The telephone rang at one AM in von Tettau’s HQ in Arnhem. It was General Bittrich, with orders that Arnhem should be abandoned that night.
“They are breaking through to the road,” he said bluntly. “Get out tonight, or you’ll be spending the rest of the war in a British prison camp.”
There it was—no apology, no well done for lives lost in the fight for the city—just a cold order to retreat. There would be no “Festung Arnhem,” which was some relief, but now von Tettau had to get his troops moving in some order, or this night movement could become a rout.
KG Hanisch, with six old Char B1 French tanks dating to 1940, was the first unit to clatter through Velp that night, waking all the frightened locals from their restless cellar sleep. The British armored cars saw them coming, and one of the men actually laughed.
“What? The bloody French in it now?”
Then there came the deep growl of something bigger. Hanish also had six new Tiger II’s. The British were going to turn their AEC-III’s on those six old French tanks, but when they saw the King Tigers behind them, no one fired a shot, and they slipped back into the shadows, allowing the tanks to pass.
There, in that brief moment on the road, those tanks, bathed in silver moonlight, were the two ends of this war, the beginning and the end. Next came the disheartened men of KG Kauer, and a great tide followed, the men filling every street and alley of Velp, all heading east through the town in brooding silence. There were so many men, dragging so much equipment, that the road would not carry them. The troops veered into the sodden fields behind the town, trudging off into the night. There they went, Eberwein, Spindler, Krafft, and Allworden—Mollers, Lippert and Helle.
The next morning, under heavy skies, the squeal of bagpipes was heard, wailing through the empty streets of the city. A troop of men in the Hampshire Regiment had taken a fancy to the drone of the sheepskins after hearing how the Highlanders played them on the march. In came the men of the Wessex Division, the “Yellow Devils” as the Germans came to call them, partly because of the distinctive yellow wyvern dragon on their unit patches. To others they would simply be known as “The British SS.” Their uniforms were brown with the mud, arms and faces stained with blood, but they marched smartly behind a forward screen of infantry that had been chasing stray German flak guns and shooing them out of the town. The scurl of the pipes and snap of the drums was a sweet sound to the locals huddled in their cellars that morning.
O’Connor had taken Arnhem.
Night – 27 SEP-44
“The ice has finally broken in the south at Arnhem,” said O’Connor, convening a meeting of his division commanders. “Pip, how is it with the 11th?”
“Nasty business these last two days,” said General Roberts. “The woods are too thick to permit anything but infantry to deploy. Artillery fire in there is murderous, and the tanks are bunched up on the few roads and tracks through the forest.”
“We had much the same down south,” said Adair. “We’ve simply got to find open ground, and leave the woodland to the infantry divisions.”
“Alright,” said O’Connor, “I’ve been looking over the map. There’s an area here, northeast of the Gagenberg. It’s reasonably clear, and with good roads through the woods beyond. That’s where I want Guards Armored. General Thomas, let the 49th take over all the area along the river from Arnhem to Rheden, and mass your division for a push into this open wedge of ground. You’ll hit the Hunkerbosch forest in time, but it will flank them in these woods beyond the Wolfdelsberg. I want to see if we can punch through tomorrow and meet in this clearing, the Groendaal. If we can do that, we’ll crack the 9th SS in half, and outflank all the German Paratroops holding in the woods along the road north from Deeleen. In fact, if you get through too, Pip, we have a good shot at trapping them. But we have to go all out today, through the evening an on to midnight.”
It was as good a plan as the ground permitted. The Germans had chosen to defend this line because the belt of forests ran all the way up to the Zuider Zee. It was as strong a natural position as could be found anywhere in Holland. O’Connor knew that from the outset, but he had six divisions to the enemy’s three now that von Tettau’s troops were on the run, and those were odds that promised victory here.
