preparation for transport to repair depots in Germany. On Sunday 17 September 1944, the Allies launched Operation Market Garden, and the British 1st Airborne Division was dropped in Oosterbeek, to the west of Arnhem. Realizing the threat, Wilhelm Bittrich, commander of II SS Panzer Corps, ordered Hohenstaufen and Frundsberg to ready themselves for combat. Also in the area was the Training and Reserve Battalion, 16th SS Division Reichsführer-SS. The Allied airborne operation was a failure, and Arnhem was not liberated until 14 April 1945. Warsaw Uprising At the other end of Europe, the Waffen-SS was dealing with the Warsaw Uprising. Between August and October 1944, the Dirlewanger Brigade (recruited from criminals and the mentally ill throughout Germany), which included Aserbaidschanische Legion (part of the Ostlegionen), and the S.S. Sturmbrigade R.O.N.A. Russkaya Osvoboditelnaya Narodnaya Armiya (Russian National Liberation Army), which was made up of anti-Soviet Russian, Belorussian and Ukrainian collaborators, were both sent to Warsaw to put down the uprising. During the battle, the Dirlewanger behaved atrociously, raping, looting, and killing citizens of Warsaw regardless of whether they belonged to the Polish resistance or not; the unit commander SS-Oberführer Oskar Dirlewanger encouraged their excesses. The unit's behaviour was reportedly so bestial and indiscriminate that Himmler was forced to send a battalion of SS military police to ensure the Dirlewanger convicts did not turn their aggressions against the leadership of the brigade or other nearby German units. At the same time, they were encouraged by Himmler to terrorise freely, take no prisoners, and generally indulge their perverse tendencies. Favoured tactics of the Dirlewanger men during the siege reportedly included the ubiquitous gang rape of female Poles, both women and children; playing "bayonet catch" with live babies; and torturing captives to death by hacking off their arms, dousing them with gasoline, and setting them alight to run armless and flaming down the street. The Dirlewanger brigade committed almost non-stop atrocities during this period, in particular the four-day Wola massacre. The other unit, Waffen-Sturm-Brigade R.O.N.A., was tasked with clearing the Ochota district in Warsaw that was defended by members of the Polish Home Army. Their attack was planned for the morning of 5 August, but when the time came, the RONA unit could not be found; after some searching by the SS military police, members of the unit were found looting abandoned houses in the rear of the German column. Later, thousands of Polish