by John Nichol
Bibliography
Arthur, Max, Men of the Red Beret: There Shall be Wings. The RAF 1918 to the Present, Hutchinson, 1990
Bentley, Stewart W. Jr, Orange Blood, Silver Wings, AuthorHouse, 2007
Buist, Luuk, Reinders, Philip and Maassen, Geert, The Royal Air Force at Arnhem, Airborne Museum, Oosterbeek, 2005
Cherry, Niall, Red Berets and Red Crosses, R. N. Sigmund, 1998
Cholewczynski, George, Poles Apart – Polish Airborne at the Battle of Arnhem, Greenhill Books, 1993
Churchill, Winston, Triumph and Tragedy, Penguin, 2005
Clark, Lloyd, Arnhem: Jumping the Rhine, Headline, 2009
Curtis, Reg, Tafelberg, BN1 Publishing, 2009
Gibson, Ronald, Nine Days, Arthur Stockwell, 1956
Hamilton, Nigel, Monty: The Field-Marshal, Sceptre, 1986
Kershaw, Robert, It Never Snows in September, Ian Allan, 2009
Mackie, Alastair, Some of the People All of the Time, Book Guild Publishing, 2006
Middlebrook, Martin, Arnhem 1944: The Airborne Battle, Penguin, 1995
Milbourne, Andrew, Lease of Life, Transworld, 1955
Montgomery, Field Marshal, Memoirs, Pen & Sword Military, 2010
Morrison, Alexander, Silent Invader, Airlife Classic, 1999
O’Reilly, John, From Delhi to Arnhem, Thornton Publishing, 2009
Peters, Mike and Buist, Luuk, Glider Pilots at Arnhem, Pen & Sword Military, 2009
Ryan, Cornelius, A Bridge Too Far, Hodder, 2007
Sidnell, Peter (ed.), Tribute – Combat Experiences of the Military and Aviation Book Society, Military and Aviation Book Society, 2002
Sims, James, Arnhem Spearhead, Imperial War Museum, 1978, and Sphere Books, 1989
Smith, Claude, History of the Glider Pilot Regiment, Pen & Sword Military, 2007
Ter Horst, Kate A., Cloud over Arnhem, Allan Wingate, 1959
Van Hees, Arie-Jan, Green On! A Detailed Survey of the British Parachute Re-supply Sorties during Operation Market Garden 18–25 September 1944, Private publication, 2007
Notes
Chapter 1: ‘Where are the Tommies!’
1 Private memoir and JN interview, 2010.
2 Anje van Maanen – private diary, and JN interview, 2010. This day-by-day account was written in September 1945, exactly a year after the events she described, as a way of trying to come to terms with the horrors she had experienced and which still haunted her dreams.
3 Private memoir by Heleen Kernkamp-Biegel. Airborne Assault, Imperial War Museum, Duxford, and JN interview with her daughter Marga, 2010.
4 The Netherlands consists of twelve provinces, only two of which are known as Holland (north and south), the name by which the whole country is often erroneously called. Arnhem was in Gelderland. Ironically, the city of Geldern, from which the province took its name, was (and is) in Germany.
5 Sir Alistair Horne in Monty, the Lonely Leader. Macmillan, 1994.
6 The Tommies are Coming. Diary of an Oosterbeek Girl. Surname unknown. Airborne Museum, Oosterbeek. Copy lodged at Airborne Assault, Imperial War Museum, Duxford.
7 Arnhem Spearhead, by James Sims. Imperial War Museum, 1978, and Sphere Books, 1989.
8 The use (or misuse) of the words ‘paras’ and ‘paratroopers’ can still cause fighting to break out in the ranks. In the text, we have opted for the generic definition where necessary, for ease of reading.
9 The Memoirs of Field Marshal Montgomery. Collins, 1958, and Pen and Sword Military, 2010.
10 Alan Kettley, Official intelligence debrief, October 1944 (Airborne Assault, Imperial War Museum, Duxford), and JN interview, 2010.
