A Bridge Too Far

by Martin Bowman

  It stopped raining. Two privates nestling in their covered Bren gun position on the perimeter looked wet and pretty sorry for themselves, muttering occasionally as they scanned the surrounding area. Distantly two British Bofors guns opened up so that the trajectories of the tracer rounds crossed high in the night sky. Moss and Jenkins squinted, peering into the night. They could see movement. Rashly, one of the two privates quickly cocked the Bren gun and let off a short burst before being restrained. The two soldiers looked at each other nervously, before one of them shouted for the shapes to identify themselves. The men in the column had thrown themselves to the ground or taken cover behind anything they could. The sergeant crawled up towards the Bren gun, anger written all over his face. They had been led in a circle back to their own perimeter.

  Some of the other paratroopers including Moss, gathered round. Bug-eyed with rage the sergeant snatched the map and torch and strode away. The column set off again in to the night. It began raining again. The Bofors guns were still firing tracer rounds into the night sky. Stout was at the head of the column. He paused and signalled for everyone to hold up. Moss and Jenkins had moved up the column and were now near the front. The sergeant turned on his torch to study the map. His face was illuminated. Nearby from some trees there came the distinct sound of a machine gun being cocked and a German voice called out. The sergeant turned the torch off and everyone either scattered or crouched down to hide behind something. The paratroopers talked in a whisper. Moss suggested that they throw five or six grenades and make a run for it. They knew where the river was and they needed to make as much ground as they could before the mortars started up in the morning. The sergeant thought about it for a moment. He seemed unsure of what to do and then, he agreed. Word went down the line and men passed up grenades. Men looked at each other, nodded and pulled the pins at the same time. Then, with a quick lob, six grenades were hurled in the direction of the German voice. The men took cover. Seconds later the grenades exploded and the paratroopers were up and running. Moss took good hold of Jenkins and supporting him they slipped and slid along the muddy path. They passed a sandbagged German machine gun post, now burning with a corpse draped over the top. Off in the woods German voices could now be heard rising in intensity. Small arms fire broke the air and bullets whizzed by. A couple of British soldiers were hit and screamed out.

  Captain Peter Fletcher was one of the Glider Pilots who guided the men to the river where sappers had laid white marker tape. ‘I started out from Hartenstein Park near the tennis courts and the first part of the journey was comparatively easy, passing fellow glider pilots marking the route with a quiet ‘thanks’ and ‘good luck’. Then we ran into an enemy patrol. Their fire was intense but wild, but, helped by the noise, the wind and the rain and our own bursting shells, we by-passed them and continued on our way under the guiding tracers over our heads. The wise men cannot have followed their guiding light with greater determination. We were joined optimistically by lost groups. The river bank looked decidedly unhealthy - hundreds of men quietly waiting and not enough boats, so I went upstream followed by a mixed bunch of paras and others. We found a canvas assault boat pinned against a groyne by the strong current and this seemed a better bet and so, using our helmets as paddles, we slowly crossed the Rhine.’

  Lieutenant Colonel ‘Eddie’ Myers in charge of the crossing, assisted by his few remaining sapper officers and by some officers of Division HQ, stood up to his ankles in mud at the river’s edge as the red tracer shells flew over his head marking the withdrawal routes. At one point Myers was injured by shrapnel and required attention. There were two crossing points, one almost due south of the red-roofed farmhouse just west of Oosterbeek church and the other about 300 yards to the west. Four field companies, two of the Royal Canadian Engineers and two of the 43rd Division, were waiting on the other side of the river to ferry the men across. The Canadians had wooden storm boats with outboard motors; the British collapsible assault boats which had to be paddled. ‘The river did not look inviting’, one of the British sappers said later. ‘The current was swift and the water black and deep. The far bank was out of sight.’ He had come up 300 yards from the forward assembly area over two high embankment dykes and a waste of mud flats. ‘It was a dark night. The din of our own fire was terrific... Away to the left the factory by the Dorset crossing was still blazing.’

  At each crossing point were sixteen assault boats manned by Royal Engineers of 43rd Division and twenty storm boats, with outboard engines, manned by Royal Canadian Engineers at the eastern site and six near the ferry. At 2145 the first boats crossed to the north bank and waited for the first airborne troops, due to be on the river bank at 2200. ‘Shortly afterwards’ recalled Myers, ‘the first party of men arrived and ferrying soon got into a swing. Possibly thinking that we were reinforcing the perimeter rather than evacuating it, the enemy began to shell and mortar the ferry sites. Many craft were sunk and casualties among those waiting on the bank began to mount. Fortunately, in some ways, it was a wet and very dark night, but it made any effective control of embarkation virtually impossible; nevertheless, discipline was excellent. The Canadians and the 43rd Division sappers kept at their tasks gallantly and ferrying continued until first light.’

