Peter Kennedy

A Bridge Too Far Reflection

Airborne Commanders Comparison

Throughout the film, the four main Airborne Commanders, Taylor, Gavin, Urquhart, Sosabowski, are all given command over their troops in pursuit of achieving the same goal, winning World War 2. All four of these men were involved in the “Market” aspect of the operation which referred to all the airborne commanders and men to seize bridges and other terrain. Major General Maxwell Taylor is the commander of the 101st Airborne Division and was the first of the allied generals to land his men on the Normandy beaches on D-Day. Taylor’s assignment for his men was to drop in two locations just north of United Kingdom to take the bridges northwest. Taylor’s conniving, and diplomatic skills on top of his foreign language skills, is what helped him to be known as a great commanding general during the Second World War for the United States. Brigadier General James M. Gavin, or known better around the military as “Jumpin Jim”, was commander of the 82nd Airborne Division subdivision Force A which covered the parachuters. Gavin’s was known as a passionate commander and had a very focused view on the tasks at hand. He believed not only tricking the enemy was key, but to flat out destroy them was more important. Next is Major General Roy Urquhart. Commanding the 1st Airborne a Division in the Normandy Operation Market Garden plan, Urquhart was given orders to drop his men in Arnhem in a desperation to secure the River Rhine. Urquhart commanded his troops with passion and aggression that would later earn him the Dutch Bronze Lion for his courageous and heroic actions as a general. Urquhart, put in the horrid circumstances he was in, commanded with not only brute force which helped keep them alive for nine days, but with intelligence, that not only kept himself alive, but a portion of his men alive. Last but not least there was Polish Brigadier General Stanislaw Sosabowski. Sosabowski was a persistent leader and was known as a fighter. After attempting to cross the Rhine three separate occasions and failing, he did not give up. He was a ruthless leader that never let his men down. He was known to get the assignment and task done no matter the circumstances.