Richard Lonsdale Service Order. His citation read: Most of the 1st Airborne Division returned to the United Kingdom in November 1943 and were kept in reserve during Operation Overlord. In September Lonsdale was made second in command of 11th Battalion, Parachute Regiment and in the same month the division was deployed in Operation Market Garden. The Allies planned to use airborne forces to secure key bridges over a number of rivers and canals in the Netherlands, opening a route around the Seigfried Line and into the heart of Germany. 1st Airborne Division was tasked with securing bridges across the Lower Rhine at
First Allied Airborne Army to secure several bridges over the River Rhine to aid the Allied advance into the North German Plain. The divisional headquarters for the 1st Airborne Division, along the 1st Airlanding Brigade and the Polish 1st Independent Parachute Brigade were to land at Nijmegen, 1st Parachute Brigade was to land at Arnhem, and 4th Parachute Brigade was to land at Grave. The driving force behind the creation of Comet was Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, who disagreed with the 'broad front' strategy favoured by Eisenhower, in which all Allied armies in North-West Europe advanced simultaneously. Montgomery, however, believed that a single thrust