Operation Market Garden - Losses

Losses

XXX Corps suffered fewer than 1,500 casualties, which stands in stark contrast to the 8,000 casualties suffered by the 1st Airborne Division. On several occasions, units of the flanking British Corps made contact with paratroopers before units of XXX Corps, and fought on to support them until the end of the operation. The higher toll by the 101st Airborne Division reflects the reality that aside from contending with the local German defenders, they also had to combat German troops retreating from XXX Corps advance.

German casualties are harder to determine, as the records are mostly incomplete. The official casualties estimated by Rundstedt are 3,300, but these numbers are challenged by historians. Conservative estimates range from 6,400, 8,000, to as high as 9,800–13,300. Kershaw gives a detailed but incomplete list of the participated German units and their casualties and concludes with 6,315 – 8,925 overall German casualties. A contemporary paper of the 21st Army Group mentions that 16,000 German prisoners were taken during Operation Market Garden, but it is unclear how those numbers relate to later casualty estimates.