A Bridge Too Far

by Martin Bowman

  During the morning, as XXX Corps finally secures Elst as well as Boxmeer. Horrocks and Browning meet at 1st Airborne Corps HQ to discuss ‘Berlin’. Montgomery and Dempsey meet at Eindhoven. Household Cavalry patrols reveal that because so many Germans are concentrated at Oosterbeek the Lower Rhine west of Arnhem is almost undefended. Horrocks briefly considers making another crossing. Instead, to help the withdrawal, 43rd Division mounts a simulated crossing at Renkum, four miles west of Oosterbeek, that night. The remnants of 1st Airborne hold their lines for the rest of the day and the airborne detachments in the north start to pull out at 2100; first to their RVs on either side of the Hartenstein and then on through the woods. The last man of Division HQ left the Hartenstein at 2230 and from Airlanding Brigade HQ at 2300. Many are brought across the river in 36 assault boats provided by the British and Canadian engineers, the crossing covered by a heavy bombardment from the artillery of XXX Corps.

  25/26 September 101st Airborne clears mines to re-open Hell’s Highway for good. By nightfall 11th Armoured reaches the Maas at Boxmeer, linking up with XXX Corps but with only two divisions attacking north-eastward, O’Connor is now completely over-extended.

  2100 Operation ‘Berlin’, the withdrawal of 1st British Airborne on the Lower Rhine begins with a sustained bombardment by 43rd Division and XXX Corps artillery that lasts 11 hours.

  2140 Two companies of Royal Canadian Engineers with 21 storm boats (each holding 14 men) and two Royal Engineer companies with 16 assault boats start to cross the river. Leaving behind their wounded with some volunteers, 1st British Airborne start to withdraw in the rain through a gap barely 700 meters wide to the river bank. The Germans continue heavy mortaring and take 170 prisoners, but there is no attempt to rush the British troops. By 0130 the withdrawal north of the Hartenstein Hotel is complete.

  At 0200 1st British Division’s ammunition is blown up and its guns disabled and at first light ferrying ends. The survivors march from Driel to Nijmegen, where clean uniforms and equipment await.

  By 1400 Germans occupy the remains of the Oosterbeek pocket, capturing the wounded troops who could not be moved.

  18 Bombardier Wilfred Wheatley was commanding a gun detachment of 2 Airlanding Anti-Tank Battery, RA on 21 September when an enemy tank approached his position West of Arnhem. Exposed to very heavy small arms fire from supporting infantry, Wheatley held his fire until the tank was almost on top of him. He then knocked it out at almost point blank range. Not content with this, he immediately took part in a counter attack and personally led a successful assault on two enemy machine gun posts. He was awarded the Military Medal.

  19 Robert Cojeen died in 1982. Thanks are due to his granddaughter, Sandy Jones, for his story.

  20 Upon returning home, ‘Boy’ Wilson was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel and awarded the DSO. Wilson continued to command the Company in Norway and Palestine until October 1945, when he left to take command of the Airborne Holding Battalion. In 1953, he was awarded the Queen’s Coronation Medal. He died in 1963.

  21 Thanks are due to Bob Hilton for this account.

  22 ‘In 1992 the Airborne Museum in Oosterbeek arranged for my glider pilot John McGeogh and me to meet there after all those years! It has always seemed to me that the real heroes were the wonderful Dutch people, who as always fought so quietly but so tenaciously for a worthy cause.’

  23 On 25 September, 22 and 20 Platoon came under tank attack and Lieutenant Alan Thomas Green took two men and a PIAT and set up an ambush and the tanks retired. Green was lightly wounded and withdrew. When a decision was made to seek a temporary cease fire with the Germans in order to save the wounded, as one of only two officers left alive in the Platoon, Green tried to attempt contact with the enemy but came under fire and was wounded four times. Green and what remained of the group were taken prisoner to Oflag 9A/Z near Rottenburg Fulda. Green wrote a history of the battle in his book Arnhem 17th Sept - 26th Sept 1944 and was co-author on When Dragons Flew an illustrated history of the 1st Battalion the Border Regiment, whose contribution at Arnhem, Green felt had received scant publicity. After the war he trained as a teacher and taught for 15 years before training as Priest, being ordained in 1964. He was one of three officers from the Border’s Arnhem battalion that entered the church. He was appointed Honorary Canon of Leicester Cathedral in 1978. Alan Green died on 6 December 2004.