11 In his memoirs, Montgomery gave a succinct summary of Market Garden. ‘My plan was to drive hard for the Rhine across all river and canal obstacles and to seize a bridgehead beyond the Rhine before the enemy reorganized sufficiently to stop us. The essential feature was the laying of a “carpet” of airborne forces across the five major water obstacles which existed on the general axis of the main road through Eindhoven to Uden, Grave, Nijmegen, and thence to Arnhem. XXX Corps was then to operate along the axis of the “carpet”, link up with the 1st British Airborne Division in the Arnhem area and establish a bridgehead over the Neder Rijn north of that place. Second Army was then to establish itself in the general area between Arnhem and the Zuider Zee, facing east, so as to be able to develop operations against the northern flank of the Ruhr.’
12 Major Toler. Diary. Provided by Major Mike Peters, Army Air Corps.
13 Private memoir. Airborne Assault, Imperial War Museum, Duxford.
14 Quoted in Monty: The Field-Marshal, by Nigel Hamilton. Sceptre, 1986.
15 Lease of Life, by Andrew Milbourne. Transworld, 1955.
16 Private Les Davison, Royal Army Medical Corps. Private memoir. Box 45, RAMC Archive, Keogh Barracks, Hampshire.
17 Letter by Ivor Rowbery, Airborne Assault, Imperial War Museum, Duxford.
Chapter 2: ‘A Piece of Cake’
1 Quoted in Men of the Red Beret: There Shall be Wings. The RAF 1918 to the Present, by Max Arthur. Hutchinson, 1990.
2 Alan Kettley: see Chapter 1, note 10.
3 Reg Curtis, Tafelberg. BN1 Publishing, and JN interviews, 2010.
4 Apart from the shame and ridicule, this was a court-martial offence.
5 There were different symbols for specific units.
6 ‘Market’ was the codename for the airlift part of the operation and ‘Garden’ the codename for the land operation. Hence the operation as a whole was ‘Market Garden’.
7 Quoted in Arnhem, by Lloyd Clark. Headline, 2009.
8 Ted Mordecai. Private memoir. Airborne Ordnance at Arnhem, Airborne Assault, Imperial War Museum, Duxford.
9 It Never Snows in September, by Robert Kershaw. Ian Allan, 2009.
10 Ron Brooker’s account in Tribute edited by Philip Sidnell. The Military & Aviation Book Society, London, 2002, and JN interview, June 2010.
11 Peter Clarke. Private memoir, and JN interview, 2010.
Chapter 3: ‘Home by the Weekend’
1 Cloud over Arnhem, by Kate ter Horst. Allan Wingate, London, 1959.
2 P. H. Huisman. Private memoir. Airborne Assault, Imperial War Museum, Duxford.
3 Private memoir. Target Mike One, and JN interview, 2010.
4 Down to Earth. Private memoir by Fred Moore. Airborne Assault, Imperial War Museum, Duxford.
5 Nine Days, by Ronald Gibson. Arthur Stockwell, 1956. The authors are grateful to his daughter, Candy, for permission to quote from it.
6 Eric Webbley. Private memoir. Courtesy of his widow and Niall Cherry of Warton, Lancs.
Chapter 4: ‘Are We on Overtime Now?’
1 Projector Infantry Anti-Tank.
2 Or ‘Woah Mohammed!’, as some paras recalled the cry.
3 Private memoir from www.paradata.org.uk
4 Lt. Pat Barnett. Private memoir. Airborne Assault, Imperial War Museum, Duxford.
5 Major Eric Mackay. Private memoir. Airborne Assault, Imperial War Museum, Duxford.
Chapter 5: Stopped in Their Tracks
1 Private memoir. Airborne Assault, Imperial War Museum, Duxford.
2 The story of the Tafelberg field hospital is told in fuller detail in Chapter 12.
3 Robert Quayle. Private memoir. Airborne Assault, Imperial War Museum, Duxford.
4 Private memoir. Provided by Steve McLoughlin, 4th Parachute Squadron RE website.
5 Private memoir. Airborne Assault, Imperial War Museum, Duxford.
6 4th Para Squadron Royal Engineers, Official War Diaries.
7 Major Daniel Webber. Private memoir. Airborne Assault, Imperial War Museum, Duxford.
8 Capture at Arnhem, by Harry Roberts, Windrush Press, 1999.
9 Private memoir. The authors are grateful to his nephew John Merry for providing a copy.
10 Private memoir. ‘The Further Side of the Arnhem Bridge.’ Provided by David Brook of the Glider Pilot Regiment Association.
