The Guns at Last Light: The War in Western Europe, 1944-1945

by Rick Atkinson

  Linking these towns was a single narrow highway: SLC, 131; GS V, 527–28 (Nine substantial bridges); SLC, 131–32; www.rollintl.com/roll/rhine.htm (“distributaries”); Baedeker, Belgium and Holland, 400 (retirement mecca); Middlebrook, Arnhem 1944, 49 (“exceedingly healthy atmosphere”).

  Horrocks paused, glancing at his notes: AAR, “Operations in Holland,” First Allied Airborne Army, Dec. 1944, ANSCOL, NARA RG 334, E 315, Act R A-104, box 62, 19; OH, Brian Urquhart, Jan. 24, 1967, CJR, box 108, folder 6 (“carpet of airborne troops”).

  As this unfolded, the land assault: SLC, 133–34; Horrocks, Corps Commander, 98–99 (“absolutely vital”).

  “the enemy has by now suffered”: weekly intelligence summary no. 26, SHAEF, Sept. 16, 1944, JMG, MHI, box 15.

  German strength facing the 100,000-man XXX Corps: AAR, Operation Market Garden, 21st AG, n.d., CARL, R-13333, 36; Fitzgerald, History of the Irish Guards in the Second World War, 486 (“easier for a rich man”).

  Irish Guards officers looked especially pensive: Horrocks, Corps Commander, 100.

  Tanks trundled forward, slowly: ibid., 209–10.

  “What do you think of the plan?”: C. D. Renfro, 101st AB, liaison to XXX Corps, “Operation Market,” Oct. 10, 1944, NARA RG 407, E 427-A, CI, folder #226.

  Horrocks was in fact fretful: Badsey, Arnhem 1944, 11–12; Keegan, ed., Churchill’s Generals, 236–38 (“I shan’t invalid you”); Horrocks, A Full Life, 210 (no attack he had launched on a Sunday).

  From a nearby radio came word: Horrocks, Corps Commander, 100–101.

  Many others invested in MARKET GARDEN: Chandler, 1947 (Under relentless pressure); office diary, First Allied Airborne Army, Sept. 10–17, 1944, Floyd Lavinius Parks papers, MHI, box 2 (less than a week); Greenfield, ed., Command Decisions, 334 (created at War Department insistence); Brereton, The Brereton Diaries, 343 (eighteen operational plans); Baynes, Urquhart of Arnhem, 76 (WILD OATS); Lewin, Montgomery as Military Commander, 338 (“cowpats”).

  Some commanders worried about MARKET’S dispersal: corr, A. C. McAuliffe to A. C. Smith, Feb. 8, 1954, NARA RG 319, OCMH, 2-3.7 CB3; Willmott, The Great Crusade, 361–63; Hamilton, Monty: Final Years of the Field-Marshal, 1944–1976, 22–24; Weigley, Eisenhower’s Lieutenants, 295; OH, ONB, 1974–75, Charles Hanson, MHI, V-58-61 (“foolhardy”); Bradley Commentaries, CBH, MHI, boxes 41–42 (“Flabbergasted”); Bradley, A Soldier’s Story, 402 (“astonishing faculty”).

  Personalities added fat to the fire: Blair, Ridgway’s Paratroopers, 181; MMB, 61–62; Brereton, The Brereton Diaries, 342 (“Mystify, mislead”), 308–9; Bradley Commentaries, CBH, MHI, boxes 41–42 (“not sincere nor energetic”); Blair, Ridgway’s Paratroopers, 299 (“Thank goodness”); Taylor, General Maxwell Taylor, 97.

  If Brereton’s interactions with his fellow Americans: Blair, Ridgway’s Paratroopers, 181 (“stupid ass”); Badsey, Arnhem 1944, 36 (false uhlan front); OH, Eddie Newbury, Browning personal secretary, n.d., CJR, box 108, folder 6 (kicking over the furniture); Hastings, Armageddon, 36 (“popinjay”); diary, July 2, 1944, CBH, MHI, box 4 (“too deliberate a smile”); MMB, 66 (high hurdles). Hitchcock later directed another movie based on a du Maurier short story, The Birds (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daphne_du_Maurier).

  Browning so loathed Brereton: Brereton, The Brereton Diaries, 337–38; Badsey, Arnhem 1944, 12.

  “enemy appreciation was very weak”: OH, E. T. Williams, May 1947, FCP, MHI.

  The road bridge over the Neder Rijn: Margry, ed., Operation Market-Garden Then and Now, vol. 1, 27; Hinsley, 544 (radio decrypt).