  24 ‘I never thought I would see it again after that day but it was later found and is now in the museum of my Regiment, The King’s Own Royal Border Regiment, in Carlisle Castle. There was great press interest in my helmet, which made the news in seven different newspapers and I even tried it on for one last time. Amazingly it fitted better than when I had it during the war!’

  25 We were quickly shipped on by rail in a cattle truck to Stalag XIb Fallingbostel. Food was scarce in the camp and it was every man for himself as we scavenged everywhere we could to find anything we could. The hunger was terrible as it was constant and for weeks on end. It became an obsession to find food anywhere you could. It was on one of these self made missions that I passed the office glancing in and noticed no one around. I saw my chance to look around and took it quickly. I looked through drawers and drawers but all I could find were hundreds of photographs, which the Germans took of us when we arrived at the camp. I quickly found mine and shoved it into my pocket. I have only seen a few similar pictures to mine from other soldiers and I am unsure what happened to the rest. I stayed in Stalag XIb until the end of the war.’

  26 Tony Wann attended several reunions in the post-war years, but did not revisit Arnhem until 1977, which provoked old nightmares to return. He died shortly before the 50th Anniversary in 1994. Thanks to Gary Wann, son of Tony and webmaster of The Assault Glider Project, for this story. Off At Last - An Illustrated History of the 7th (Galloway) Battalion The King’s Own Scottish Borderers, by Robert Sigmond. Thanks also to Henriëtte Kuil-Snaterse. After the evacuation, Payton-Reid was awarded the DSO for his part in the battle. It was presented to him by King George VI at Buckingham Palace on the day of the Arnhem Investiture, 6 December 1944. Lieutenant Colonel Payton-Reid worked to rebuild his battalion in the following months until he was promoted to the East Scotland District on 31 March 1945; handing the reins to Major Sellon, he issued a special order of the day to all ranks, thanking them for their loyal support throughout his time as their commander. After the war had ended, the 2nd KOSB were withdrawn from Burma and Payton-Reid joined them in Peshawar, India, as commander, a post in which he passed two pleasant years until the battalion was disbanded. Having spent 33 years serving with the KOSB, he retired in 1948 and moved to Essex. He frequently led the KOSB’s on their annual pilgrimage to Holland. On 1 November 1971 Robert Payton-Reid died at Witham, Essex, aged 74.

  27 Off At Last - An Illustrated History of the 7th (Galloway) Battalion The King’s Own Scottish Borderers, by Robert Sigmond. Thanks also to Henriëtte Kuil-Snaterse. After the evacuation, Payton-Reid was awarded the DSO for his part in the battle. It was presented to him by King George VI at Buckingham Palace on the day of the Arnhem Investiture, 6 December 1944. Lieutenant Colonel Payton-Reid worked to rebuild his battalion in the following months until he was promoted to the East Scotland District on 31 March 1945; handing the reins to Major Sellon, he issued a special order of the day to all ranks, thanking them for their loyal support throughout his time as their commander. After the war had ended, the 2nd KOSB were withdrawn from Burma and Payton-Reid joined them in Peshawar, India, as commander, a post in which he passed two pleasant years until the battalion was disbanded. Having spent 33 years serving with the KOSB, he retired in 1948 and moved to Essex. He frequently led the KOSB’s on their annual pilgrimage to Holland. On 1 November 1971 Robert Payton-Reid died at Witham, Essex, aged 74.