11
The badly wounded Roberts subsequently went into captivity when the field hospital he was in was taken over by the Germans. He survived his time in a prisoner-of-war camp and returned home relatively unscathed.
12 The main body of Polish paratroopers should have been arriving, too, but they were grounded by bad weather in eastern England. Their armour was on gliders that took off on schedule from airfields further south, where the weather was better. See Chapter 11.
13 Quoted in Poles Apart, by George Cholewczynski. Greenhill Books, 1993.
Chapter 6: ‘If You Knows a Better ’Ole’
1 It was so well known that it was the basis of a stage play and two comic films, one starring Syd Chaplin.
Chapter 7: ‘He was Engaged on a Very Important Airborne Mission’
1 JN interview, 2010.
2 Major Powell, quoted in Green On!, by Arie-Jan van Hees (see note 8 below). Despite the hilarity of the moment, the major thought there was method in this apparent madness. He wrote: ‘The content of supply drops had to be pre-packed to a standard formula with everything that might be wanted in the course of a battle. Red berets were a valuable psychological weapon, and the Boche had learned to hate the sight of them. Everyone dropped with his beret tucked into a pocket, but some were lost. Probably only the one container of berets was included in the whole supply drop and it was just our luck to happen on it.’
3 They were members of the Royal Army Service Corps.
4 The details of KG374’s last flight are recorded in comprehensive investigations by i) Karel Margry in After the Battle magazine, number 96, published in 1997, and ii) Phil Rodgers in ‘An Arnhem Survivor’ in Britain at War magazine, September 2008. The authors are indebted to these writers for being allowed to draw on their exemplary work.
5 Now rarely used, it was a shortened version of ‘Lord love me’.
6 According to the squadron operations log, though other sources claim half the load was ammunition.
7 Flight-Lieutenant Stanley Lee, quoted in Karel Margry, op. cit.
8 The authors are indebted to Arie-Jan van Hees, who compiled many of these accounts in his excellent book Green On! A Detailed Survey of the British Parachute Re-supply Sorties during Operation Market Garden 18–25 September 1944. Private publication. ISBN 90–806808–2–6.
9 He would later become a general.
10 JN interview, 2010.
11 Van Hees, op. cit.
12 JN interview, 2010.
13 The smart London suburb where he was born.
14 His story is taken from his memoirs (Six of the Best. Robson Books, 1984), as reproduced in Van Hees, op. cit.
15 What effect this had on the German prisoners, who, as we have seen, were corralled there, is unknown.
Chapter 8: At the Bridge – A Desperate Battle for Survival
1 Anon., I Was There. Airborne Assault, Imperial War Museum, Duxford.
Chapter 9: Hands in the Air … But Heads Held High
1 Anon., I Was There. Airborne Assault, Imperial War Museum, Duxford.
Chapter 10: In the Mood … to Fight until We Drop
1 This is an amalgamation of slightly different versions by Ennis and Webbley.
2 Private memoir. Airborne Assault, Imperial War Museum, Duxford.
3 Major Ian Toler.
4 To the British, it was known as Ovaltine.
Chapter 11: A Long, Long Way from Warsaw
1 Private memoir and JN interview, 2010. The authors are grateful to Kazic Szmid’s son, Andrzej, for providing his father’s life story.
2 Some sources put the number of Poles deported to Siberia at 1.7 million, of whom only 400,000 are thought to have survived.
3 All in all, 115,000 Poles left the Soviet Union in this way, according to Polish sources.
4 For information about the Polish Brigade, the authors are indebted to George Cholewczynski and his encyclopaedic book, Poles Apart.
5 Tarrant Rush in Dorset and Keevil in Wiltshire.
6 Private memoir. Airborne Assault, Imperial War Museum, Duxford, and JN interview with his son, Philip Mollett, 2010.
7 Interview for Second World War Experience Centre, Leeds, and JN interview, July 2010.
8 Lloyd Clark, senior lecturer in war studies at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, in Arnhem: Jumping the Rhine. Headline, 2009.
9 Afterwards, the British generals would blame unexpected resistance and difficult terrain for their tardiness, but there were others who felt the column was never advanced with sufficient urgency.
