The Battle of Arnhem geocoin

[Dofferson_Katch]

 

After i found my first geocoin i wanted to make my own. I love historical geocoins and since my hometown is Arnhem it was clear to me: a Battle of Arnhem geocoin.

 

In september 1944 the brave men of the British 1st Airborne Division and the Polish 1st Independent Parachute brigade landed near Arnhem to fight a battle they would loose: the battle for the two bridges in Arnhem.

 

Each year in september there are serveral remembrance ceremonies, flowers are laid at the war graves by school kids, paratroupers drop in at one of the drop zones during the battle and there is the Airborne march.

 

Arnhem and the surrounding villages are full of historical places and monuments that remember this battle: the restored bridge in Arnhem, the Hartenstein hotel which was the head quarters of the British and is now a museum and serveral other places like the dropzones that were used to land during the first days of the battle.

 

I love to take long walks and i regulary take a route that visits these spots.

 

About the coin:

 

The front side carries the silhouetted image of Bellerophon the warrior, mounted on the winged Pegasus in light blue on a maroon background. (This was the official marking used by the soldiers during and after the battle.)

 

The back side displays a stylized map of the river Rhine, the villages, roads and drop zones during the battle. At the top there are some Dakota planes dropping paratroopers and at the bottom there are three flags: British, Polish and Dutch.

 

The coin is 1.75 inch wide, 3 mm thick, is trackabele and has a unique icon. It is made in (imitation) hard enamel and there are four versions of which three are available for sale, the fourth one is for me to give away to friends and the owners of caches related to the Battle of Arnhem.

 

The coins in the picture are available for sale:

 

Antique Silver (30 pieces)

Antique Bronze (30 pieces)

Antique Copper XLE (20 pieces)

 

I will sell these coins at production cost price, € 9,50 each exlusive shipping costs: depending on the number of coins, for three coins worldwide using regular mail this would be €5,00.

 

You can order these coins by sending me a PM with the coins you like to buy and your PayPal address.

Edited August 24, 2013 by Dofferson

[Colorado Bear]

Message sent

[+TeamEccs21]

You've got Mail!

[+kini_ont]

Your first coin turned out very nicely I think we'll have to discuss a trade

[Dofferson_Katch]

Your first coin turned out very nicely I think we'll have to discuss a trade

 

You know i always wanted to have one of your personal coins

[Dofferson_Katch]

Thanks all for the the replies and ofcoarse the people who ordered my coin.

 

The night before i did put the coin online i couldn't sleep "What if nobody....." well after the first day i can conclud there was no reason for these worries :-).

 

I updated the availablity to the following numbers:

 

Antique Silver: 17 coins

Antique Bronze: 15 coins

Antique Coppe XLE 20: 3 coins.

 

Greetings,

 

Dave Hoebe

[+Getzie family]

Dave :

Money send by PayPal

[Dofferson_Katch]

Dave :

Money send by PayPal

 

Thank you, the bubble wrapper is going in the mail tomorrow.

[Dofferson_Katch]

Except for a couple reserved ones the Antique Copper XLE is sold out.

[Dofferson_Katch]

Hi all, except for the reservations that awaiting payment the following coins are still available:

 

Antique Bronze 3 pieces

Antique Silver 5 pieces.

 

It's a big relief to know i am not stuck with piles of my own coin , thanks to all who ordered/ traded !

[+pingos]

WOW! Dave thanks for this great design and the special coin I found today in the mail.

It will get a special place, especially in memory of my mother who was born and grew up in Arnhem and told me a lot about the battle.

 

Liefs, Marjon

[Colorado Bear]

Got my coin tody in the mail. Thank you. It is a great looking coin and will make a good addition to my collection.

 

Colorado Bear

[+Jayman11]

Very good! Great job on your first coin!

[Dofferson_Katch]

 

September is a special month in my hometown Arnhem and the surrounding villages. In this month Operation Market Garden and the Battle of Arnhem is remembered with all kind of activities.

