First Allied Airborne Army divisions were initially chosen to take part in Varsity: the British 6th Airborne Division, the US 13th Airborne Division and the US 17th Airborne Division, all of which were assigned to US XVIII Airborne Corps. One of these airborne formations, the British 6th Airborne Division, was a veteran division; it had taken part in Operation Overlord and the assault on Normandy. However, the 17th Airborne Division had only been activated in April 1943 and had arrived in Britain in August 1944, too late to participate in Operation Overlord. The division had also been absent from Operation Market-Garden, and the only
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