Market Garden – 101st Airborne Division and the Battle at Best

After the 101st Airborne Division had landed on the Son Heath, H Company, 502 Parachute Infantry Regiment, reinforced, set out to capture the two bridges over the Wilhelmina Canal near Best. Their mission turned quickly turned from bad to worse, as they mistakenly veered off to much towards Best and got into a firefight with German reinforcements arriving on the scene. As the situation escalated, the balance of Lieutenant Colonel Robert Cole’s 3rd Battalion, 502 PIR was sent in to help out H Company. The Americans dug in on the western edge of the forest, desperately fending off German counterattacks and infiltration of their lines. More American troops and even British tanks were deployed, while the Germans brought a whole new division into battle.

In this guided tour we will walk on this part of the battlefield. During this walk, the stages of the battle are explained step by step, with reference to the landscape as it was back then. You will discover several former fighting positions during this walk. Giving you a very good picture of ​​the scale and confusion of the fighting in the Sonse Forest in September 1944.