A Bridge Too Far

by Cornelius Ryan

  In the nearby Calvinist church, near the Arnhem railroad station, Gijsbert Numan of the resistance listened to a sermon delivered by Dominee Both. Numan felt that even the intense bombing would not deter the Germans from carrying out their threat to execute civilian hostages sometime during the day in reprisal for the resistance’s attack on the viaduct. His conscience bothered him as he listened to Dominee Both’s sermon on “the responsibility for your acts toward God and your fellow man,” and he decided that once the service had ended, he would give himself up to the Germans. Leaving the church, Numan made his way through the littered streets to a telephone. There, he called Pieter Kruyff and told the regional commander his decision. Kruyff was blunt and to the point. “Rejected,” he told Numan. “Carry on with your work.” But Kruyff’s was not to be the final decision. Market-Garden would save the hostages.

  In Nijmegen, eleven miles to the south, bombers had hit German antiaircraft positions with such accuracy that only one was still firing. The great, towering PGEM power station, supplying electricity for the entire province of Gelderland, had received only superficial damage, but high-tension wires were severed, cutting off power throughout the area. A rayon factory near the PGEM station was badly damaged and ablaze. Houses in many parts of the city had received direct hits. Bombs had fallen on a girls’ school and a large Catholic social center. Across the Waal in the village of Lent, a factory was destroyed and ammunition dumps exploded.

  In the city’s air-raid command post, the staff worked by candlelight. The air-raid workers were more and more puzzled by the stream of reports piling in. Working at his desk in semidarkness, Albertus Uijen registered the incoming reports and found himself growing more confused by the moment. The widespread bombings gave no clear picture of what was happening, except that all German positions on Nijmegen’s perimeter had been attacked. The principal approaches to the city—Waalbrug, St. Annastraat and Groesbeekseweg—were now blocked off. It almost seemed that an effort had been made to isolate the city.

  As in Arnhem, most people in Nijmegen sought shelter from the fighters continually strafing the streets, but Elias Broekkamp, whose house was not far from the Waal bridge, had climbed to the roof for a better look. To Broekkamp’s astonishment, so had the personnel of the German Town Major’s office, five houses from Broekkamp’s. The Germans, Broekkamp remembers, “looked very anxious. I looked, obviously, full of delight. I even remarked that the weather was lovely.”

  Nurse Johanna Breman watched Germans panic during the strafing. From a second-floor window of an apartment building south of the Waal bridge, Nurse Breman looked down at “wounded German soldiers helping each other along. Some were limping quite badly and I could see many with bandages. Their tunics were open and most had not even bothered to put their helmets on. On their heels came German infantrymen. As they headed toward the bridge, they fired into the windows whenever they saw Dutch peering out.” When the Germans reached the bridge approaches, they began digging foxholes. “They dug everywhere,” Miss Breman remembers, “next to the street leading up to the bridge, in grassy areas nearby and beneath trees. I was sure the invasion was coming and I remember thinking, ‘What a beautiful view of the battle we shall have from here.’ I had a feeling of expectancy.” Nurse Breman’s expectations did not include her marriage some months later to Master Sergeant Charles Mason of the 82nd, who would land in Glider 13 near the Groesbeek Heights, two miles southwest of her apartment.

  Some towns and villages on the edges of the major Market-Garden objectives suffered damage as severe as the principal targets and had little, if any, rescue services. Close by the hamlet of Zeelst, approximately five miles west of Eindhoven, Gerardus de Wit had taken shelter in a beet field during the bombings. There had been no air raid alarm. He had seen planes high in the sky, and suddenly bombs rained down. De Wit, on a visit to his brother in the village of Veldhoven, four miles south, had turned around, pulled off the road and dived into a ditch adjoining the field. Now, he was frantic to get back to his wife and their eleven children.

  Although planes were strafing, De Wit decided to risk the trip. Raising his head to look across the field, he saw that “even the leaves were scorched.” Leaving his cycle behind, he climbed out of the ditch and ran across the open field. As he neared the village, he noted that bombs presumably intended for the Welschap airfield outside Eindhoven had fallen, instead, directly on little Zeelst. De Wit could see nothing but ruins. Several houses were burning, others had collapsed; and people stood about dazed and crying. One of De Wit’s acquaintances, Mrs. Van Helmont, a widow, spotted him and begged him to come with her to cover a dead boy with a sheet. Tearfully, she explained that she could not do it herself. The child had been decapitated, but De Wit recognized the body as a neighbor’s son. Quickly, he covered the corpse. “I didn’t look at anything more,” he remembers. “I just tried to get home as quickly as possible.” As he neared his own house, a neighbor who lived opposite tried to detain him. “I’m bleeding to death,” the man called out. “I’ve been hit by a bomb splinter.”

