OPERATION MARKET-GARDEN: ULTRA

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INTELLIGENCE IGNORED

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A thesis presented to the Faculty of the U.S. Army

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Command and General Staff College in partial

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fulfillment of the requirements for the

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degree

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MASTER OF MILITARY ART AND SCIENCE

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Military History

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Joel J. Jeffson, MAJ, USA

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M.S., Joint Military Intelligence College, Bolling Air Force Base,

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Washington, D.C., 1998

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Fort Leavenworth, Kansas

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2002

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Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.

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MASTER OF MILITARY ART AND SCIENCETHESIS APPROVAL PAGEName of Candidate: MAJ Joel J. JeffsonThesis Title: Operation Market-Garden: Ultra Intelligence IgnoredApproved by:, Thesis Committee ChairmanJerold E. Brown, Ph.D., MemberMaj Joe Dague, M.S., MemberLTC Michael J. Berry, B.S.Accepted this 31st day of May 2002 by:, Director, Graduate Degree ProgramsPhilip J. Brookes, Ph.D.The opinions and conclusions expressed herein are those of the student author and do notnecessarily represent the views of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College orany other governmental agency. (References to this study should include the foregoingstatement.)ii

ABSTRACT

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OPERATION MARKET-GARDEN: ULTRA INTELLIGENCE IGNORED, by MajorJoel Jeffson, 94 pages.Authors and historians have made the words Market-Garden and intelligence failurevirtually synonymous. Is this really the case? Operation Market-Garden, the planenvisioned by Field Marshal Montgomery, would open the gate into Germany andsimultaneously force General Eisenhower to abandon his broad-front strategy in favor of his narrow-front strategy. Executed on 17 September 1944, this operation became one of the greatest defeats suffered by the Allies during the Second World War. Until 1974,when the British Government declassified Ultra, no one beyond the producers andconsumers of Ultra intelligence knew of its existence. With the program nowdeclassified, it was learned that Ultra allowed Allied commanders an unprecedentedcapability to read high-level German messages that were thought to be unbreakable. Therelease of these documents now showed that senior Allied commanders knew that the 9thand 10th SS Panzer Divisions were located on the corridor that the Allies planned tomake their narrow-front thrust on. Despite this new information, numerous authors stillcontinue to describe Market-Garden as an intelligence failure. While intelligence was notperfect in supporting this operation, it is not justifiable to say that Operation Market-Garden failed due to the intelligence system’s failure to warn commanders of the threat tothe operation.iii