  Major Alan Bush was evacuated across the Rhine when the 1st Airborne Division withdrew, although the journey to the south bank was made somewhat more precarious when the boat’s engine failed half-way across. ‘I thought I had heard every oath in the English language but I heard a few new ones from those Canadians until they got it going again.’14

  The Canadians reported later: The assault boats which the Royal Engineers are operating are not doing so well. The current is so swift that they are quickly carried downstream. The airborne fellows are too exhausted to help much in paddling them back and the crews are worn out after a couple of trips.’15

  At 0230 the British guards left their prisoners and came down to join the rearguard parties. The wounded were firing into the darkness and sending out misleading signals on the few still serviceable wireless sets. The Light Regiment, now commanded by Major J. E. F. Linton, fired their last shells and then took the breech blocks off the guns to throw into the river. The rest of the ammunition was blown up. The rearguards reached the river at dawn. But by now the crossing was no longer merely dangerous, but impossible. The current had become so strong that the crews of the assault boats had to be increased from four to six and then to eight and, even so, the boats were swirled downstream beyond the embarkation points. Machine-gun bullets spattered into the water and mortar bombs sent up fountains of spray. Many more boats were hit and struggling, screaming men thrown into the river. Smoke bombs were fired in an effort to screen the crossing-places but the Germans themselves took advantage of the cover to bring their machine-guns through the roads right up to the water’s edge. A Canadian officer made two crossings to take over some German life-belts, which had been found earlier in a supply depot and left them on the far bank and brought back as many men as he could. On the first crossing five men in his boat were hit and on the second scarcely a single one escaped. Several men jumped into the water fully clothed and tried to swim to the other side, with their Sten guns across their backs, but for most of them the current was too strong and they too weak to resist it. Their clothes and equipment pulled them down and they could be seen frantically struggling to disentangle themselves from their laces and straps before sinking for the last time under the water. Others undressed and dived in half-naked and most of those who did so got across and staggered dripping and covered in mud to the houses on the far bank where they wrapped themselves in whatever clothes or blankets they could find.

  Already German tanks were rolling into the perimeter and for the first time in more than a week, they were unopposed. Over 300 wounded men were taken prisoner inside the ravaged perimeter; almost ten times that number were already in German dressing stations and Dutch hospitals outside it. Hundreds of these were later sent back to freed
om by the Dutch Resistance, but for many more there could be no return. Over 1,200 British soldiers were dead and more than 3,400 German soldiers were killed or wounded.

  Soon a queue was forming on the river bank, waiting. The night was jetblack and streaming with rain, for the infantry assault boats, each of which could hold fourteen or fifteen men. A battery of AA guns sent red I racer shells across the river to mark the place at which the passage was to he made. They belonged to the Wessex Division and fired a round every minute, alternately in pairs, for seven hours. It was, of necessity, impossible 10 move them and each tracer shell that stabbed the darkness betrayed their position. There were too many troops for the boats, some of which were very rickety. Moreover, though comparatively calm near both of its banks, the Lower Rhine was running strongly in the middle.

  ‘We got into a boat,’ says Lieutenant Colonel St. John Packe, ‘pushed off and soon reached that part of the river where the current was flowing strongly. I thought that once in its grip we would be swept along into what seemed to me to be a hellish battle in progress downstream. At that moment the outboard engine cut, so we seized our rifles and paddled with the butts. I beat time. Those without rifles encouraged those with them until they were persuaded to swop.’ Many, unable to find a place in the boats, or eager to yield it to a comrade in more evil case than their own, preferred to swim the river. Among them was Siely, the Regimental Sergeant-Major of the Light Regiment. He stayed behind to help late-comers and it was broad daylight before he began the passage. ‘I stripped completely,’ he said, ‘because I had just seen three men drown, weighed-down by their clothes.’ He got safely across and then made for an old house not far from the south bank, where he assisted his Commanding Officer, who was in the same condition as himself, to assume a lady’s blouse. He himself chose ‘a lady’s very nice dark cloth coat.’

  In the rainy darkness long lines of tired men waited by the river bank for their turn to be called forward and for some it was a long wait. Boats crossed and re-crossed the turbulent water, now partly lit by burning houses downstream. German machine guns periodically swept the river and mortar bombs burst in the water or in the fields on either side. Boats were holed or sunk and men were killed or wounded. The strong current (much faster than it is today) carried many of the assault boats downstream and their tired crews, some of whom were killed or wounded, had to be increased during the night to four men each, then to six. The Canadian powered stormboats, able to take more men and to make faster crossings, carried the bulk of those evacuated.

  As they were at the extreme north of the Perimeter, Major Geoffrey Powell’s men had left their positions at 2015. After he was called into Divisional Headquarters at first light to learn that they were going to be withdrawn that night Powell had returned to what was left of his force, about 40 people out of a battalion of 650. When he told them Powell could see their reaction on their faces. ‘First a grin of delight; that we were going to get out that night. Everyone had lost hope of getting out of that battle alive. Next disgust, that we had been destroyed to no purpose. Their reactions mirrored mine, when I was first told.