  At that moment, De Wit saw his wife, Adriana, standing in the street crying. She ran to him. “I thought you’d never get here,” she told him. “Come quickly. Our Tiny has been hit.” De Wit went past his injured neighbor. “I never thought of anything but my son. When I got to him I saw that the whole of his right side was open and his right leg was cut almost through. He was still fully conscious and asked for water. I saw that his right arm was missing. He asked me about his arm and, to comfort him, I said, ‘You’re lying on it.’ “As De Wit knelt by the boy, a doctor arrived. “He told me not to hope anymore,” De Wit remembers, “because our son was going to die.” Cradling the boy, De Wit set out for the Duc George cigar factory, where a Red Cross post had been set up. Before he reached the factory, his fourteen-year-old son died in his arms.

  In all the terror, confusion and hope, few of the Dutch saw the vanguard of the Allied Airborne Army. At approximately 12:40 P.M., twelve British Stirling bombers swept in over the Arnhem area. At 12:47, four U.S. C-47’s appeared over the heaths north of Eindhoven, while two others flew across the open fields southwest of Nijmegen, close to the town of Overasselt. In the planes were British and American pathfinders.

  Returning to his farm bordering Renkum heath, less than a mile from Wolfheze, Jan Pennings saw planes coming from the west, flying low. He thought they had returned to bomb the railway line. He watched them warily, ready to dive for cover if bombs dropped. As the planes came over Renkum heath, the astounded Pennings saw “bundles dropped, and then parachutists coming out. I knew that in Normandy the Allies had used parachutists and I was sure this was the beginning of our invasion.”

  Minutes later, cycling up to his farm, Jan shouted to his wife, “Come out! We’re free!” Then, the first paratroopers he had ever seen walked into the farmyard. Dazed and awed, Pennings shook their hands. Within half an hour, they told him, “hundreds more of us will arrive.”

  Chauffeur Jan Peelen too saw the pathfinders land on Renkum heath. He recalls that “they came down almost silently. They were well-disciplined and immediately began to peg out the heath.” Like other pathfinders north of the railway line, they were marking out the landing and dropping zones.

  Fifteen miles south, near the town of Overasselt, nineteen-year-old Theodorus Roelofs, in hiding from the Germans, was suddenly liberated by 82nd Airborne pathfinders who landed in the vicinity of the family farm. The Americans, he remembers, were “scouts, and my big fear was that this small group of braves could easily be done away with.” The pathfinders wasted little time. Discovering that the young Dutchman spoke English, they quickly enlisted Roelofs to help as guide and interpreter. Confirming positions on their maps and directing them to the designated landing sites, Roelofs watched with fascination as the troopers marked the area with “colored strips and smoke stoves.” Within three minutes a yellow-paneled “O” and violet smoke clearly outlined the area.

  The four C-47’s c
arrying the 101st pathfinders to zones north of Eindhoven ran into heavy antiaircraft fire. One planeload was shot down in flames. There were only four survivors. The other three planes continued on, and the pathfinders dropped accurately on the 101st’s two zones. By 12:54 P.M. dropping and landing zones throughout the entire Market-Garden area were located and marked. Incredibly, the Germans still had not raised an alarm.

  At Hoenderloo barracks, Lieutenant Colonel Walter Harzer, commander of the Hohenstaufen Division, toasted newly decorated Captain Paul Gräbner. A few minutes before, Harzer had seen a few parachutes fall to the west of Arnhem. He was not surprised. He thought they were bailed-out bomber crews. In Oosterbeek, at the Tafelberg Hotel, Field Marshal Model was having a preluncheon aperitif—a glass of chilled Moselle—with his chief of staff, Lieutenant General Hans Krebs, the operations officer Colonel Hans von Tempelhof and the headquarters adjutant Colonel Leodegard Freyberg. As administrations officer Lieutenant Gustav Sedelhauser remembers, “Whenever he was at the headquarters, the Field Marshal was punctual to a fault. We always sat down to luncheon at precisely 1300 hours.” That time was H Hour for the Market forces.

