101st Airborne Division coast and strengthened the paratrooper positions, many were relieved and sent to the rear to organize for the next big paratroop operation. On 17 September 1944, the 101st Airborne Division became part of XVIII Airborne Corps, under Major General Matthew Ridgway, part of the First Allied Airborne Army, commanded by Lieutenant General Lewis H. Brereton. The division took part in Operation Market Garden (17–25 September 1944), an unsuccessful Allied military operation under Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, commander of the Anglo-Canadian 21st Army Group, to capture Dutch bridges over the Rhine fought in the Netherlands and the largest airborne operation of
Airborne forces and were rarely used as parachute troops afterward. On 6 December 1944, a 750-strong detachment from "Teishin Shudan" ("Raiding Division") and the "Takachiho" special forces unit, attacked U.S. airbases in the Burauen area on Leyte, in The Philippines. The force destroyed some planes and inflicted casualties, but was eventually wiped out. Japan built a combat strike force of 825 gliders but never committed it to battle. Ironically, the battle that ended Germany's paratrooper operations had the opposite effect on the Allies. Convinced of the effectiveness of airborne assaults after Crete, the Allies hurried to train and organize their own airborne