Operation Pegasus launched Operation Market Garden, an attempt by the British 2nd Army to bypass the Siegfried Line and advance into the Ruhr, Germany’s industrial heartland. The operation required the First Allied Airborne Army to seize several bridges over rivers and canals in the Netherlands, allowing ground forces to advance and cross the Lower Rhine at Arnhem. The 1st British Airborne Division dropped onto Arnhem on 17 September. They encountered far greater resistance than had been expected and only a small force were able to reach Arnhem road bridge. XXX Corps ground advance became delayed and without reinforcement this small force under
6th Airborne Division advance to the River Seine 6th Airborne Division advance to the River Seine The 6th Airborne Division advance to the River Seine occurred in August 1944, in the later stages of the Battle of Normandy, following the German Army's defeat in the Falaise Pocket, during the Second World War. The British 6th Airborne Division, under the command of Major-General Richard Nelson Gale, was one of the first Allied units to arrive in Normandy on D-Day, 6 June 1944, and successfully secured the left flank of the invasion zone. Resisting efforts to dislodge them by the combined efforts of two infantry and one panzer division, a