  “But the Germans, how about the Germans”: Gavin, On to Berlin, 150. Other accounts put this comment a bit earlier, during planning for the stillborn Operation COMET. See http://www.pegasusarchive.org/arnhem/stanislaw_sosabowski.htm.

  someone “with a vivid imagination”: Sosabowski, Freely I Served, 140; Middlebrook, Arnhem 1944, 8 (“fighting-the-Germans bit”). Sosabowski’s Polish rank had no direct Anglo-American equivalent, and is variously translated as either brigadier or major general (David T. Zabecki, note to author, May 9, 2012).

  Guessing which Germans would be fought: Hinsley, 544; TSC, 282–83 (“low category”), 142; Lucian Heichler, “Holland, Allied Invasion from the Sky,” Oct. 1953, NARA RG 319, R-series, #5, 16 (lacked field kitchens); Margry, ed., Operation Market-Garden Then and Now, vol. 1, 79 (II SS Panzer Corps); Zetterling, Normandy 1944, 336–39, 344–47 (nine thousand casualties); Bennett, Ultra in the West, 151–53 (120 tanks).

  Montgomery’s senior staff officers almost to a man: Crosswell, Beetle, 717–18; Powell, The Devil’s Birthday, 42–43 (Smith flew to Brussels); SLC, 122. Biographer Crosswell believes Smith never physically traveled to Montgomery’s headquarters (Beetle, 717).

  “Montgomery ridiculed the idea”: OH, W. B. Smith and Pink Bull, Sept. 14, 1945, OCMH WWII Europe Interviews, MHI; OH, W. B. Smith, Apr. 18, 1949, SLAM, NARA RG 319, OCMH, 2-3.7 (“waved my objections”).

  Montgomery’s insouciance was understandable: Ryan, A Bridge Too Far, 144 (“weak, demoralized, and likely to collapse”); Saunders, The Red Beret, 212–13 (no larger than a brigade); Hinsley, 543; SLC, 121–22; OH, Brian Urquhart, Jan. 24, 1967, CJR, box 108, folder 6; VW, vol. 1, 52 (Dutch underground); Middlebrook, Arnhem 1944, 56; Margry, ed., Operation Market-Garden Then and Now, vol. 1, 79; Horrocks, Corps Commander, 93; Ralph Bennett, “Ultra and Some Command Decisions,” in Laqueur, ed., The Second World War, 232. Bennett reports that Browning was included on the Ultra distribution list (“tanks at Arnhem”).

  Boy Browning declared himself ready: memo, G-3, 82nd Airborne, Oct. 23, 1945 [sic], JMG papers, CJR, box 100, folder 3; SLC, 137–39; Hills, Phantom Was There, 251 (“That means business”); Saunders, The Red Beret, 216 (British sergeant strutted).

  “Emplane!”: memoir, Dwayne Burns, 508th PIR, n.d., NWWIIM; Ryan, A Bridge Too Far, 173 (more than twenty thousand troops); Middlebrook, Arnhem 1944, 83–85 (“floated up and down”).

  The first British pathfinders jumped: McNally, As Ever, John, 53 (“plowing up dirt”); Kershaw, “It Never Snows in September,” 66 (snowflakes); SLC, 137–39 (within eighty minutes); Middlebrook, Arnhem 1944, 112 (“Jingle Bells”).

  That this welcoming chorus congregated: AAR, “Airborne Division Report on Operation Market,” UK 1st Airborne Division, Jan. 10, 1945, CARL, N-5647, 43; Airborne Forces, 174; John C. Warren, “Airborne Operations in World War II, European Theater,” 1956, AFHRA, historical study no. 97, 149; Murray and Millett, A War to Be Won, 441; Urquhart, Arnhem, 6–7; Middlebrook, Arnhem 1944, 54–55;

  The second complication was evident: MARKET troop carrier commanders argued that the shorter days of mid-September made two missions more difficult to squeeze in (John C. Warren, “Airborne Operations in World War II, European Theater,” 1956, AFHRA, historical study no. 97, 150).

  Pleas by airborne commanders and by an emissary: Powell, The Devil’s Birthday, 33–34; Baynes, Urquhart of Arnhem, 92; SLC, 131–32 (up to four days).

  The day went well enough for the Yanks: “Kinnard’s Operation in Holland,” 1st Bn, 501st PIR, 1946, Battalion and Small Unit Study No. 1, ETOUSA, history section, CJR, box 100, folder 5; Simpson, Selected Prose, 129 (“laid there to die”).