Chapter 12: Chaos and Compassion in No man’s Land
1 Revd Chignell, padre of the glider pilots. Private diary. Museum of Army Chaplaincy.
2 See Pegasus archive: http://www.pegasusarchive.org/arnhem/graeme_warrack.htm
3 Niall Cherry, Red Berets and Red Crosses, R. N. Sigmund, 1998.
4 Jo Johanson.
5 Personal memoir. Airborne Assault, Imperial War Museum, Duxford.
Chapter 13: Pulling Out
1 Revd R. T. Watkins, 1 Para chaplain. Private memoir. Museum of Army Chaplaincy.
2 See Hamilton, op. cit. A liaison officer who visited the front reported that Horrocks believed such a bridgehead ‘difficult with present resources’.
3 Revd Chignell.
4 Quoted in Clark, op. cit.
5 By the end of the evacuation, only two were still operational.
6 Martin Middlebrook in Arnhem 1944: The Airborne Battle. Penguin, 1995.
Chapter 14: Left Behind
1 Quoted in Cholewczynski, op. cit.
2 Charitably, he did not rail against this, simply wondering if the runner had been killed or had lost his way – which was entirely possible in the circumstances. It did cross his mind, however, that the rearguard had been ‘written off’. What is most puzzling about this incident is why the English officer refused to take a Polish runner along with him.
3 Cloud over Arnhem, by Kate ter Horst. Allan Wingate, 1959.
4 See Nichol and Rennell, op. cit.
5 Quoted in Heleen Kernkamp’s memoirs.
6 Kazic Szmid.
Chapter 15: Home is the Hero
1 Memo to the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, quoted in Hamilton, op. cit.
2 Bob Quayle.
3 See Chapter 1, note 17.
4 War Illustrated magazine, October 1944.
5 Dutch writer Johan Fabricus. Broadcast on the BBC Home Service, 27 September 1944.
6 The Times, 28 September 1944.
7 Lodged at Airborne Assault, Imperial War Museum, Duxford.
8 Airborne Assault, Imperial War Museum, Duxford.
9 How many were in the party is disputed. Lathbury says thirty; Hibbert, sixty.
10 Quoted in Nichol and Rennell, op. cit.
Acknowledgements
There are many people who willingly gave us their time and expertise while we wrote this book. It is impossible to mention every individual, but we are truly grateful to them all. Our heartfelt thanks also go to:
Major Mike Peters of the Army Air Corps, who sourced countless accounts and pictures and proofread the manuscript.
Mr Jonathan Baker, Curator of Airborne Assault at the Imperial War Museum, Duxford. Jon also proofread the manuscript, and he and Becks Skinner provided unstinting assistance during our visits to the museum’s incredible archive.
Sarah Standeven at OfficeOffice, who transcribed our countless interviews with amazing skill and speed.
Our agent, Mark Lucas, and everyone at Penguin who edits, produces and markets our books.
Mike Collins, National Secretary of the Parachute Regimental Association; Alan Hartley, Chairman of the RAF Down Ampney Association; Lieutenant Colonel David Reynolds, editor of Pegasus magazine; Niall Cherry of the Society of Friends of the Airborne Museum; Mark Hickman, creator of www.pegasusarchive.org; Cathy Pugh of the Second World War Experience Centre; Martin Mace, editor of Britain at War magazine; Air Commodore Graham Pitchfork of the Aircrew Association; and Peter Elliot from the Royal Air Force
Museum.
Countless authors and researchers with an unparalleled knowledge of Arnhem contacted us offering their assistance. Again, it is impossible to name them all, but the following went ‘above and beyond’ in their efforts to help us: Derek Armitage, David Blake, David Brook, Luuk Buist, Tom Buttress, Philip Chinnery, George F. Cholewczynski, Derek Duncan, Bob Gerritsen, Chris Gryzelka, John Howes, Dick Jansen, John Jolly, Gary Jucha, Steve McLoughlin, John O’Reilly, Mark Pitt, Paul Reed, Mark Roberts, James Semple, Roger Stanton, Graham Stow, Andrzej Szmid, Arie-Jan van Hees and Steve Wright.
Our wives, Suzannah and Sarah, for their unconditional love, support and advice.
Finally, to the many Arnhem veterans and their families who related their personal accounts of the battle, often reliving traumatic events long since buried; we are incredibly grateful. Sadly, we could only use a fraction of the stories we read and heard, but we hope we have done justice to you all.
Copyright
VIKING
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