Hundreds of paratroopers from several NATO member countries, Germany included, dropped out of clear skies over a heath in the Netherlands near the city of Arnhem on Saturday.

The spectacle was part of commemorations of the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Arnhem, or Operation Market Garden as the Allies called the mission that led to the battle.

A small group of World War II veterans and a crowd of some 60,000 spectators watched the reenactment.

Arnhem's mayor, Rene Verhulst, called the heath near Arnhem a place "where 80 years ago courage, sacrifice and hope came together in the shape of the airborne landings during Operation Market Garden." 

"Today we commemorate the brave young soldiers who risked and sometimes gave their lives for our freedom," Verhulst said. 

King Willem-Alexander also attended the ceremony and laid a wreath. 

"Eighty years ago they made the greatest sacrifice, their lives for our freedom. May we never forget!" Netherlands member of parliament Annemarie Heite said online after attending the commemorations. 

12 veterans attend ceremonies, as survivors' ranks thin

A dozen veterans of the operation were in attendance on the outskirts of Arnhem, including 99-year-old Geoff Roberts of the 7th Battalion Kings Own Scottish Borderers, who flew in on a two-man glider and was among those fighting for the bridge at Arnhem. 

"Well, I landed at Wolfheze in a glider and our next job was to capture this area for the people to come in the following day," he told the Associated Press. But poor weather the next day delayed the reinforcements, and by the time the paratroopers arrived, Roberts said "it was getting a bit naughty" at the drop zone as German forces recognized the threat and began to reorganize and respond. 

After days of heavy fighting, Roberts was captured and sent to a POW camp and was put to work in a coal mine in what was then Czechoslovakia. Roberts was one of the soldiers to hear one of the most cliched Nazi lines from the war when a German soldier gave him a packet of cigarettes after his capture and told him in fluent English, "For you, the war is over." 

What was Operation Market Garden?

Operation Market Garden took place a few months after the D-Day landings on the shores of occupied northern France, as Allied ground forces were struggling with stretched supply lines and fuel shortages as they tried to make headway further east towards German territory. 

It was further popularized by the book and then the hit 1977 movie "A Bridge Too Far," with that title alluding to the Rhine crossing at Arnhem.

The mission was supposed to punch a hole around Nazi defenses by securing a series of key bridges and highways in the Netherlands that would open a door into the western German industrial heartland in the Ruhr Valley and around the Rhine River from the north.

As envisioned, this would circumvent the heavily fortified "Siegfried Line," or "Westwall" as it was known in German, and provide a back door into German territory. 

Thousands of paratroopers were dropped behind the German lines, tasked with rapidly securing a series of bridges almost simultaneously — to enable ground forces to advance and link up with them from the west, encircling or capturing any Nazi forces still on the western banks of the waterways. In the best-case scenario, it would also help isolate any German troops posted in the northern Dutch port cities, which would allow for improved supply nearer the German border if secured.

In the codename, "Market" referred to the airborne troop drops behind enemy lines and "Garden" to the armored divisions on the ground seeking to push east and link up with them.

British, American and Polish paratroopers led the charge, but with support from Canadian forces and resistance or volunteer fighters from Belgium and the Netherlands.

This Saturday, paratroopers from Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, the UK and the US participated in the hommage.

Primary objective failed, but major gains made

Although it was among the most daring Allied operations, involving nearly 35,000 airborne troops — around 20,000 dropping by parachute and roughly 15,000 landing in gliders — it failed in its primary objective of capturing the bridge across the Rhine at Arnhem. The Allies claimed but ultimately lost control of this crossing after almost a week of fierce fighting.

However, the operation did liberate major cities in the Netherlands, including Eindhoven and Nijmegen, leading to substantial Allied territorial gains.

The operation came at a high cost, with almost 11,500 Allied troops dying, more than during the D-Day landings. 

The partial failure was costly for residents of other parts of the still-occupied Netherlands, with the Nazis cutting off food shipments in retaliation, leading to thousands dying of starvation.

Earlier this week, two soldiers whose remains were only recently found and identified in the vicinity of the battleground, one from Britain and one from South Africa, were buried in Oosterbeek with full military honors. Allied forces retreated to Oosterbeek after failing to hold Arnhem.

Allied forces were ultimately only able to capture Arnhem in April 1945, just weeks before Adolf Hitler's suicide and Germany's capitulation on May 8.

msh/sms (AP, dpa)