 

The picture above is the 4th edition of my Battle of Arnhem coin set that i had made for friends and cache owners of Battle of Arnhem related caches. I would like to have a little cointest and give away one coin of this special edition.

 

Entering the cointest is simple: Just post a fact about Operation Market Garden and the Battle of Arnhem. To make it easy: here is a link to Wikipedia about this subject.

 

The rules are simple:

 

- The cointest starts today (17th of September) and ends on the 26th of September.

- Only posts with a fact about the subject of my coin participate in the cointest.

- You are allowed to post multiple facts, but only one fact a day.

- At the end of the cointest i will pick one lucky post using a random number generator.

- Accepted languages are English and Dutch.

- There are no disputes, my cointest, my rules :-)

 

If you already have one of this edition in your collection don't hesitate to join, if you are the lucky winner we will make another arrangement (if you like).

 

Cheers, Dave

Edited September 17, 2013 by Dofferson

[+PhatBldGuy]

Guess I'll start this off...17 September was on a dark moon and in the days following it the new moon set before dark. Allied airborne doctrine prohibited big operations in the absence of all light, so the operation would have to be carried out in daylight

 

BTW this is a very nice looking coin. And the fact I have to read a bit more about this battle because of the coin is awesome. Good luck to everyone

[+Bartians]

Operation Market Garden was the largest airborne operation up to that time.

 

Thanks for the cointest and history lesson.

[+Nerdygeodad]

Arnhem has become a byword for the fighting spirit of the British and has set a standard for the Parachute Regiment

 

Thanks for the Cointest!!

[+sr510]

It started on 17th September

[+nevadanick]

A Bridge Too Far is a 1977 epic war film based on the story of the failure of Operation Market Garden during World War II.

 

The name for the film comes from an unconfirmed comment attributed to British Lieutenant-General Frederick Browning, deputy commander of the First Allied Airborne Army, who told Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, the operation's architect, before the operation: "I think we may be going a bridge too far." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Bridge_Too_Far_(film)

 

Weather during the campaign has long been disputed as to the extent it was responsible for failure of the operation.

 

How much different might it have been if Ike had followed Patton's recommendations rather than Montgomery's ... ??

[+kungfuhippie]

The failure of Market Garden ended Allied expectations of finishing the war by Christmas 1944.

 

Nice coin, love historical caches & coins.

[+nevadanick]

More than just a fact about Market Garden .... the efforts put forth by so many citizens of Europe throughout both World Wars I and II can never be forgotten nor minimized, regardless of the success or failure of a specific military 'operation' or mission.

[+ItTakesAThief]

On 17 September 1944 thousands of paratroopers descended from the sky by parachute or glider up to 150 km behind enemy lines. Market Garden...

[+Ogima]

A fact in Dutch then. Saves me the trouble of translating it :-)

It is an interesting fact, so you might want to google translate it yourself.

Will this be the first time I actually win something...?

 

De Britse inlichtingendienst van het airborne leger was er via verkenningen en berichten van het verzet achter gekomen dat de Duitse verdediging helemaal niet zo lam was als werd gedacht en dat er misschien zelfs pantser troepen in Nederland gelegerd waren. Het verzet bevestigde het bericht dat het 2e SS pantserkorps bij Arnhem gelegerd was. Er was zelfs nog een opleiding bataljons gelegerd. Toen de inlichtingendienst deze berichten doorspeelde aan Montgomery en zijn staf werd daar niets meer mee gedaan. De Operatie moest door gaan, hij was al vaak genoeg uitgesteld en niemand kon de operatie nog aflassen. Volgens de inlichtingendienst was het mislukken van operatie Market Garden al voor het startsein een feit.

[+Team Professor X]

The British 1st Airborne Division, led by Major General Roy Urquhart, had the bridges over the Rhine at Arnhem take. The Polish 1st Independent Parachute Brigade, led by Major General Stanisław Sosabowski, supported the British at Oosterbeek, in defense of the Rhine.

[+sr510]

Initially, the operation was marginally successful, and several bridges between Eindhoven and Nijmegen were captured.

