Operation Varsity a veteran division; it had taken part in Operation Overlord, the assault on Normandy in June the previous year. However, the U.S. 17th Airborne Division, under Major General William Miley, had been activated only in April 1943 and had arrived in Britain in August 1944, too late to participate in Operation Overlord. The division did not participate in Operation Market Garden. It did, however, participate in the Ardennes campaign but had yet to take part in a combat drop. The U.S. 13th Airborne Division, under Major General Eldridge Chapman, had been activated in August 1943 and was transferred to France
Bridges over the Brisbane River Bridges over the Brisbane River The Brisbane River, running through Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, is crossed by fifteen major bridges, from the Sir Leo Hielscher Bridges downstream to the Centenary upstream. The river meanders through an urban area that comprises 1.8 million people. There are two smaller crossings in the west of Brisbane City in the suburb of Mount Crosby: the Mount Crosby Weir, and Colleges Crossing (which straddles the boundary between Brisbane and Ipswich). A bridge downstream of the Victoria Bridge was part of a larger plan, devised by Professor Roger Hawken of the University of Queensland in the 1920s,