A Bridge Too Far

by Cornelius Ryan

  At 2 A.M., Taylor’s amphibious DUKWs began moving down to the river. Because of heavy rain during the day, the low, narrow, ditch-lined road was inches thick in mud. And, as the DUKWs, surrounded by sixty men, slowly approached the river, a heavy ground mist formed. Men could not see either the road or the river. Again and again, struggling soldiers labored to straighten the vehicles as they slid off the road. Supplies were unloaded to lighten the DUKWs, but even this was not enough. Finally, despite strenuous efforts to hold them back, the cumbersome vehicles slid into the ditch only yards from the Rhine. “It’s no good,” the despairing Mackenzie told Taylor. “It’s just hopeless.” At 3 A.M., the entire operation came to a halt. Only fifty men and almost no supplies had been ferried across the river into Urqu-hart’s bridgehead.

  *Chester Wilmot, The Struggle for Europe, p. 516.

  *The names of the famous British regiments involved always caused confusion for Americans—especially when they were abbreviated. At First Allied Airborne headquarters a message concerning the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry arrived, reading, “5DCLI are to make contact with 1 Airborne Division …” The puzzled duty officer finally decoded the message. He reported “Five Duck Craft Landing Infantry” were on their way to Urquhart.

  *Wyllie never again saw the Voskuils, nor did he know their names. For years he worried about the woman in the cellar and the child he believed dead. Today young Henri Voskuil is a doctor.

  BY THE TIME COLONEL CHARLES MACKENZIE finally reached General Browning’s headquarters in Nijmegen on Saturday morning, September 23, he was “dead tired, frozen stiff, and his teeth were chattering,” Brigadier Gordon Walch, the chief of staff, remembers. In spite of his determination to see Browning immediately, Mackenzie was promptly “put in a bath to thaw out.”

  British forces using the relief route west of, and parallel to, the “island” highway were now moving steadily up to Driel, but the roads were far from clear of the enemy. Still, Lord Wrottesley had decided to try to get Mackenzie and Lieutenant Colonel Myers back to Nijmegen. The brief trip, in a small convoy of reconnaissance vehicles, was hair-raising. As the party approached a crossroads, they found a partly destroyed German half-track lying slewed across it. Wrottesley got out to guide his vehicles, and at that point, a Tiger tank appeared farther down the road. To avoid an encounter, the armored car carrying Mackenzie began backing away, when suddenly the road collapsed beneath it and the car turned over. Mackenzie and the crew were forced to hide out from German infantry in a field as Wrottesley, yelling to the driver of his scout car “to go like hell,” headed up the road toward Nijmegen to find British troops. Organizing a relief force, Wrottesley sped back down the road to find Mackenzie. When the little force arrived the German tank was gone and Mackenzie and the crew of the armored car came up to meet them from the field where they had taken cover. In the confusion Myers, following in a second armored car, became separated from the troop.

  General Browning greeted Mackenzie anxiously. According to his staff, “the week had been a series of agonizing and tragic setbacks.” More than anything else the lack of full communications with Urquhart had contributed to Browning’s concern. Even now, although messages were passing between the British 1st Airborne Division and Corps, Browning’s picture of Urquhart’s situation was apparently very vague. In the original Market-Garden plan the 52nd Lowland Division was to have been flown into the Arnhem area once Urquhart’s men had found a suitable landing site—ideally by Thursday, September 21. When Urquhart’s desperate situation became known, the 52nd’s commanding officer, Major General Edmund Hake will Smith, promptly offered to risk taking in part of his unit by glider, to land as close as possible to the beleaguered 1st Airborne. On Friday morning Browning had rejected the proposal, radioing: “Thanks for your message but offer not repeat not required as situation better than you think … 2nd Army definitely … intend fly you in to Deelen airfield as soon as situation allows.” Later General Brereton, First Allied Airborne Army commander, noting the message in his diary, commented, “General Browning was over-optimistic and apparently then did not fully appreciate the plight of the Red Devils.” At the time, Brereton seemed no better informed than Browning. In a report to Eisenhower, which was sent on to General Marshall in Washington on Friday night, Brereton said of the Nijmegen-Arnhem area: “the situation in this sector is showing great improvement.”