  Nine road and rail bridges stood: “Eindhoven,” 506th PIR, n.d., NARA RG 407, E 427A, CI, folder #226; OH, Lynn Compton, 506th PIR, n.d., NARA RG 407, E 427, HI; John C. Warren, “Airborne Operations in World War II, European Theater,” 1956, AFHRA, historical study no. 97, 105 (sprint south and seize Eindhoven).

  Twenty miles north, 7,300 troops: A. D. Bestebreurtje, “The Airborne Operation in Netherlands in Fall 1944,” De Militaire Spectator, English trans. from Dutch, Jan. 1946, CJR, box 100, folder 4; SLC, 159 (All but one of 482 planes); Gavin, On to Berlin, 161; corr, JMG to CJR, Nov. 16, 1966, and to A. D. Bestebreurtje, July 9, 1973, JMG papers, CJR, box 100, folders 4 and 9.

  With the ascension of Matthew Ridgway: Muir, ed., The Human Tradition in the World War II Era, 178; Nordyke, All A
merican All the Way, 412 (youngest major general); D’Este, “Raw Courage,” World War II (July–Aug. 2011): 30+.

  adopted as a toddler: memoir, “Beyond the Stars,” ts, 1983, James M. Gavin Irrecovable Trust, JMG, MHI, box 2, 3, 10, 21–27 (invoked the Holy Family), 410–11; Booth and Spencer, Paratrooper, 26–27 (soaped miners’ beards), 42–43 (He lied about his age); West Point application, 1925, JMG, MHI, box 9 (filling station); Fauntleroy, The General and His Daughter, 124 (Book-of-the-Month Club); “Generalship,” JMG, MHI, box 10; OH, JMG, 1975, Donald G. Andrews and Charles H. Ferguson, SOOHP, MHI, 23 (“two o’clock in the morning”); Nordyke, All American All the Way, 412 (“charm of manner”).

  After combat jumps into Sicily: Fauntleroy, The General and His Daughter, 105 (“the scuffle”); Gavin, On to Berlin, 152 (“bank account”); “Personal Diary,” Sept. 14, 1944, JMG, MHI, box 10 (“looks very rough”).

  Eleven bridges could be found in the 82nd sector: Field Order No. 11, 82nd AB Div, Sept. 13, 1944, “bridge data” annex, CARL; John S. Thompson, “The Holland Jump,” 1944, CJR, box 101, folder 9 (shooting up two truckloads); AAR, Reuben H. Tucker, 504th PIR, n.d., and AAR, 2nd Bn, 504th PIR, n.d., NARA RG 407, E 427-A, CI, folder #171 (ripped out boxes of dynamite); signage, Grave bridge, author visit, May 2009 (“Bridge number eleven”).

  Bridge eleven and all its sisters: memo, JMG to Office of the Theater Historian, July 25, 1945, NARA RG 407, E 427-A, folder 171; memo, G-3, 82nd Airborne, Oct. 23, 1945, CJR, box 100, folder 3 (“capture and retention”); SLC, 159 (eight 75mm howitzers); Ryan, A Bridge Too Far, 221–22 (seven pieces).

  “Everything is going as planned”: corr, JMG to A. Bestebreurtje, July 9, 1973, CJR, box 100, folder 9; OH, JMG, Jan. 20, 1967, CJR, box 101, folder 10.

  So too had the Germans: Kershaw, “It Never Snows in September,” 68 (“Everyone out”); Ryan, A Bridge Too Far, 199 (underwear spilling); Hastings, Armageddon, 41; SLC, 140.

  Vengeful Dutchmen ripped the rank badges: Margry, ed., Operation Market-Garden Then and Now, vol. 1, 299; photo, Kershaw, “It Never Snows in September,” 95.

  Not much else went right: Urquhart, Arnhem, 40–41; Kershaw, “It Never Snows in September,” 304–5 (fire engines); Middlebrook, Arnhem 1944, 117–19.

  Ignoring warnings of dangers ahead: Urquhart, Arnhem, 64–66; Baynes, Urquhart of Arnhem, 108–11; Ryan, A Bridge Too Far, 298 (“idiotic, ridiculous”).

  A single British parachute battalion: Sims, Arnhem Spearhead, 38 (“snogging”); Frost, A Drop Too Many, 210–11 (rail bridge blew up); Middlebrook, Arnhem 1944, 147–48, 152–58; Kershaw, “It Never Snows in September,” 99 (trucks blazing on the ramp).

