Video

Video by Sgt. 1st Class Jacob Connor

101st commemorates the 78th anniversary of Operation Market Garden

101st Airborne Division (Air Assault)

Sept. 17, 2022 | 4:00

A day of fog and light rain overhead did not stop nearly 500 guests from coming to 501st Parachute Regiment Geronimo monument for a remembrance ceremony in Eerde, Netherlands Sept. 17, 2022, to pay tribute to the sacrifices made during Operation Market Garden.

The 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), 2nd Brigade Combat Team, started the 78th commemoration at the church that was used when to observe the Germans on the historic sand dunes. WWII Soldiers of the 501st knew to maintain the church as an observation post to tip the scales in the favor of the U.S. forces. 1st Lt. Harry Howard, who lead the 1st Battalions 81mm mortar section volunteered. The Germans noticed Howard in the bell tower and directed a tank forward who started to shell the tower. A few direct hits resulted in Howard losing his balance and tumbling down part of the steps leading up into the tower. His men thought he would be dead and pulled him out of the debris, which covered him. Howard however stood up and asked his men to quickly bring him the American flag. He then went up into the tower and placed the flag in the beaten tower, clearly visible to the Germans as a token of the American firmness to defend the village at all costs. Now every anniversary an American flag flies on the church.

As the crowd gathered around the Geronimo monument, dedicated to the 501st Parachute Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division, the witnessed the Soldiers of the 101st marching down the street toward the windmill where the monument is placed in honor of all the 501st Soldiers who fought and liberated Eerde from the Germans. This is the windmill where Sgt. Jacob H Wingard was killed at about 11 o'clock during Operation Market Garden by a German sniper while he was hiding in a windmill as a lookout for directing mortar fire.

Hosted by the Airborne Committee of Eerde and the Round Canopy Parachute Team to educate and honor all the men and women who fought for their freedom and to remember that freedom isn’t free, it comes with a cost and we can never forget.

This remembrance marked the 78th anniversary of Operation “Market Garden, the largest Airborne jump in history.

Nearly 78 years later, on May 13, 2022, the Department of the Army announced the deployment of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) Headquarters and the 2nd Infantry Brigade Combat Team (Strike) from Fort Campbell, Kentucky back to the European theater. Their mission is to support the U.S. Army V Corps' mission to reinforce NATO’s eastern flank and engage in multinational exercises with partners across the European area of operations in order to reassure our nation’s allies and deter further Russian aggression.

The Soldiers will remain there and be ready for any threat the jeopardize what their 101st predecessors fought and died for and regained the freedom and liberty.