[+nevadanick]

During the operation, the Germans recovered a copy of the Market-Garden plan from the corpse of an American officer who should not have been carrying it into combat.

 

 

Confirms that the bigger the task, especially of a secretive nature, the greater the chance of discovery.

[+MMJJT]

The 10th September 1944, Eisenhower agreed with the plan for Market Garden.

On the 17th Market Garden started.

So they had only one week off preparation.

 

MMJJT

 

Met de andere twee versies al in mijn bezit hoop ik dat deze speciale versie ook mijn kant op komt!

[+Bartians]

Estimated casualties of Allied forces between 15,326 and 17,200.

[+Getzie family]

Airborne Museum 'Hartenstein'

 

Visit this uniQue museum and learn why freedom should never be taken for granted.

 

Come and experience the Battle of Arnhem in this modern and very appealing museum. The Airborne Experience allows you to follow in the footsteps of British parachutists as they make their way to Arnhem in September 1944 and to meet the cheering citizens who had been oppressed by the German occupiers for four long years. But the bridge at Arnhem was a `bridge too far´.

[+ECplus3]

Operation Berlin was the name given to the rescue mission to evacuate the remaining members of the 1st British Airborne Division. The 20th and 23rd Field Companies of the Royal Canadian Engineers were able to ferry 2500 soldiers across the Rhine to the safety of Driel on the night of September 25/26.

[+Team Professor X]

18th of September 1944, between 500 and 700 para's went through german defences and arrived at the bridge.

They took place in the houses around the bridge to hold it and waiting for the XXX Corps.......

But instead of the arriving of XXX Corps they had to fight against 9de SS Panzer Division from SS-Hauptsturmführer Paul Gräbner. Lot's of vehicles were distroyed and germans killed including Gräbner.

[+Team Professor X]

One more for the show! The bridge and destroyed vehicles.

[+ItTakesAThief]

Bellerophon astride Pegasus, as the first airborne warrior, is the traditional symbol of British Airborne forces

[+spider16]

An airborne landing at Arnhem (the attack was code-named Operation Market Garden) was a plan to end World War Two early. The idea for an airborne landing on Arnhem came from Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery. The heroics that occurred at Arnhem and the surrounding areas put it up with such events as Dunkirk, the Battle of Britain, the Battle of the Atlantic and D-Day in terms of the courage displayed by the men on the ground. However, some also see the attack on Arnhem as an attack that went a 'bridge too far'.

 

Montgomery's plan was relatively simple. He believed that the most obvious crisis the Allies would face attacking into Germany was crossing the Rhine. Intelligence reports had already come in stating that the nearer the Allies got to the River Rhine, the more fierce the Germans defence was getting.

 

Montgomery reckoned on dropping a large airborne force into Holland which could then serve a number of purposes. It could mop up German resistance in Holland but more important, it could attack outflank the defences put up by the Germans along the Siegfried Line the and then attack German defences behind the River Rhine and assist an Allied crossing of that river. While the American general Patton continued to advance in the south towards Germany, the airborne attack would assist in an attack in the north of Europe. Both armies would then squeeze what was left of German resistance in the middle.

[+Getzie family]

[+ECplus3]

Vitesse Arnhem will commemorate the Battle of Arnhem this weekend by wearing a strip consisting of the regiment’s famous colours.

 

A Vitesse player salutes a veteran of the British 1st Airbourne Division last season when the club also commemorated the occasion.

[+Team Professor X]

19th of september. General-major Roy Urquhart and two officers were stuck for about 12 hours in a house Zwarteweg at Arnhem while a german tank was in front of the house. This house still exists.

They escaped early in the morning and arrived at Hotel Hartenstein at 7.25 am. Meanwhile the para's are slowly slaughtered by 50 german tanks...the battle turns into a disaster.

[+nevadanick]

General Eisenhower consented to Operation Market Garden, giving it "limited priority" in terms of supplies.