  28 The Gliders by Alan Lloyd.

  29 Eventually, John Bateman returned to his unit and from 300 men he knew only four. From that day forward he never slept through a night and the nightmares of Arnhem were relived: ‘The sm
ell of the gun smoke, the dead and the continuous noise of the bombardment.’ He started drinking heavily and only stopped when he remarried. His wife said that he ‘Parachute every night’ and she shared the awful memories. After his return from Arnhem to Ruskington in Lincolnshire, Bill was one of those that helped to rebuild and reform the Squadron for further operations. In May 1945 they were deployed to Norway for several months to oversee the surrender of the German occupation forces there. After the war, Bill signed on for the Regular Army, serving both the Royal Artillery and in the Cavalry. He saw service in both Korea and Malaya, where he earned a Mention in Despatches when his 25 pounder field gun blew up and, although wounded in his arm, he got his gun crew to safety. On return to Britain he transferred to the Military Provost Staff Corps and then spent four years in Singapore. He finished his service with the rank of Staff Sergeant. After his retirement, Bill would visit Arnhem each year and give talks at different schools to the children about the battle and then accompany them on the pilgrimages when they laid flowers at the Oosterbeek Cemetery in September. He was an early member of the Arnhem 1944 Veterans Club and a staunch member of the 1st Airborne Reconnaissance Squadron Association. On 2 March 1993 Bill found eternal peace; the peace that eluded him in life. Thanks are due to Paul ‘Blackie’ Dixon and Bob Hilton for the above account.

  30. Thanks to Henriëtte Kuil-Snaterse for this story.

  31 Bittrich died in a local hospital in Wolfratshausen, Bavaria on 19 April 1979.

  32 As well as the award of the MC he also received a Mention in Despatches. Following a year during which he served in Palestine, St. Aubyn abandoned his architectural ambitions and became a gilt-edged broker in the City with Grieveson Grant and then Greenwells. Epitomising ‘the gentleman of the market’, complete with black top hat, he worked on the floor of the exchange, gaining a reputation for honesty and courtesy and cutting a striking figure elsewhere as he smoked Senior Service from a cigarette-holder. After marrying Mary Southwell, with whom he had two sons and a daughter, he settled in East Sussex, where he hunted enthusiastically with the Southdown. He became High Sheriff and also treasurer of the trust set up to preserve Virginia Woolf’s house, Charleston. During holidays St. Aubyn frequently returned to St. Michael’s Mount. Watched by his daughter Fiona and son Nicholas, the future MP, he once rescued four people whose cabin cruiser had been upturned; despite a slipped disc, he dived under the boat in an unsuccessful attempt to rescue a fifth. Afterwards he lit cigarettes and handed them round to those he had saved. After being widowed in 1987 St. Aubyn moved back to Cornwall, where he had a house within sight of St. Michael’s Mount. At 80 he took up hunting after a 20-year break and to show solidarity with the hunting lobby, joined one of the Countryside Alliance rallies in a Daimler. Piers St. Aubyn died on 24 May 2006 aged 85

  Chapter 4

  ‘A Bridge Too Far’

  ‘We must be prepared to take more risks during the initial stages of an airborne operation. It would have been a reasonable risk to have landed the Division much closer to the objective chosen, even in the face of some enemy flak... Initial surprise was gained, but the effect was lost because it was four hours [sic, it was six] before the troops could arrive at the bridge. A whole brigade dropped at the bridge would have made all the difference... Both the Army and the RAF were over-pessimistic about the flak. The forecast about the impossibility of landing gliders on the polder country was also wrong. Suitable DZs and LZs could have been found south of the bridge and near it.’

  Major General Roy Urquhart In his official report on the lessons of Arnhem.

  An appraisal of ‘Market-Garden’33 may well start with the question of why it did not succeed. Considering the complexity of the operation there is a remarkably high measure of agreement on this matter. First and foremost comes the extraordinary revival of German fighting capacity brought about by General Model. Intelligence reports of over-all enemy strength were quite accurate, but as late as 14 September a Second Army estimate described the Germans as weak, demoralized and likely to collapse entirely if confronted with a large airborne attack. Had that been so, ‘Market’ would have been a sure thing. No amount of bad luck could have done more than delay its success. One step in the German reorganization was the movement of two Panzer divisions into the Arnhem area. This movement and the failure of Second Army Intelligence to assess information on it correctly was the second factor making for failure. If, as supposed, the Germans had had no more than a brigade group at Arnhem, the British airborne could have taken city and bridge and held them until relieved. Had the concentration of guns and armour there been recognized, the plans would doubtless have been changed.