  Within hours the optimism of Brereton and Browning had faded. Friday’s futile efforts to reach Urquhart seemed to have been the turning point for the Corps commander. According to his staff, “he was disgusted with General Thomas and the 43rd Wessex Division.” He felt they had not moved fast enough. Thomas, he told them, had been “too anxious to tidy things up as he went along.” Additionally, Browning’s authority extended only so far: the moment British ground troops entered the Nijmegen area, administrative control passed over to General Horrocks, the XXX Corps commander; decisions would be made by Horrocks and by his chief, the British Second Army’s General Miles C. Dempsey. There was little that Browning could do.

  Sitting with the somewhat revived Mackenzie, Browning now learned for the first time the details of Urquhart’s appalling predicament. Mackenzie, sparing nothing, recounted everything that had happened. Brigadier Walch remembers Mackenzie telling Browning that “the division is in a very tight perimeter and low in everything—food, ammunition and medical supplies.” While the situation was acute, Mackenzie said, “if there is a chance of the Second Army getting to us, we can hold—but not for long.” Walch recollects Mackenzie’s grim summation. “There isn’t much left,” he said. Browning listened in silence. Then he assured Mackenzie that he had not given up hope. Plans were now afoot to get men and supplies into the bridgehead during Saturday night. But, Brigadier Walch says, “I do remember Browning telling Charles that there did not seem to be much chance of getting a good party across.”

  As Mackenzie set out for Driel once more, he was struck by the ambivalence of the thinking at Corps headquarters—and by the dilemma that created for him. Obviously the fate of the British 1st Airborne still hung in the balance. No one had as yet made any definite decisions. But what should he tell Urquhart? “After seeing the situation on both sides of the river,” he says, “I was convinced a crossing from the south would not be successful and I could tell him that. Or, I could report, as I was told, that everyone was doing his best, that there would be a crossing and we should hold on. Which was better? Tell him that in my opinion there wasn’t a chance in hell of anyone getting over? Or that help was on the way?” Mackenzie decided on the latter, for he felt it would help Urquhart “to keep people going if I put it that way.”

  Like Browning, the Allied high command was only now learning the true facts of the 1st Airborne’s plight. In off-the-record briefings at Eisenhower’s, at Brereton’s and at Montgomery’s headquarters, war correspondents were told that the “situation is serious, but every measure is being taken to relieve Urquhart.” That minor note of concern represented a radical change in attitude. Since its inception, Market-Garden had been painted in public reports as an overwhelming success. On Thursday, September 21, under a headline announcing that a “tank paradise lies ahead,” one British newspaper’s lead story stated: “Hitler’s northern flank is crumbling. Field Marshal Montgomery, with the brilliant aid of the First Airborne Army, has paved the way into the Ruhr—and to the end of the war.” Even the staid London Times on Friday had such headlines as “On the Road to Arnhem; Tanks Across the Rhine”; only the subhead hinted of possible trouble ahead: “Coming Fight for Arnhem; Airborne Forces’ Hard Time.” Correspondents could hardly be blamed. Lack of communications, overenthusiasm on the part of Allied commanders and strict censorship prevented accurate reporting. Then, overnight, the picture changed. On Saturday, the twenty-third, the Times’s headline read: “2nd Army Meets Tough Opposition; Airborne Forces’ Grim Fight,” and the London Daily Express was calling Arnhem a “Patch of Hell.”*

  Yet hopes rem
ained high. On this Saturday, the seventh day of Market-Garden, the weather over England cleared and Allied planes took to the air again.* The last of the great fleet of gliders, grounded in the Grantham area since Tuesday, set out finally for Gavin’s 82nd with 3,385 troops—his long-awaited 325th Glider Infantry Regiment—and Taylor’s hard-pressed 101st Division was brought up to full strength by nearly 3,000 more men. But Sosabowski, under heavy attack at Driel, could not be reinforced with the remainder of his brigade. Browning was forced to direct the rest of the Poles to drop zones in the 82nd’s area. Because of weather Brereton’s three-day air plan to deliver some 35,000 men in the greatest airborne operation ever conceived had taken more than double the planned time.