[+ItTakesAThief]

Daphne Du Maurier - 1907- 1989 British Novelist- created Bellerophon on Pegasis...with blue and Maroon background....

[+Getzie family]

EN: http://www.airbornewandeltocht.nl/en/

 

 

From the site:

 

This commemorative march in the context of the Battle of Arnhem in September 1944, takes place every first Saturday in September. The Airborne March is an homage to the more than 1750 British and Polish soldiers who lost their lives in the Battle of Arnhem and who are buried in the Airborne Cemetery at Oosterbeek.

 

In 1947 the Police Sports Association 'Renkum' Organised the 'Airbornewalk' for the first time, to honour those who fought for our freedom induring the September days in 1944, in and around Oosterbeek and Arnhem. Over 2000 participated in this first march, so it was a success from the beginning. Later the event was renamed 'Airborne March'.

 

The Airborne March has 4 routes: 10, 15, 25 and 40 km. The longest distance is for individuals only. The routes lead you through the woods of the Veluwezoom and the municipality of Renkum and the great views over the river Rhine. Over 17 nationalities participate in this march every year. 2013 is the 67th edition of what is now the largest one day march of the world.

[+Team Professor X]

20th of september. The battle for the Arnhem bridge is lost. The position and bridge cannot be kept anymore. XXX Corps is too far away fighting and crawling over hell's highway. The decimated para's have to pull back. The last place were the Royal Engineers (RE) under command of Captain Eric Mackay were stuck was a school. In front of the picture you see a burned Panzer SdKfz 251 from group Gräbner.

[+ItTakesAThief]

My link

 

paratroopers saved from Arnheim trap....sept 28, 1944....

[+Getzie family]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-two/9550949/British-paratroopers-body-found-in-Holland-68-years-after-battle-of-Arnhem.html

[+Team Professor X]

21th of september. The british para's surrender. Exhausted without food, water and ammo fighting was no longer a option.

Duty officer, Major Gough, said to a german SS officer: "this was our first attemp, next time we'll do better!"

[+ItTakesAThief]

Market: airborne forces of Lieutenant General Lewis H. Brereton's First Allied Airborne Army to seize bridges and other terrain, under tactical command of I Airborne Corps under Lieutenant-General Frederick Browning, and

Garden: ground forces of the Second Army to move north spearheaded by XXX Corps under Lieutenant-General Brian Horrocks...

 

Thus: Market Garden....

[+Team Professor X]

22th of september 1944.

Oosterbeek.

Major General Roy Urquhart estimates he has less than 3000 men left. He’s convinced that XXX Corps doesn’t understand the desperate nature of his situation. The commander of the Red Devils now begins considering a withdrawal across the Lower Rhine.

Even the landed para's from the first Polish independent Brigade with commanding officer Major General Stanislaw Sosabowski couldn't help enough. They tried to cross the river towards Oosterbeek but only 300 of them reached Hotel Hartenstein and it's surroundings.

Sosabowski

[+Getzie family]

http://www.airborne-herdenkingen.nl/airborne-begraafplaats-oosterbeek/

[+nevadanick]

Market Garden was a risky plan that required a willingness to gamble at the tactical, small-unit level.

[+ItTakesAThief]

Market would be the largest airborne operation in history, delivering over 34,600 men of the 101st, 82nd and 1st Airborne Divisions and the Polish Brigade. 14,589 troops were landed by glider and 20,011 by parachute. Gliders also brought in 1,736 vehicles and 263 artillery pieces. 3,342 tons of ammunition and other supplies were brought by glider and parachute drop.

[+Team Professor X]

23th of september.

Hotel Hartenstein and the perimeter is still in hands of General Urquhart and his men, but it's not as good as it sounds. Lack of materials, supplies and resources are a great problem. Tons of material are dumped but got into the hands of the Germans.

Meanwhile the polish brigade tried to cross the river again with only 16 boats. They suffered great losses and only 250 polish soldiers reached Hotel Hartenstein.

General Urguhart reported to headquarters: " morale is still good but we have our critical moments!"

Trying to get attention of the planes with supplies