17th Airborne Division (United States) Standish on 12 August 1944 before departing Boston Port of Embarkation on 20 August 1944. The 17th Airborne Division arrived in the United Kingdom on 26 August. Once in Britain the division was attached to U.S. XVIII Airborne Corps, under Major General Matthew Ridgway, which commanded all American airborne formations, and which in turn became part of the First Allied Airborne Army when it was formed on 21 August, under the command of Lieutenant General Lewis H. Brereton. Although attached to XVIII Airborne Corps, the division was not chosen to participate in Operation Market Garden, a large-scale airborne operation intended
Operation Berlin (Arnhem) Siegfried Line and advance into the Ruhr, Germany’s industrial heartland. The operation required the 1st British Airborne Division and the American 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions to seize several bridges over rivers and canals in the Netherlands, the main target being the bridge at Arnhem. This would allow General Brian Horrocks' XXX Corps to advance approximately 30 miles up an 'airborne corridor' to relieve the 10,095 men flown into Arnhem, charged to capture and hold the bridge over the lower Rhine and so enable the Allied forces to advance into the Ruhr valley. They were told they would be relieved