Hoisting a car onto the barge on the Rhine

A visit to the Airborne Museum Oosterbeek, Arnhem: the area where British, American and Polish parachutists were dropped - Operation Market Garden.

*Field Marshall Montgomery planned an operation in which Allied forces would occupy several bridges in the Netherlands between Eindhoven and Arnhem. If this mission succeeded, the road to Germany would be open. Operation Market Garden started on September 17th 1944 and ended in the morning of September 26th. In the end, Operation Market Garden failed due partly to poorly chosen drop and landing zones too far from Arnhem bridge and intense German opposition by the unexpected presence of SS armoured forces in the Arnhem area.*

Later we parked on a site over looking the Rhine. It was a beautiful evening, just right to sit, relax and watch barges and pleasure cruisers move up and down the river. That is until we experienced the first car lift onto a barge. A car would hurtle up behind us, trundle down to the little pier and park. Kids and mum would leap out and start to attach lengths of strapping to each wheel, by now the barge was pulling in, the straps attached to the overhead hoist from the barge and up the car goes. We watched half a dozen such lifts each carried out with efficiency and speed.