A Bridge Too Far Read online

  Other volumes in this series

  Air War Market Garden: The Shrinking Perimeter

  Volume 1

  The Build-Up To The Beginning

  Volume 2

  So Near And Yet So Far

  Volume 3

  The Shrinking Perimeter

  First Published in Great Britain in 2013 by

  Pen & Sword Aviation

  an imprint of

  Pen & Sword Books Ltd

  47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire S70 2AS

  Copyright © Martin W Bowman, 2013

  HARDBACK ISBN: 978-1781591-76-5

  PDF ISBN: 978-1473830-94-3

  EPUB ISBN: 978-1473829-78-7

  PRC ISBN: 978-1473830-36-3

  The right of Martin W Bowman to be identified as author of this work

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  Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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  Contents

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Tomorrow Never Came

  Chapter 2

  Berlin

  Chapter 3

  ‘We Have No regrets’

  Chapter 4

  ‘A Bridge Too Far’

  Chapter 5

  Operation ‘Pegasus’

  Chapter 6

  ‘Kommen Out Tommy’

  Postscript

  Acknowledgements

  I am enormously grateful to the following people for their time and effort and kind loan of photos etc, not least to my fellow author, friend and colleague, Graham Simons, for getting the book to press-ready standard and for his detailed work on maps and photographs: My thanks and sincere appreciation to Nigel McTeer, whose uncle, a man by the name of Maloney, fought at Arnhem and killed two Germans, one with a pair of scissors and one by putting sand in his mouth. Thanks are due in no small measure to The Pegasus Archive website and the Maroon Beret’s online news magazine for the wonderful collections of first-hand accounts faithfully compiled by the Association, its members and siblings of members. And to Deryk Wills, author of Put On Your Boots and Parachutes! My other favourite books on Arnhem and ‘Market-Garden’ include The Longest Day by Cornelius Ryan, A Tour of the Arnhem Battlefields by Major John Waddy, Arnhem Lift by Louis Hagen MM and of course Arnhem 1944: The Airborne Battle by Martin Middlebrook. My sincere thanks as always to Libby, Jenny and Lesley at the 2nd Air Division Memorial Library in Norwich. And also to Jim Borrett.

  Chapter 1

  Tomorrow Never Came

  ‘We kept hoping - when is the Army coming? The officers - they didn’t know - but as a morale boost they said, ‘They’ll be here tomorrow. Tomorrow never came.’

  Private Johnny Peters, 1st Battalion The Border Regiment. His mother in Liverpool was shown a picture of her son in the Daily Express which was captioned ‘They Fought Like Lions’ and she promptly collapsed.

  On 23rd September the Germans knew exactly where we were and were starting to be extremely offensive’ recalled Lieutenant Colonel Robert Payton-Reid commanding the KOSB, who was wounded in the shoulder but remained at duty. ‘They had a technique. First of all, they used 20 mm cannon across the roofs of the houses. Then they shelled the houses again, the top storeys, which got everybody below. Then, under cover of this, they had got an odd tank which came and blew the house down. While all this was going on they had infiltrated machine guns into position. For the first 48 hours we had no sleep and an average of two or three hours every 24. We had been on one third rations ever since the White House. At this stage we had no rations at all so we dug vegetables and got stores out of the Dutch houses. We gave everyone a hot meal every day. There wasn’t much water and we hadn’t any tea. Very few cigarettes.’

  Exhaustion took its toll on many of the defenders, to the point where some people almost wished that they would be wounded so that they could rest. Payton-Reid observed that ‘Lack of sleep is the most difficult of all hardships to combat. Men reached the stage when the only important thing in life seemed to be sleep’. He fell victim to this himself whilst calling a Battalion conference of three men besides himself, one of which was his new Second-in-Command, Captain Walker and also his ever present bodyguard Staff Sergeant Tilley. As the meeting progressed the men became increasingly weary and as Payton-Reid talked he could hear his own voice growing more distant, then one man collapsed on the table asleep, followed by another and soon all of them lost consciousness. Payton-Reid was the first to awaken and on so doing he roused the others.

  As the battle wore on and approached its conclusion, Payton-Reid wrote that he was glad to see ‘the 24th grow to its melancholy close. The high hopes of early support by ground forces was a subject, now, by mutual consent, taboo. By Sunday 24th I had six officers, myself and under 100 men.’ As he was at the 1st Airlanding Brigade HQ, helping to prepare for the withdrawal of the units on the western side of the Perimeter, he heard Brigadier Hicks mutter a remark about ‘another Dunkirk’.

