Mission Command Analysis - Mg Roy Urquhart

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MISSION COMMAND ANALYSIS: MG ROY URQUHART - BATTLE OF ARNHEM AVC3 CLASS 14-001 19 DECEMBER 2013 On 15 September 1944, just two days prior to commencing Operation Market Garden, MG Robert ‘Roy’ Urquhart, Commanding General of the 1st British Airborne Division, was at relative ease, even managing to play one last round of golf prior to the mission (R. E. Urquhart 1995, 17). Little did he know that in just ten days time he would find his division of nearly 10,300 men on the brink of annihilation with more than 7,700 of his men incapacitated, killed, or captured and he himself retreating under the cover of darkness along with what few remained (Badsey, A Bridge Too Far 1993, 85). While decisions made at all levels contributed to the condemnation of the mission at Arnhem, MG Urquhart’s own implementation of the operations process and mission command through his understanding, visualization, assessment, and direction of the battle were undoubtedly pivotal in the eventual downfall that ended in a catastrophic outcome for his unit at Arnhem. These failures, intermingled with MG Urquhart’s few successes, proved to be the decisive point in the overall failure of the largest airborne operation in history, Operation Market Garden (Badsey, Arnhem 1944 1993, 6). Operation Market Garden, the brainchild of Field Marshall Bernard ‘Monty’ Montgomery, was approved due to an existing strategic need for ports along the English Channel, specifically at Antwerp. Due to the rapid advancement of Allied Forces across the European Peninsula, within the three short months after landing at Normandy, supply lines were quickly becoming dangerously thin. In order to sustain the fight and capitalize upon the unanticipated German retreat, Field Marshall Montgomery envisioned Operation Market Garden as a two phase Allied thrust across the Netherlands that would complete three end
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