  Once again, although resupply missions were successful elsewhere, Urquhart’s men, in their rapidly diminishing pocket about Oosterbeek, watched cargo fall into enemy hands. Unable to locate the Hartenstein drop zone, and flying through savage antiaircraft fire, the supply planes were in constant trouble; 6 of the 123 planes were shot down and 63 damaged. In a message to Browning, Urquhart reported:

  231605 … Resupply by air; very small quantity picked up. Snipers now severely curtailing movement and therefore collection. Also roads so blocked by falling trees, branches and houses that movement in jeeps virtually impossible. Jeeps in any case practically out of action.

  Close-in fighter support was inadequate, too. In the Arnhem area the weather had been bad throughout the morning, clearing only by midday. As a result only a few flights of R.A.F. Spitfires and Typhoons attacked targets about the perimeter. Urquhart was baffled. “In view of our complete aerial superiority,” he later recollected, “I was bitterly disappointed by the lack of fighter support.” But to his men, who had not seen a fighter since D Day, the previous Sunday, the attacks were heartening. By now, too, most of them had learned that British troops had finally reached the southern bank of the Rhine at Driel. Relief, they believed, was close at hand.

  In spite of all the setbacks, now that General Thomas’ troops were moving up the side roads to Driel, General Horrocks believed that Urquhart’s worsening situation could be alleviated. Brilliant, imaginative and determined, Horrocks was opposed to throwing away all that had been gained. Yet he must find some way to move troops and supplies into the bridgehead. “I am certain,” he later put it, “that these were about the blackest moments in my life.” He was so distressed at “the picture of the airborne troops fighting their desperate battle on the other side of the river” that he could not sleep; and the severing of the corridor north of Veghel, cut since Friday afternoon, threatened the life of the entire operation.

  Now every hour was vital. Like Horrocks, General Thomas was determined to get men across the river. His 43rd Wessex was going all-out in a two-phase operation: attacking to seize Elst and driving toward Driel. Although by now no one had any illusions that the Arnhem bridge could be captured—from aerial reconnaissance photos it was clear the enemy held it in strength—Thomas’ right flank, terminating at Elst, had to be protected if any operations were to be conducted across the Rhine from Driel. And Horrocks had hopes that, in addition to the Poles, some British infantry might cross into the bridgehead on Saturday night.

  His optimism was premature. On the low-lying secondary roads west of the main Nijmegen-Arnhem highway a giant bottleneck developed as Thomas’ two brigades, each totaling about 3,000 men—one brigade attacking northeast toward Elst, the other driving north for Driel—attempted to move through the same crossroads. Enemy shelling added to the crowding and confusion. Thus, it was dark by the time the bulk of Thomas’ 130th Brigade began to reach Driel—too late to join the Poles in an organized attempt to cross the river.

  Shortly after midnight, Sosabowski’s men, heavily supported by artillery, began crossing, this time in sixteen boats left from the 82nd’s assault across the Waal. They came under intense fire and suffered heavy losses. Only 250 Poles made it to the northern bank, and of these only 200 reached the Hartenstein perimeter.

  On this grim day Horrocks and Thomas received just one piece of good news: at 4 P.M. the corridor north of Veghel was reopened and traffic began flowing again. In the engineering columns were more assault craft, and the stubborn Horrocks was hopeful that they could be rushed forward in time to pour infantry across the river on Sunday night.

  But could the division hang on another twenty-four hours? Urquhart’s plight was rapidly growing worse. In his situation report to Browning on Saturday night, Urquhart had said:

  232015: Many attacks during day by small parties infantry, SP guns, tanks including flame thrower tanks. Each attack accompanied by very heavy mortaring and shelling within Div perimeter. After many alarms and excursions the latter remains substantially unchanged, although very thinly held. Physical contact not yet made with those on south bank of river. Resupply a flop, small quantities of ammo only gathered in. Still no food and all ranks extremely dirty owing to shortage of water. Morale still adequate, but continued heavy mortaring and shelling is having obvious effects. We shall hold but at the same time hope for a brighter 24 hours ahead.

