference on the subject. Its 1,750 alphabetically-arranged entries vary from brief definitions and one-linesignposts to major pieces of description and analysis of several thousand words. They cover every aspect of the Second World War, from strategy, politics, tactics, and weaponry (in 1940 the action at Taranto was won by single-engined biplanes with a top speed of less than 250 kph; by the end of thewar supersonic rockets, and jet aircraft with top speeds touching 800 kph were in action), to logistics, political and military leaders, economics, and the effects on society (sex, outside marriage, usually thought shocking in the 1930s, had become commonplace by the 1960s; partly because the warhad helped to make it so; partly because the war had stimulated research into birth control). The Second World War often divides the views of historians today as much as it divided combatants at the time (whether BARBAROSSA, the German invasion of the USSR in June 1941, was delayed by the Balkan campaign, for instance, is still a matter of dispute). To reflect the diversity of views aboutthe war the Companion has been written by an international team of more than 140 distinguished contributors, and includes Japanese, German, and Italian perspectives. The huge volume of information is supported by a wealth of illustrative material including stunningly evocative black and whitephotographs, numerous explanatory diagrams and tables, and detailed maps. All entries are fully-cross referenced, and the volume also offers a general index, chronology, and appendix of place-name changes. Scholarly yet accessibly written, this is the ultimate reference book for anyone who wouldknow more about the greatest conflict in human history. A first-rate guide to every aspect of the Second World War Major country surveys - the experience of the war in all the important belligerent states, typically including the domestic life and economy, government, defence and civil defence, armed forces, intelligence services, merchant navy, resistance, and culture More peripheral countries and colonial possessions - for example, indicating allegiance (and changes of allegiance) of French colonies, the fate of the Dutch East Indies, the involvement of South American states Individual actions - battles, bombings, sinkings, and other events such as the battles of Kasserine Pass and the River Plate, Warsaw Uprisings, Iwo Jima, sinking of the Scharnhorst, Anzio landings, Doolittle Raid, July Bomb plot, Kursk, and the bombing of Nuremberg Military campaigns and operations - FALL GELB, CERBERUS and VERITABLE, as well as BARBAROSSA and OVERLORD, the battle for Berlin, the Fall of France, and Burma Campaign Wartime leaders - Stalin, Hitler, Roosevelt, Chiang Kai-shek, Churchill, Mussolini, Hirohito Military, political, and other leading wartime figures - Grand Admiral Doenitz, General de Gaulle, Count Ciano, Admiral King, Ho Chi Minh, Prince Konoe, Odette Sansom, Charles Lindbergh, Claus Barbie, Harold Macmillan, Marshal Timoshenko, Robert Menzies, Martin Bormann, Rudolph Hess, AdmiralOzawa, Aung San Politics and strategy - origins of the war, the Grand Alliance, strategic air offensive against Japan, allied and axis diplomacy, Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere, unconditional surrender, nationalism, the Final Solution, Tokyo Trials, Lend-Lease, Lebensborn, consequences of the war,politics of the atomic bomb Planning and tactics - Blitzkreig, operational research, photographical intelligence and reconnaisance, MULBERRY harbour, logistics, ULTRA Weaponry - submarines, artillery and rockets, tanks, battleships and aircraft carriers, anti-tank weapons, fighters and fighter-bombers, V-weapons, human torpedoes, E-boats, and development of the atomic bomb Formations and organizations - Arab League, ABDA Command, Smersh, Normandie Squadron, Force K, MI9, Todt organization, Servizio Informazione Segreto, Einsatzgruppen, Anders''s Army Phantom Regiment, Hitler Youth, Popski''s Private Army, Cossacks Types of warfare - electronic, airborne, infantry, submarine, artillery, signals intelligence, chemical, economic warfare, and deception Places - regions, districts, islands, camps, etc.(Changi prison, Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, Caucasus, Formosa, Channel Is., Dachau, Lwow, Bletchley Park, Nagasaki) Terms, slang, nicknames - wavy navy, Bevin Boys, Big Red One, Merrill''s Marauders, jerry cans, V-girls, Blackshirts, Forgotten Army, Zyklon-B General topics - children at war, armistices, scientists at war, deportations, collaboration, deception, loot, Hollywood at war, war correspondents, animals, penal batallions, radio communications, religion, African-Americans at war, historiography, Soviet exiles at war, conscientious objectors,slave labour A truly international team of contributors including... Martin Gilbert, Robert Dallek, Michael Howard, Richard Overy, Heinz-Dietrich Lowe, Yogi Akashi, Robert Service, Peter Calvocoressi, Anthony Farrar-Hockley, Judith Brown, Lucio Ceva, Sumio Hatano, Ben-Ami Shillony, Earl Ziemke, Klaus A. Maier, Ali Gheissari, Giorgio Rochat Advisory Editors: Professor John Gooch, University of Leeds - adviser for Western Europe, the Mediterranean, the Middle East, and Africa Professor Wilhelm Deist, Military Research Office, Freiburg - special adviser for Germany and Austria Professor Norman Davies, School of Slavic and East European Studies, University of London - adviser for the USSR, Eastern and Cenral Europe, the Balkans, and Persia Professor Robert O''Neill, Chichele Professor of War, University of Oxford - adviser for South East Asia, India, China, Japan, and Australasia Professor David M. Kennedy, Stanford University - adviser for the Americas and the Pacific