  A third factor, which enabled the Germans to bring their strength to bear, was General Urquhart’s error in locating his zones between five and eight miles from the objective. This was contrary to all airborne doctrine and he later admitted that it had been an unnecessary and fatal error. It cost the division the advantage of surprise and compelled it to divide its forces in the face of the enemy in order to keep possession of the landing zones for later missions. The consequence was the frittering away of six battalions in futile attempts to reach and hold the bridge. To be fair, one must remember that flak estimates for the vicinity of Arnhem were very pessimistic and that the polder land near the bridge was considered dangerously swampy. Still, the Polish paratroops were scheduled to jump into the polders south of the bridge on D+2 and might just as well have done so on D-day. Considering what Frost’s troops achieved, it seems that they and the Poles combined might have held the bridge until help came, especially if a few pieces of artillery had been dropped or landed with them.

  Next in order and first in General Montgomery’s estimation, was the effect of bad weather in delaying the arrival of the Poles from D+2 to D+4 and that of the 325th Glider Regiment from D+2 to D+6. He believed that if the two units had arrived on schedule, the Poles could, have broken through to Frost’s positions and the 325th might have provided the extra infantry needed to win the Nijmegen Bridge and fight through to Arnhem, presumably before nightfall on the 20th. Such an achievement by those two units could perhaps have made the difference between defeat and victory. From one point of view the real culprit in this matter was not the weather, but the plan of operation which, by distributing the delivery of the troops over a period of three days, not only put ‘Market’ at the mercy of the weather but also forced the airborne to waste much of their strength in guarding drop or landing zones for the later missions. All concerned would have much preferred to complete the lift in one or two days, but that was easier said than done.

  Reasons for the Failure of ‘Market-Garden’

  Brereton’s decision to carry out the lifts over two to three days, thus ensuring that any element of surprise was completely lost.

  Brereton’s limited use of ground-attack aircraft over the battlefield while escort fighters were in the air protecting supply drops.

  The absence of glider coup de Main tactics.

  First Allied Airborne Army’s poor choice of parachute drop zones and glider landing zones which were too far from the objectives. It has been said that if he had been an experienced airborne commander, Urquhart may have been more determined to oppose the decision to land the whole Division 8 miles from the bridge, rather than drop the parachutists much closer to it. It is a point that those who knew the General would refute without difficulty. However it is true that his objection to the poor air plan could have been stronger than it was, but Urquhart had to plan an entire operation in only seven days and so when faced with stubborn opposition from fellow commanders he had little option but to accept the situation and move on. Nevertheless, these failings in the plan sealed the fate of ‘Market-Garden’ before it had begun.

  On D+1 when their take-off was delayed for four hours by the weather, Brigadier Hackett’s 4th Parachute Brigade was dropped even further west than the 1st Parachute Brigade and should have been put down on the polder south of the Neder Rijn close to
the Arnhem road bridge (where it was planned to drop the Polish Parachute Brigade on the following day). But, because of a ‘communications problem’ - there was no communication - or very little and that intermittent - between the various elements of the Airborne Corps; Urquhart or Frost at Arnhem, Browning on the Groesbeek heights, Hackett and Sosabowski in the UK, so none of this information reached Urquhart. One obvious course of action was to order Hicks’ brigade into the town at once and land Hackett’s full brigade on that DZ just south of the road bridge. To send yet another brigade to the western DZs, from where they faced another contested march through the town, was clearly inadvisable, but there was no means of discussing this idea or implementing it - the communications were too bad and not helped by the fact that Browning was far away from all his subordinate units, except the 82nd Airborne. This being so, the original plan went ahead.

  Even if the polder south of the Neder Rijn was unsuitable for the mass landing of gliders, there was no good reason why a small coup de main force should not have landed by glider and parachute at the southern end of the bridge on the first day. If a whole brigade had been dropped near the Arnhem Bridge on the first day, ideally on the south bank, the outcome of the battle of Arnhem and ‘Market-Garden’ might have been radically different. Major General Sosabowski’s 1st Polish Brigade, which should have landed south of the river and close to the road bridge on D+2 but which was defeated by the weather, arrived south of the river on D+4 but a change in plans saw the 1st Polish Brigade dropped south of the Heveadorp ferry to take up positions west of the shrinking perimeter at Oosterbeek, by which time the battle for Arnhem was over. If Hicks had given up the original objective of Arnhem Bridge he could have secured the Heveadorp ferry and the ground on either side, dug in and waited for XXX Corps. But this would have meant disobeying Browning’s orders and abandoning Frost.