That night, all of the disparate battalions forming the Westgruppe flowed through the town of Rheden, crossing at the small bridge where the Ijssel made a big loop just east of the town. They would now take up positions defending the east bank of that river to the point where it flowed from the Nieder Rhein. 9th SS anchored its line in the woods just above that loop in the river, along the edge of the forest near Wolfdelsberg and on to the Deelerwoud behind Deeleen. The division was still a cohesive force, but it had taken heavy losses in the unsuccessful fight to try and prevent the envelopment of Arnhem, and it was still trying to hold too much ground.
To the north, 10th SS and 2nd Fallschirmjäger Divisions hung stubbornly at the edge of the Westerwold, the dense woodland west of Apeldoorn. In places the trees were young and thin, but in others there were stout trunks, some in crowded stands where the trees were no more than three to six feet apart. The tanks would be road bound, along narrow tracks. The British had fought for two days to clear the lighter outlying woods and occupy the small village of Hoog Soeren on the road through the Sorenbusch. Now the Westerwold barred the way, studded by those three old forts and the Catgenberg Hill. The trees washed right up to the edge of the city, five kilometers thick. That area might become an impregnable redoubt, but O’Connor had no intention of pressing the issue there. He had identified the weaker areas on the German front, and that’s where he would attack the following day.
The next morning, 11th Armored was fighting to get through the Orderbosch to the clearing O’Connor indicated south of the Catgenberg. That looked to be the only way to get the armor free. The entire division would forsake the forest battle and attempt to break out of the Orderbosch to that clearing beyond. On the afternoon of the 28th, they punched a hole clean through, but Harmel shifted his last reserves down from the Catgenberg region to plug the gap.
At the same time, Harzer’s 9th SS came under heavy attack by 43rd Wessex, and the Guards, supported by elements of the 52nd Lowland Division. Unlike Harmel, he had nothing left in reserve to meet the threat. His division was now holding a 20 kilometer front, opposed by those three British Divisions in an unequal contest that was inevitably going O’Connor’s way.
Adair’s armor swept up from the Gagenberg, attacking through a gap in the woods into an open area known as the Groendaal. On either side of that gap, the Germans held the Deelerwoud woods to the left, and the forest behind Wolfdelsberg on the right, but their line was pierced in the center. If the British got through, there was nothing to block the roads leading north and northeast but two companies of men that had been combed from artillery battalions. The Wessex Division was flanking the Wolfdelsberg position on the right, making good progress through the open ground until they hit a wall of forest called the Hunkerbosch. There they rallied their companies, and prepared to make one final push at sunset.
It was the tremendous pressure on the 9th SS division that was winning the hour. The line was so pressed that troops could not be shifted laterally to try and stop the armored breakthrough. Between these two attacks by Roberts and Adair, the entire 4th Fallschirmjäger Regiment had been holding firm in the Westerwold. If both pincers could get through, that regiment would be trapped in those woods the following day.
While the 11th Armored bashed against the last of General Harmel’s reserves, the big gains were to the south. The Guards broke through, streaming into the open ground of the Groendaal. On their right, the Wessex Division plunged on into the Hunkerbosch woods ready to encounter a stiff enemy defense, but nothing was there. The attack had carried them clean through the German lines. A company of engineers turned northwest when they reached a clearing, and there were the armored cars of the Recon Battalion, Irish Guards. The entire German positi
on behind Wolfdelsberg had been cut off.
Evening – 28-SEP-44
General Walter Harzer knew it was bad when the reports came in to his HQ at the small town of Oldburgen, just across the Ijssel, but he did not yet know how bad things really were. He had been planning to celebrate his 32nd birthday the next day, on the 29th of September, but the action that night would leave him no time for cake and champagne. The situation was very confused, but Harder, with the Panzer Regiment, called to say he thought the British might stop at the forest near dusk. He was wrong.
When the Wessex Division pushed on after sunset, a bad situation that would have been difficult to salvage in the morning then became critical. A runner finally came in with a report that the British appeared to be taking a big bite out of the center of the division front. General Student had come in that night to see how things were going, and with a bottle of brandy as a birthday gift. Now he looked at the SS General, a worried look on his face.
“Well Harzer, what shall we do?”