  ‘We had very detailed orders on how to pull out. We left in groups and as we had the furthest to go we left first. We had glider pilots as guides to lead us to the river. The way was marked with white tape and Bofors on the opposite bank fired over our heads to give us the line. We held onto the tail of the airborne smock of the man in front. The intelligence officer led, I was at the rear. About halfway to the river, we hit a German position and my column got split and I arrived at the river with only fifteen men. There was a small assault craft with four men lying dead beside it. There were no other boats. Something had gone wrong. The Germans were about 50 yards away. Still the British guns pounded the enemy, but the Germans were still able to hit back at us. Mortar bombs landed on the water and in the muddy fields. We walked downstream until a boat loomed out of the dark waters. I hailed it and was answered by a Canadian voice. Calmly he urged us to get in, but he could only take fourteen and we were fifteen. We crouched under the bank up to our knees in water. There were a few people there from other units. A sergeant, hysterical with fear, made a lot of noise. I did something I had never done before - I hit him on the mouth. That finished the noise. We moved along the river, hoping to pick up a boat. We could see some people starting to swim. None of my party did. We passed a boat with the crew dead around it. Then we met another boat, with a Canadian crew and outboard. In we piled. I was last. The Corporal Coxswain said, ‘We can’t take any more.’ My chaps said: ‘You’re taking this bugger’ and pulled me in. Shells were dropping in the water as we crossed. The boat grounded and we all tumbled out again, with the Canadian waving to acknowledge our shouted thanks. When we got to the other side, we ran for the large embankment just inland. I remember the feeling of relief as we climbed up and over - we were out of this battle. I looked back across to Oosterbeek. All at once I realized I was across. I simply could not believe I had got out alive’. Powell ordered his men to form up in three’s, whereupon the Battalion marched in faultless order to the reception centre. ‘It was all over but, by God, we had come out as we had gone in. Proud.’16

  The evacuation continued throughout the night hours and it became more difficult as the boats dwindled in number. Shortly before dawn there were several hundred men still waiting in the fields. The western crossing site had hardly been used, first because there were only a few Dorsets left to be evacuated and many of the airborne troops that should have used this site had somehow, in the darkness, veered to the east towards the other site, perhaps instinctively to avoid the machine-gun fire from Westerbouwing. Only 48 men, mostly Dorsets, were ferried over by assault boats as they were less noisy than the engined Canadian boats when close to the enemy positions. Another 27 Dorset men made their own way across in boats found abandoned from their assault crossing two nights before. Eventually some of the storm boats were ordered to go upstream to the other site, but only one arrived and too late. At first light some of the men still on the north bank waded into the water and started to swim; others stripped naked and made it to the far bank, although swept downstream. Many, being poor swimmers or just too weary or laden with clothing, were drowned.

  Sergeant ‘Bill’ Griffin of the Adjutant and Quartermaster Branch recalled. ‘We were gathered together and told about the taping of the route to the river. I had the great joy of smearing Colonel Preston’s face with lamp black from the Tilley lamp. We were told that if a man was wounded he was to be left behind. It was my twenty-first birthday and I thought ‘today I’m going to die’. I never thought I’d see my twenty-first birthday out. Three of the Divisional Headquarters Clerks got out: Corporal Daniel Lewis, Corporal Norman Davidson and myself. I got out in a Canadian boat. We couldn’t start the engine and it was drifting down the river before we eventually got it going. Having got over I headed for a Dorset Regiment soup kitchen. Heading back from the river in a DUKW it slipped on a dyke and we all ended up in the ditch, but the driver got it out and drove us to Nijmegen.’17

  All along the meadow, men were squatting down in the mud under fire, wet and shivering, waiting for their turn to get into the boats. A few men could not bear the agony of waiting and pushed past the others to the river bank. General Sosabowski wrote that about 100 of them dashed down to the water and were sent back by an officer who shouted at them furiously, ‘Behave like Englishmen!’ But most of them were quiet and controlled. A young officer thought of Dunkirk and felt that this was what it must have been like. He had been at school then. His father had been killed there. He felt suddenly proud that he was English and that Englishmen could behave like this, quiet and patient, trying to comfort the wounded with grim jokes and a rough tenderness and, without realising it at first, he began to cry. He put his face in the mud so that his men should not hear his sobs and one of them put his hand on his shoulder and squeezed it. The river was splashed with rain as the storm boats crossed and re-crossed over the fast-flowi
ng water, their engines chugging loudly above the distant roar of the guns. Some boats were swept off course by the swirling currents; the engines of others failed and the men tried to row with their rifle butts; many of them sank and sent the soldiers floundering into the water. Lieutenant Colonel Henry Preston watched a boat come into the bank and the men scrambling and heaving themselves into it from all directions. Some, the walking wounded, were helped and hauled over the side to lie in the bottom amongst the hoots of the others. The air was full of whispered curses and mutterings of those getting aboard and of the blasphemies of the crews who had the two-fold task of preventing the boat being swamped by its passengers and being holed by the boulders on the bank. In a moment the boat had filled with men and those still trying to clamber in were prevented from doing so by those already there, or failing to climb aboard were falling into the water or onto the shore.