  The afternoon’s giant Allied glider lift had caught Field Marshal Walter Model by surprise. At this late date in the battle he had not anticipated any further Allied airborne landings. These new reinforcements, coming just as his counteroffensive was gaining momentum, could change the tide of battle—and even more might be on the way. For the first time since the beginning of the Allied attack he began to have doubts about the outcome.

  Driving to Doetinchem he conferred with General Bittrich, demanding, as the II SS Panzer Corps commander remembers, “a quick finish to the British at Oosterbeek.” Model needed every man and tank. Too great a force was being tied down in a battle that “should have been brought to an end days before.” Model was “very excited,” Bittrich says, “and kept repeating, ‘When will things finally be over here?’ ”

  Bittrich insisted that “we are fighting as we have never fought before.” At Elst, Major Hans Peter Knaust was staving off British tank and infantry columns trying to proceed up the main highway to Arnhem. But Knaust could not hold at Elst and also attack west against the Poles and British at Driel. The moment his heavy Tigers moved onto the polder they bogged down. The assault toward Driel was a task for infantry and lighter vehicles, Bittrich explained. “Model was never interested in excuses,” Bittrich says, “but he understood me. Still, he gave me only twenty-four hours to finish the British off.”

  Bittrich drove to Elst to see Knaust. The major was worried. All day the forces against him had appeared to be growing stronger. While he knew British tanks could not leave the main highway, the possibility of attacks from the west concerned him. “A British breakthrough must be halted at all costs,” Bittrich warned. “Can you hold for another twenty-four hours, while we clean up Oosterbeek?” Knaust assured Bittrich that he could. Leaving Knaust, the Panzer Corps commander immediately ordered Colonel Harzer of the Hohenstaufen Division to “intensify all attacks against the airborne tomorrow. I want the whole affair ended.”

  Harzer’s problems were also difficult. Although Oosterbeek was completely encircled, its narrow streets were proving almost impossible for maneuvering tanks—especially for the 6o-ton Tigers, “which tore up the road foundations, making them look like plowed fields, and ripped off the pavement when they turned.” Additionally, Harzer told Bittrich, “everytime we compress the airborne pocket and shrink it even tighter, the British seem to fight harder.” Bittrich advised that “strong attacks should be thrown from east and west at the base of the perimeter to cut the British off from the Rhine.”

  The Frundsberg Division commander, General Harmel, charged with holding and driving back the Allied forces in the Nijmegen-Arnhem area, heard from Bittrich, too. The assembling of his whole division delayed by the wreckage on the Arnhem bridge, Harmel had not been able to form a blocking front on both sides of the elevated “island” highway. The British attack at Oosterbeek had split his forces. Only
part of his division had been in position on the western side when the British attacked. Now, what remained of his men and equipment was east of the highway. Elst would be held, Harmel assured Bittrich. The British could not advance up the main road. But he was powerless to halt the drive to Driel. “I cannot prevent them going up or coming back,” he told Bittrich. The II SS Panzer Corps leader was firm. The next twenty-four hours would be critical, he warned Harmel. “The British will try everything to reinforce their bridgehead and also drive for Arnhem.” Harzer’s attacks against the Oosterbeek perimeter would succeed—provided that Harmel held. As Bittrich put it, “We’ll get the nail. You must amputate the finger.”

  The guns of the 43rd were thundering, and in the southwest corner of the Oosterbeek perimeter a big gasometer blazed, throwing an eerie, flickering, yellowish light over the Rhine. As he climbed out of a boat on the northern bank, Colonel Charles Mackenzie could see why he had been warned by radio to wait for a guide. The shoreline was unrecognizable; boat wreckage, fallen trees, and shell craters had buried the road running back into the bridgehead. If he had tried to set out by himself he would certainly have become lost. Now, following an engineer, he was guided to the Hartenstein.

  Mackenzie had not changed his mind about the report he would make to Urquhart. Once again, while waiting to be rowed over to the division perimeter, he had thought about his options. In spite of all the preparations that he had seen in Driel and on the southern bank, he remained skeptical that help would ever reach the division in time. He felt guilty about the report he had decided to make. Yet, there was still the chance that his own view was far too pessimistic.