Harzer took a deep breath, looking at the map. “I think, Herr General, that you had better get your 4th Fallschirmjäger Regiment back out of those forest lands tonight. This General O’Connor is a man of a different sort. Under Montgomery, the action was always slow, plodding at times, and he seldom did anything we did not expect. Now O’Connor is trying to run us right out of Holland! I have to pull Graebner out to try and block these roads tonight. That will expose the southern flank of your regiment. Get them back, as far east as their legs will carry them.”
“Damn,” said Student. “We could have held those woods indefinitely.”
“It can’t be helped. Otherwise they will be having breakfast with the British tomorrow morning.”
The light was fading, and a heavy rain was blowing in. It was going to be another wet, disheartening trudge through a dank forest, ever east, ever closer to the heartland of Germany.
Chapter 23
The question galled Harzer that night. What shall we do? He was soon to learn that the entire right flank of his position had collapsed. Reluctantly, he called General Bittrich to report that he had been unable to stop the enemy offensive, and was going to need substantial help—soon.
What to do?
Harmel had his division well concentrated. All but a single battalion was clustered south of Apeldoorn, screening the city and counterattacking the spearhead of the British breakthrough. Harzer’s advice to Student was well given, for the withdrawal of the 4th Fallschirmjäger Regiment prevented them from being cut off, and also covered Harmel’s southern flank. The trouble was just south of the stalwart paratroopers. Graebner had his recon battalion, and 27 of the original 36 Panthers. He was blocking one route through the remaining woodland, but the British were breaking through to his south. There, all the troops that had been behind the Wolfdelsberg were now cut off, about six companies.
The British had swarmed through that entire area, and reports came that the Tommies had troops in the village of Eerbeek, close to the narrow canal that ran from Apeldoorn south to Dieren. That meant the British were only 10 kilometers from Zutphen on the Ijssel River, and five kilometers from Brummen further south, where there was a good ferry site over the river.
Harzer still had half his division, mostly the Panzergrenadiers under his control. The rest was chaos. His line ran from the Hunkerbosch, where 43rd Wessex had broken through to the north, all the way south to Rheden. The woods behind his front there were four kilometers thick, and he had hoped to hold that area firmly for some time. Now that would be impossible. Even as the 4th Fallschirmjägers had been forced to yield their good positions in the forest, he would have to do the same. He gave orders that the entire front should be pulled back and anchored at Dieren just across the river from his HQ. It would then extend north along that canal.
Seeing Allworden passing with his men in those halftracks, he waved him down, quickly ordering him north on the main road to Apeldoorn, with orders to attack the British at Eerbeek. Then the General got on the telephone to Bittrich to tell him what he was doing.
“I have just spoken with von Rundstedt,” said Bittrich. “He is sending help, so hold on. Harmel is also sending a battalion south now, and 21st Panzer Brigade is already on the way. He moved elements of KG Becker’s Fallschirmjagers west to back up von Tettau’s troops, so don’t worry about them.”
“Will it be enough?” asked Harzer.
“There’s more,” said Bittrich. “Bayerlein is coming with Panzer Lehr .”
“Ah!” said Harzer. “That is good news. Very well, I will do what I can to close the breach, but things are shaky. We had to fall back to the canal.”
“If necessary, get behind the Ijssel. There are not many bridges they can use, and that will buy us some time.”
“Well, that is my problem as well. All I have is the ferry site behind Brummen, so I think I had better try to hold where I am, otherwise they’ll back us right into the river.”
“What about the bridge at Dieren?”
“They’ve taken the town and I had to have it destroyed.”
“Well enough. God knows we won’t be using that bridge again. How bad was it down there?”
“Bad. We have very heavy casualties. I’ll be lucky to have one strong regiment left, so I folded some of the SS Training units into my battalions to help out. From this point forward, you can call us KG Harzer.”
