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Operation Market Garden was the largest airborne operation of all time. The airborne forces’ tactical objectives were to secure a series of strategic bridges over the main rivers of the German-occupied Netherlands and allow a rapid advance by armor into northern Germany, allowing the Allies to outflank and encircle the German industrial heartland.

Initially successful, several bridges between Eindhoven and Nijmegen were captured. However the ground force's advance was delayed by the demolition of a bridge over the Wilhelmina Canal at Son, delaying the capture of the main road bridge over the Meuse. At Arnhem the British 1st Airborne Division encountered far stronger resistance than anticipated. In the ensuing battle only a small force managed to hold one end of the Arnhem road bridge and after the ground forces failed to relieve them they were overrun. The rest of the division, trapped in a small pocket west of the bridge, had to be evacuated. The Allies failed to cross the Rhine, which remained a barrier to their advance until the offensives at Remagen, Oppenheim, Rees and Wesel in March 1945.