…FOR FOR OPERATION COMMET READ OPERATION COMMET READ FOR OPERATION COMMET READ OPERATION COMET…

or so the story goes… 🙂

I think there were some sixteen or so aborted glider missions between D-Day and Arnhem and as mentioned, most of them were ill conceived and didn’t take into account the speed with which ground was being taken. Boxer, Axehead, Linnet, Linnet II and Comet to name a few of them. In retrospect it seems a lot of them were unsound and over ambitious.

I believe Comet was supposed to take place on the 10th September and was only cancelled some four hours before the “off”. The plan was that a single division would capture the bridge at Arnhem and part of the plan was a coupe-de-main style landing to capture the bridge similar to the Caen and Orne bridges in Normandy. It was also planned to bring the whole lot in during a single day via two huge lifts.

As I understand it, one big problem with the chosen landing sites in the polder close to the bridge was that it was within range of the massed AA guns at Deelen aerodrome which probably would of torn the gliders and tugs to bits. This was one of the reason the RAF insisted on the landing grounds to the west for Market to protect their aircraft from having to fly through it.

I was chatting to an ex-Arnhem glider pilot a few weeks ago actually and the subject of Comet (which he’d been briefed for) came up. I suggested that Comet would never of worked as even Market didn’t with three times the forces available. He quiet rightly put me in my place saying that although ultimately Market Garden didn’t achieve its final aim, the mission to capture and hold the bridge DID succeed and in fact exceed it considering the duration the bridge was held versus how long they were expected to hold it. He also mentioned that he was surprised that the coupe-de-main part of Comet was omitted from the Market plans as it has seemed a good idea, at least to him, and may of helped a lot in the scheme of things.

Incidentally a lot of the glider load lists for Market were “recycled” from Linnet and Comet. If you look at them the names and dates of the operations have been crossed out and amended. It seems the loads for many gliders were the same for each operation with only the tug crews and glider pilots being altered.