  A brutal deadlock had begun: VW, vol. 2, 51; Middlebrook, Arnhem 1944, 292–93 (only 740); Saunders, The Red Beret, 225–26 (lashed into the tree branches); Frost, A Drop Too Many, 204 (golf clubs).

  That would not happen. At precisely two P.M.: Fitzgerald, History of the Irish Guards in the Second World War, 489–90; AAR, Operation Market Garden, 21st AG, n.d., CARL, R-13333, 37 (Typhoons swooped in).

  “Driver, advance!”: Verney, The Guards Armoured Division, 99–101.

  The artillery barrage now rolled: AAR, 2nd Bn, Irish Guards, UK NA, WO 171/1256; Rosse and Hill, The Story of the Guards Armoured Division, 127 (“Advance going well”).

  No sooner had the hand-rubbers on the roof: Horrocks, A Full Life, 211–12; Rosse and Hill, The Story of the Guards Armoured Division, 127–28 (“burning hulks”); Verney, The Guards Armoured Division, 101–3; Hastings, Armageddon, 55 (tanker boots).

  The German defenders soon were identified: AAR, Operation Market Garden, 21st AG, n.d., CARL, R-13333, 37 (“complete surprise”); Rosse and Hill, The Story of the Guards Armoured Division, 129 (6th Parachute Regiment); Ryan, A Bridge Too Far, 230 (“indignant surprise”); Fitzgerald, History of the Irish Guards in the Second World War, 492–93 (“ugly mood”); OH, Giles A. M. Vandeleur, Irish Guards, Aug. 10, 1967, CJR, box 102, folder 17; Margry, ed., Operation Market-Garden Then and Now, vol. 1, 216–17, 226; AAR, 2nd Bn, Irish Guards, UK NA, WO 171/1256.

  For seven miles from the Dutch border: Bredin, Three Assault Landings, 126; AAR, Operation Market Garden, 21st AG, n.d., CARL, R-13333, 89 (wider than thirty feet); “Preliminary Tactical Study of the Terrain,” XVIII Airborne Corps, Sept. 11, 1944, CARL (“impracticable to impossible”); SLC, 148–49; Verney, The Guards Armoured Division, 101–3 (only fifteen dead); Margry, ed., Operation Market-Garden Then and Now, vol. 1, 227.

  “Things are going very well indeed”: office diary, Sept. 17–18, 1944, First Allied Airborne Army, Floyd Lavinius Parks papers, MHI, box 2.

  Eindhoven was home: Baedeker’s Netherlands, 178; www.hansvogels.nl/eindhovenENG/violet2en.htm; www.frits.philips.com/en/darkcloud.html; Crouch, “Frederik Philips Dies at 100; Businessman Saved Dutch Jews,” NYT, Dec. 7, 2005; Teulings, “Structure and Logic of Industrial Development: Philips and Electronics Industry,” Social Scientist 9, no. 4 (Nov. 1979): 3+; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philips.

  Now this company town of thatched roofs: Moorehead, Eclipse, 202–3; “Eindhoven,” 506th PIR, n.d., NARA RG 407, E 427A, CI, folder #226 (all bridges intact); SLC, 150 (“reek with hate”).

  Not until dusk did XXX Corps arrive: AAR, 3rd Bn, Irish Guards, Sept. 18, 1944, UK NA, WO 171/1257; AAR, Operation Market Garden, 21st AG, n.d., CARL, R-13333, 39–42 (stiffened with Panther tanks); Powell, The Devil’s Birthday, 113 (grounded the Typhoons); Verney, The Guards Armoured Division, 103; Forbes, The Grenadier Guards in the War of 1939–1945, vol. 1, 122 (“Every time the advance”); SLC, 150.

  Reinforcements from England also arrived: “327th RCT at Zon,” 327th PIR, n.d., NARA RG 407, E 427A, CI, folder #226-A; H. J. Jablonsky, “Combat Lessons of 82nd Airborne Division,” Observers’ Board, WD, Dec. 9, 1944, CARL, 5; SLC, 167; Ryan, A Bridge Too Far, 311–16 (four thousand aircraft); AAR, “Air Resupply and Resupply by B-24 Aircraft,” Oct. 29, 1944, 2nd Bombardment Division, CARL, 1–7 (stripped of their ball turrets); John C. Warren, “Airborne Operations in World War II, European Theater,” 1956, AFHRA, historical study no. 97, 124.

