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
1st Airborne Division (United Kingdom) same objectives as "Comet" but to be carried out by three divisions of the First Allied Airborne Army. Operation "Market Garden" was an airborne assault by three divisions in the Netherlands in September 1944, including the British 1st and the American 82nd and 101st, to secure key bridges and towns along the expected Allied axis of advance. Farthest north, 1st Airborne, supported by the 1st Polish Parachute Brigade, landed at Arnhem to secure bridges across the Nederrijn. Initially expecting an easy advance, XXX Corps, under Lieutenant General Brian Horrocks, to reach the airborne force at Arnhem within two to three