wooded area near the town of Le Muy, and fight off German soldiers in the process. Due to the ineffective placement of the pathfinders, the follow-up waves of paratroopers were not dropped in the right place either. This was further exacerbated by pilot error, as many of the pilots opted to drop their paratroopers at too high an altitude; the result was that these men were widely scattered. An entire stick of men of the 509th PIB were dropped into the sea and drowned near St Tropez. Much like the paratroopers in Normandy, however, the overall operation was a success as the paratroopers still managed to accomplish their missions and capture their objectives in conjunction with the seaborne landing forces. Netherlands Operation Market Garden, the brainchild of British Field Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery, commander of the 21st Army Group, which took place on September 17, 1944, was the next major airborne operation into the Netherlands, the largest to date. The mission of the airborne troops was to capture a series of bridges from Best in the south, to Arnhem (by the British 1st Airborne Division) in the north. This would then allow the ground element to cross the bridges in a rapid manoeuvre. While the operation ultimately failed due to delays among the ground forces, the airborne divisions accomplished most of their missions; this was due in large part to the efforts of the pathfinder forces. A combination of the drop taking place in broad daylight and that the Germans were not expecting an airborne attack allowed the pathfinders to land on target and guide in the rest of the paratroopers to the proper locations. This is especially remarkable considering that the number of pathfinder sticks and the number of men in each stick were reduced to the bare minimum (one per drop zone) for this drop. Battle of the Bulge During the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944, the 101st Airborne Division, along with elements of numerous other units, was trucked to the Belgian town of Bastogne in order to secure and defend the town which contained a major road junction. By December 22, 1944, the units defending the town were surrounded and running low on supplies. Two sticks of pathfinders of the 101st parachuted into besieged Bastogne to set up signal beacons to guide in a flight of planes to resupply the Allied units in that town;