  Bad weather on 24 September once again halted all troop carrier missions from England. In the morning, rain lashed England and the Continent. Overcast hung unbroken at 300 to 800 feet and winds of 25 to 30 mph swept across the airfields. Conditions improved somewhat over southern England in the afternoon, but not enough to warrant a mission. As a result of the losses suffered on D+4 Air Commodore L. Darvall commanding 46 Group had moved one of his squadrons to Brussels on the 23rd, so that it could be escorted throughout its missions by fighters of 83 Group. This squadron dispatched 21 Dakotas escorted by 36 Spitfires on a supply mission to the Hartenstein pocket. The weather was so unfavourable that only four got there and only two of them dropped more or less at random without sighting any signals. They must have been over enemy territory for 1st Airborne was unaware that any drop had been made.1

  ‘It had been a noisy night, with lots of shooting and shouting or orders by the enemy but nothing materialised’ wrote Lieutenant Michael Dauncey of the Glider Pilot Regiment. ‘In the morning the SPs, mortars and small arms continued their pressure on us and I had some little bits of a mortar bomb in my shoulder, but nothing to worry about. To get a better angle to spot an enemy marksman a South Stafford and I went a little way down the street near to the school. We went upstairs but after half an hour smoke started to fill the room so that we couldn’t see. On investigating downstairs we found some chaps round a huge smoking fire in the school hall, on which was a large tin bath full of dead chickens being cooked! In
the afternoon, we were still looking for the enemy marksman. To get a different view I went to the top of the house to a little dormer window. Unfortunately, he spotted me first. The bullet hit a stovepipe by my head and a splinter from the pipe struck me in the left eye, over which a dark red film spread, blinding me at once. A paratrooper tried to get the metal out of my eye with a couple of matches, but without success, so it had to be left. This was the day that a paratrooper paid the Glider Pilot Regiment a real compliment, when he said how glad he was to be fighting with us. It was so simple - yet so sincere. For my part, the Airborne soldiers and paratroops with me were outstanding; it was a real privilege and honour to fight with them. They never wavered nor complained and always put their friends first.’

  That night when things were quiet a paratrooper helped Lieutenant Michael Dauncey down to ter Horst’s house along with many other badly wounded men. ‘Things were fairly sticky that evening’ says Dauncey, ‘in that the Germans put a proper attack down the Weversstraat road. At one time two tanks were level with us firing indiscriminately at everything. Fortunately, Captain Mike Corrie frightened them off by throwing two grenades at them, after which they withdrew. It was lucky for us that the enemy infantry had not kept closer to the tanks. However, later we found a dead German officer outside the house. He had been killed by a grenade so perhaps they were nearer than we had realized.’

  Such was the strain on the medical staff at this time that Dauncey received no treatment, but having slept overnight he discharged himself in the morning and returned to his position. His wound did not really stop him and, as the enemy were clearly going to make a major thrust, they busied themselves on their defences.

  At the Mill Hill Fathers’ House there was no mass held on Sunday 24th September. Until 1500 it was quiet, just shooting at Oosterbeek. Then suddenly there was a lot of noise and the shouting of German soldiers. They came with some motorbikes and trucks full of cannons. ‘They took the big barn and Father Theeuwis’s shed’ wrote Father Bruggeman. ‘Behind the Brothers House, beside the barn, they positioned the artillery. The Germans will fire on the English at Lent. They brag that it can fire 16 shells at once. With their coming the peace in the community was over. Everybody felt so uncomfortable with the Germans so close. The elderly were moved to the basement. Although the Germans drove several cars into the Rhododendrons, they didn’t discover our English friends. In the evening several soldiers were drunk and they made a big mess. Father Thijssen went to see their Lieutenant and he took measures.’

  ‘We were confidently expecting the arrival of the relieving force’ recalled Lieutenant Derrick Randall RAMC ‘and though no armour appeared, we were delighted to hear the medium artillery and later to welcome their forward observation officers who directed their fire. It seemed most helpful. Certainly it was good for our morale! As the days went by, the noise and the activity seemed to increase, as did our confidence that the 30 Corps would eventually relieve us. Lack of rest and sleep was a problem and perhaps this accounts for why I found the time sequence confused. One afternoon, early in this chaotic activity, we wanted to get casualties away to the dressing station. No one was sure whether the dressing station was in or out of our lines so, there being some let up in the ‘stonk’ I was to go in a Red Cross painted jeep to see what was happening. I was called to the Command Room where General Urquhart’s ADC emphasized to me how useful it would be if I could note the various enemy positions! I set off, jolly pleased to be able to get around a bit more. I certainly do not remember whether I was able to report anything of value, but I do have a silly memory of a pang of conscience as to whether it was quite correct to report any military information from a Red Cross jeep. So much for memories!’

  During Saturday night Colonel Warrack had decided that the wounded and dying men under his care should not be expected to endure bombardment any longer. He went to Divisional Headquarters to see General Urquhart. ‘If you don’t mind,’ he said to him, ‘I’d like to go and see the German commander and arrange for the evacuation of our wounded to his hospitals in Arnhem.’ Urquhart not wanting to give the Germans any cause for encouragement agreed on condition that Warrack represented himself purely as a doctor concerned for his patients and not as an officer on the staff of Divisional Headquarters. Early on Sunday morning the weather remained reasonable after some early morning fog as Warrack, accompanied by Commander Arnoldus Wolters, a Dutch naval officer attached to the 1st Airborne and a Dutch doctor who had been working at the Tafelberg Hotel to put a proposal to Major Egon Skalka the senior German doctor at the Schoonoord Hotel. Wolters was to have served as Arnhem’s assistant Town Commandant in the event of a successful conclusion to the battle and he was therefore risking a great deal presenting himself at a German headquarters, so it was agreed that he would adopt the pseudonym of Johnson and pretend to be a Canadian.