  The 101st found more unexpected trouble: “Combat Diary of Edward McCosh Elliott, 1944,” 2nd Bn, Glasgow Highlanders, IWM, 99/61/1, VIII-12; “A Historical Study of Some World War II Airborne Operations,” [1951?], WSEG Staff Study No. 3, CARL, N-17309.1; Ryan, A Bridge Too Far, 308–09 (Fifteenth Army troops).

  Among seven wounded GIs: Nappi, “War Hero Enriches Soul History,” (Spokane, Wash.) Spokesman-Review, Aug. 14, 2004, www.spokesmanreview.com/tools/story_pf.asp?ID=20967*; Rapport and Northwood, Rendezvous with Destiny, 287–99; Marshall, Battle at Best, 10–36; Medal of Honor citation, http://www.homeofheroes.com/moh/citations_1940_wwii/mann.html.

  Nearly out of ammunition: Kershaw, “It Never Snows in September,” 144; SLC, 152 (three hundred enemy corpses); “Battalion and Small Unit Study No. 6,” Oct. 1944, NARA 498, ETO HD, UD 602, box 5, 35–36 (shot by their own comrades); Marshall, Battle at Best, 41.

  “Dutch report Germans winning”: SLC, 170.

  “grossly untidy situation”: Powell, The Devil’s Birthday, 110.

  In a shot-torn town: Ryan, A Bridge Too Far, 282 (bakeries), 218 (head to toe like sandbags), 232–33 (“gone awry”); Middlebrook, Arnhem 1944, 200–202, 209, 281; Saunders, The Red Beret, 232–34 (“little bayonet rushes”); Airborne Forces, 167; SLC, 172–73 (Balky radios); Baynes, Urquhart of Arnhem, 111 (would not rejoin his headquarters); Powell, The Devil’s Birthday, 130 (over half of the British soldiers).

  Nothing was right except the courage: Ryan, A Bridge Too Far, 344–45; Sims, Arnhem Spearhead, 72 (cherry brandy); Mackay, “The Battle of Arnhem Bridge,” Royal Engineer Journal (Dec. 1954): 305ff. (Benzedrine and “Great joy all round”); Kershaw, “It Never Snows in September,” 177 (perimeter of ten buildings); Arthur, Forgotten Voices of World War II, 359 (vases were filled with water); Saunders, The Red Beret, 239 (rolled strips of wallpaper); Middlebrook, Arnhem 1944, 292–95; Margry, ed., Operatio
n Market-Garden Then and Now, vol. 2, 465 (Mercedes trucks); “Arnhem,” AB, no. 2 (1973): 1ff.

  Germans on the south bank of the Neder Rijn: Frost, A Drop Too Many, 223–25; Kershaw, “It Never Snows in September,” 177–78 (“skin peeling”); Sims, Arnhem Spearhead, 74 (“shake itself like a dog”).

  “Arnhem was burning”: Arthur, Forgotten Voices of World War II, 359 (“metallic daylight”), 354 (“Nobody is in such dire need”); Saunders, The Red Beret, 236–37 (“never saw anything more beautiful”); Mackay, “The Battle of Arnhem Bridge,” Royal Engineer Journal (Dec. 1954): 305ff. (Despite a BBC report); Middlebrook, Arnhem 1944, 312 (“pretty desperate thing”); Kershaw, “It Never Snows in September,” 216–17 (tossed from upper windows).

  “a sea of flame”: Middlebrook, Arnhem 1944, 307.

  “Our building is on fire”: Thompson, The Imperial War Museum Book of Victory in Europe, 167–68.

  “Deutschland, Deutschland”: OH, Joseph Enthammer, Arnhem History Museum, John Frost Bridge, author visit, May 2009.

  Both sides agreed to a two-hour cease-fire: Thompson, The Imperial War Museum Book of Victory in Europe, 167–68. (“British or American?”), 169 (offered brandy, chocolate); Sims, Arnhem Spearhead, 85 (“The Last Stand”), 88 (“grotesque paddles”); Kershaw, “It Never Snows in September,” 125–26 (“harder battle than any”); Frost, Nearly There, 80–81; Frost, A Drop Too Many, 233 (“kind, chivalrous”); exhibit on Dr. Jan Zwolle, Arnhem History Museum, John Frost Bridge, author visit, May 2009 (put before a firing squad).

  Eighty-one paratroopers had been killed: Middlebrook, Arnhem 1944, 321.

  “God save the king”: Ryan, A Bridge Too Far, 430.

  The Arrow That Flieth by Day

  At 4:30 P.M. on Tuesday, September 19: OH, JMG, Jan. 20, 1967, CJR, box 101, folder 10, 1–3 (curb); Gavin, On to Berlin, 170–71.