  NOW, IN TIGHT FORMATIONS, the great procession of C-47’s carrying the 101st Airborne thundered across Allied-held Belgium. Some twenty-five miles beyond Brussels, the serials swung north heading for the Dutch border. Then, men in the planes looked down and, for the first time, saw their earthbound counterpart, the Garden forces whose ground attack was to be synchronized with the air assault. It was a spectacular, unforgettable sight. The vast panoply of General Horrocks’ XXX Corps spread out over every field, trail and road. Massed columns of tanks, half-tracks, armored cars and personnel carriers and line after line of guns stood poised for the breakout. On tank antennas pennants fluttered in the wind, and thousands of Britishers standing on vehicles and crowding the fields waved up to the men of the airborne. Orange smoke billowing into the air marked the British front line. Beyond was the enemy.

  Skimming the ground, fighter-bombers led the way to the drop zones, attempting to clear everything ahead of the formations. Even though the intense bombing that preceded the airborne assault had leveled many antiaircraft batteries, camouflaged nettings suddenly swung back to reveal hidden enemy positions. Some men remember seeing the tops of haystacks open to disclose nests of 88 and 20 mm. guns. Despite the thoroughness of the fighter-plane attacks, it was impossible to silence all enemy opposition. Just seven minutes away from their drop zones north of Eindhoven, the men of the 101st ran into intense flak.

  Pfc. John Cipolla was dozing when he was suddenly awakened by “the sharp crack of antiaircraft guns, and shrapnel ripped through our plane.” Like everyone else, Cipolla was so weighted down by equipment that he could hardly move. Besides his rifle, knapsack, raincoat and blanket, he had ammunition belts draping his shoulders, pockets full of hand grenades, rations and his main parachute plus reserve. In addition, in his plane, each man carried a land mine. As he recalls, “a C-47 on our left flank burst into flames, then another, and I thought ‘My God, we are next! How will I ever get out of this plane!’”

  His C-47 was shuddering and everyone seemed to be yelling at the same time, “Let’s get out! We’ve been hit!” The jumpmaster gave the order to “Stand up and hook up.” Then he calmly began an equipment check. Cipolla could hear the men as they called out, “One O.K. Two O.K. Three O.K.” It seemed hours before Cipolla, the last man of the stick, was able to shout, “Twenty-one O.K.” Then the green light went on and, in a rush, the men were out and falling, parachutes blossoming above them. Looking up to check his canopy, Cipolla saw that the C-47 he had just left was blazing. As he watched, the plane went down in flames.

  Despite the bursting shells that engulfed the planes, the formations did not waver. The pilots of the IX Troop Carrier Command held to their courses without deviating. Second Lieutenant Robert O’Connell remembers that his formation flew so tight, “I thought our pilot was going to stick his wing into the ear of the pilot flying on our left.” O’Connell’s plane was on fire. The red prejump warning light was on, and “so much smoke was fogging the aisle that I could not see back to the end of my stick.” Men were coughing and yelling to get out. O’Connell “braced himself against the door to keep them in.” The pilots flew on steadily, without taking evasive action, and O’Connell saw that the formation was gradually losing altitude and slowing down, preparatory to the jump. O’Connell hoped that “if the pilot thought the ship was going down, he would give us the green in time for the troops to get out.” Calmly, the pilot held his flaming plane on course until he was right over the drop zone. Then the green light went on and O’Connell and his men jumped safely. O’Connell learned later that the plane crash-landed but the crew survived.

  In total disregard for their own safety, troop-carrier pilots brought their planes through the flak and over the drop zones. “Don’t worry about me,” Second Lieutenant Herbert E. Shulman, the pilot of one burning C-47, radioed his flight commander. “I’m going to drop these troops right on the DZ.” He did. Paratroopers left the plane safely. Moments later, it crashed in flames. Staff Sergeant Charles A. Mitchell watched in horror as the plane to his left streamed flame from its port engine. As the pilot held it steady on course, Mitchell saw the entire stick of paratroopers jump right through the fire.