That was a sobering admission on Harzer’s part, but he knew he had six to eight companies out of communications, cut off, and presumed lost in the British tidal wave. It was going to get worse. Sensing the breakthrough at Groendaal was decisive, O’Connor had given orders to his reserve, the entire 6th Canadian Brigade, led by the 8th Recon Regiment. The breakthrough had washed over Eersbeek, bridging engineers racing forward with the troops to quickly bridge the narrow canal, which was only about 60 feet wide. These troops were now surging into the gap between two towns, Eersbeek in the south, and Terhorst, about four kilometers to the northwest.
This was the area where Harmel’s small KG had been sent to try and stem the tide, but they would find themselves outnumbered three to one. Help could not come soon enough. The only bridge the Germans could now use was at Zutphen, which seemed to be where the British were pushing. Generalleutnant Franz Westhoven still had the 21st Panzer Brigade, but Brigadier Berg’s troops were no longer operating with them. After Rhinelander , Berg was down to about 40% ammo for his tanks and APCs, so he went into deep reserve behind the Rhine.
Westhoven’s Brigade was fairly well heeled. They had a good recon battalion, flak company, the 100th Panzer Battalion with 42 PzKfw-IVH, and two battalions of Panzergrenadiers. A Pioneer battalion in halftracks rounded out the brigade, with a single company of ten self propelled artillery pieces, six Wespe and four Hummel. They moved quickly on the rain swept roads, through Doetinchem, where Bittrich had his HQ, and up the good highway to Zutphen.
As Willie Bittrich watched the units roll through the town, he took heart. Behind 21st Panzer came the Lehr Division, and following them, singing as they came, was the Duren Brigade of the Brandenburg Division. The Germans were soon going to even out the odds, but there was a grim lesson in all of this. Bittrich’s watch in the north had not been enough. It now required all the reserves on the Rhine bend behind Emmerich to try and stop O’Connor. If they Americans had also been on the offensive, things would have gone very badly.
That night the 21st Panzer Brigade flowed through Zutphen, across the Ijssel, and on through the village of Tonden. The fields ahead were soft and muddy from the previous day’s heavy rain, but the troops pressed on another two kilometers to approach the area where the Wessex Division was trying to push through. Harzer’s 9th SS had been doing everything to try and stop the enemy advance, committing HQ security squads to the line and artillerymen from units low on ammunition. Now Harzer sighed with relief when these fresh, well equipped and battle hardened Wehrmacht troops finally arrived on the morning of September 30th.
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O’Connor was standing at the wall map, arms behind his back, riding crop in hand, and very intent on something. The sharp German thrust from the Hochwald Layback had been easily stopped, with only the infantry brigade of Erskine’s 7th Armored committed to reinforce the paratroops. He no longer expected any threat there when the 1st SS pulled out, and word came that it was spotted moving east on trains. The intelligence had been correct. It was headed for the East Front, and good riddance, he thought. But where has that Panzer Lehr Division gone?
He soon found out, when a recon plane braved the light rain to confirm that the crack enemy division was spotted in a long column approaching Zutphen. Then news came that 21st Panzer Brigade had deployed to block the 43rd Wessex, at least the single brigade that had been continuing the advance beyond the canal.
The last two days had seen a good advance of 15 kilometers, and forced the Germans to largely withdraw from their positions in the forest. Only close to Apeldoorn itself were they holding on in the woodland. The Wessex Division had done a splendid job, but it was wearing out with the constant fighting. The 6th Canadian Brigade had come up in support, but O’Connor could look two or three moves ahead in this deadly game of chess, and knew the Germans had developed a Rook and Queen here to stop his advance.
Once Panzer Lehr gets into it, he thought, we’ll make no further headway here. Roberts is nose to nose with the bulk of the 10th SS Division near Apeldoorn, the 52nd Lowland is at the edge of the woods up against those Jerry paratroops. Now Lehr will come in with this other Panzer Brigade and stop Adair in his tracks. We’ve been hammer & tongs here for five solid days, some of the hardest fighting we’ve seen, but I’ve one more combination to play out. If Panzer Lehr is here, then who’s minding the store at the Emmerich Bridgehead?
Rhinelander (Kirov Series Book 40) Page 19