  By coincidence Skalka had come to exactly the same conclusion that Warrack had drawn and he was also on his way to meet him and suggest a truce to remove the wounded. Skalka met Warrack, who he later described him as ‘a tall, lanky, dark-haired fellow, phlegmatic like all Englishmen. He seemed terribly tired but otherwise not in bad shape’. Together they agreed a plan, but first had to confer with General Bittrich and obtain his consent. Skalka, at speed and occasionally under fire, drove them in a captured British jeep towards Arnhem; the route lined with debris, ruined houses, wrecked vehicles and dead bodies. They eventually met with Bittrich who, greatly impressing Warrack with his courtesy, agreed to the plan without hesitation. Warrack was offered a drink, but created much amusement when he declined on account that it would make him drunk on an empty stomach. A plate of sandwiches and a bottle of brandy were produced for them, which Warrack regarded as being like a fairy tale compared with the nightmare of Oosterbeek. Bittrich handed him another bottle of brandy to pass on to Urquhart and before they left to return to their lines, he and Wolters were allowed to fill their pockets with as much morphia and other medical supplies as they could carry - captured from British resupply drops. They were invited to visit the wounded at the St. Elizabeth Hospital who had been captured in the previous days of fighting and Warrack noted that they all had beds with sheets and were generally being very well cared for. It was agreed that in a restricted area near the Tafelberg Hotel there should be a truce of two hours so that the British wounded could be taken into the hospitals in Arnhem. The truce began in the afternoon and 250 stretcher-bound men and 200 walking wounded were taken to various hospitals in the Arnhem area.

  While the wounded were evacuated from the dressing stations west of the town the shelling and mortaring died down. But owing to the difficulties of ensuring that everyone knew that an unofficial truce had been agreed upon and owing also to the Poles’ refusal to acknowledge that such an unsatisfactory state of affairs could exist, the fighting did not entirely stop. By mid-afternoon, however, the evacuation of British wounded began through the lines to hospitals of the IInd SS Panzer Corps in Arnhem. Among them was Brigadier ‘Shan’ Hackett who has been wounded twice and with a shell fragment in his stomach, the second of the Airborne brigadiers to be wounded in this action. Five hundred more wounded would follow the next day.

  This left Urquhart with about 1,800 troops organized in small groups to defend the pocket. The perimeter at this central point was about 800 yards wide, with Division HQ 400 yards to the north and Airlanding Brigade HQ in the woods 200 yards to the southwest. The divisional administrative area was in the Hartenstein Park grounds. The PoW cage guarded by the Provost was on the tennis courts just to the north and contained about 300 prisoners. Two tanks somehow got into the area that Sunday. They may have come from the group on Hemelsche Berg. Sergeant Clark of ‘A’ Company destroyed one and, later, when clearing a wood he stalked the other, rushed it, jumped on the turret and dropped grenades inside.

  Earlier on Sunday morning Lieutenant General Sir Brian Horrocks had driven up in a scout car to Driel to review the situation from the front, accompanied by Major
-General Ivor ‘Butcher’ Thomas, commander 43rd Division, Major General Stanislaw Sosabowski and Lieutenant Colonel ‘Eddie’ Myers. At 0930 from the steeple of Driel church Myers pointed out to Horrocks the perimeter around Oosterbeek that was still held by the Division. ‘Horrocks clearly gave me the impression’ says Myers ‘that he intended to launch the major part of 43rd Division infantry across the Rhine downstream of the Heaveadorp ferry and then on to reinforce the perimeter.’ Thomas also came away believing that Horrocks has issued orders for the withdrawal of 1st British Airborne that night and began planning a crossing to seize the Westerbouwing and help Urquhart. Horrocks, who later denied that he had issued these orders, then drove to Second British Army HQ to consult Dempsey. Horrocks had decided that a final attempt to get across the Neder Rijn should be made on Monday night. But immediately after he had come to this decision, the Germans once more cut across the road. There were reports too from air reconnaissance that Panzer reinforcements were approaching the northern banks of the Neder Rijn where the enemy infantry was digging defences; and neither VIII nor XII Corps operating on the flanks of XXX Corps had been able to make the headway that had been expected of them when it was not known what troops Model had at his disposal. Having got so far, Horrocks found it difficult to accept the fact that he could get no further. But eventually he was forced to conclude that everything possible had been done and he agreed with Browning and Dempsey that the time had come to get what still remained of the Airborne Division out. Later, at a conference at HQ 43rd Wessex Division at Valburg, it was decided that the Airborne Division should be evacuated, but before this could be put into effect the bridgehead must be strengthened. This was to be done during the coming night by a river crossing operation by the 4th Dorset and the 1st Polish Parachute Battalion. Plans for the withdrawal were quickly drawn up and copies were to be taken over by Myers and by Major Grafton of the Dorsets for the approval of Major General Urquhart.