  Tragedies did not end there. Pfc. Paul Johnson was forward next to the pilot’s cabin when his plane was hit dead center and both fuel tanks caught fire. Of the sixteen paratroopers, pilot and copilot, only Johnson and two other troopers got out. They had to climb over the dead in the plane to make their jumps. Each survivor was badly burned and Johnson’s hair was completely seared away. The three came down in a German tank-bivouac area. For half an hour they fought off the enemy from a ditch. Then, all three injured, they were overwhelmed and taken prisoner.

  Just as the green light went on in another plane, the lead paratrooper, standing in the door, was killed. He fell back on Corporal John Altomare. His body was quickly moved aside and the rest of the group jumped. And, as another stick of troopers floated to the ground, a C-47 out of control hit two of them, its propellers chopping them to pieces.

  Typically, the Americans found humor even in the terrifying approach to the drop zones. Just after Captain Cecil Lee stood to hook up, his plane was hit. Shrapnel ripped a hole through the seat he had just vacated. Nearby, a trooper shouted disgustedly, “Now they give us a latrine!” In another plane, Second Lieutenant Anthony Borrelli was sure he was paralyzed. The red light went on and everyone hooked up—except Borrelli, who couldn’t move. An officer for only two weeks and on his first combat mission, Borrelli, who was Number 1 in the stick, was conscious of all eyes on him. To his embarrassment, he discovered he had hooked his belt to the seat. Private Robert Boyce made the trip despite the good intentions of the division dentist, who had marked him “L.O.B.” (Left Out of Battle) because of his dental problems. With the intervention of his company commander, Boyce, a Normandy veteran, was permitted to go. Besides a bad tooth, he had other worries. Several new paratroop innovations-leg packs for machine guns, quick-release harness on some chutes and combat instead of jump boots—made him and many other men nervous. In particular, the troopers were concerned that their shroud lines might catch on the buckles of their new combat boots. As his plane flew low in its approach, Boyce saw Dutch civilians below holding up two fingers in the V-for-victory salute. That was all Boyce needed. “Hey, look,” he called to the others, “they’re giving us two to one we don’t make it.”

  The odds against their ever reaching their drop zones seemed at least that high to many. Colonel Robert F. Sink, commander of the 506th Regiment, saw “a tremendous volume of flak coming up to greet us.” As he was looking out the door, the plane shuddered violently and Sink saw a part of the wing tear and dangle. He turned to the men in his stick and said, “Well, there goes the wing.” To Sink’s relief, “nobody seemed to think much about it. They figured by this time we were pract
ically in.”

  In plane Number 2, Sink’s executive officer, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Chase, saw that their left wing was afire. Captain Thomas Mulvey remembers that Chase stared at it for a minute and then remarked mildly, “I guess they’re catching up on us. We’d better go.” As the green light went on in both planes, the men jumped safely. The plane in which Chase was traveling burned on the ground. Sink’s plane, with its damaged wing, is thought to have made the journey back to England safely.

  Similar intense flak engulfed the serials of the 502nd Regiment, and planes of two groups almost collided. One serial, slightly off course, strayed into the path of a second group, causing the latter to climb for altitude and its troopers to make a higher jump than had been planned. In the lead plane of one of the serials was the division commander, General Maxwell D. Taylor, and the 502nd’s 1st Battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Patrick Cassidy. Standing in the doorway, Cassidy saw one of the planes in the group burst into flames. He counted only seven parachutes. Then fire broke out in another C-47 just off to the left. All the paratroopers jumped from it. Mesmerized by the blazing plane, Cassidy failed to notice that the green light was on. General Taylor, standing behind him, said quietly, “Cassidy, the light’s on.” Automatically Cassidy answered, “Yes, sir. I know it,” and jumped. Taylor was right behind him.

  To General Taylor, the 101st jump was “unusually successful; almost like an exercise.” In the initial planning, Taylor’s staff had anticipated casualties as high as 30 percent. Of the 6,695 paratroopers who enplaned in England, 6,669 actually jumped. Despite the intense flak, the bravery of the C-47 and fighter pilots gave the 101st an almost perfect jump. Although some units were dropped from one to three miles north of the drop zones, they landed so close together that assembly was quick. Only two planes failed to reach the drop zone, and the IX Troop Carrier Command took the brunt of all casualties by their heroic determination to get the troopers to their targets. Of the 424 C-47’s carrying the 101st, every fourth plane was damaged, and sixteen went down, killing their crews.