'Operation Market Garden':Serial A-7 dropping on Drop Zone 'N' near Groesbeek, September 17, 1944, around 13:12.

 'Operation Market Garden':Serial A-7 dropping on Drop Zone 'N' near Groesbeek, September 17, 1944, around 13:12.

This serial carried General Gavin's Command group and the 1st Btn of the 505th, 82th Airborne. Photo was shot by an unknown Signal Corps' cameraman. 

Note- . This trooper is actually doing a proper, by the book landing. 

The photo just happens to have caught the moment he was rolling his body sideways over his shoulders.  He was neither injured or dead. 

Operation Market Garden.

In the summer of 1944, the Allies launched a daring airborne operation to secure the River Rhine crossings and advance into northern Germany.

 Although it ultimately failed to achieve its objectives, the determination and courage shown by the airborne troops and the units that assisted them made Market Garden one of the Second World War’s (1939-45) most famous battles.

Operation Market Garden, leading to the liberation of Nijmegen and its environs, started on 17 September 1944. It was a concerted action of American, British an Polish Airborne and Ground  forces. 

After initial attacks by hundreds of heavy bombers, the airborne landings (Operation Market) started at about 13.00 hrs. around the cities of Eindhoven, Arnhem and Nijmegen. 

The task of the paratroopers, landing in the vicinity of Groesbeek, Overasselt and Grave was four-fold; occupying the Groesbeek heights, capturing the Maas bridge at Grave intact, getting hold of the bridges across the Maas - Waal canal (at Heumen, Malden and Neerbosch) and occupying the, strategically very important bridge, across the Waal at Nijmegen.