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

by Rick Atkinson

  Afternoon shadows stretched: Bates and Fuller, America’s Weather Warriors, 99–100 (weather had deteriorated); John C. Warren, “Airborne Operations in World War II, European Theater,” 1956, AFHRA, historical study no. 97, 129–33; SLC, 154.

  Of five major objectives: “A Historical Study of Some World War II Airborne Operations,” [1951?], WSEG Staff Study No. 3, CARL, N-17309.1, 22; AAR, JMG, July 25, 1945, Office of Theater Historian, NARA RG 407, E 427-A, CI, folder #171; Margry, ed., Operation Market-Garden Then and Now, vol. 1, 164; SLC, 163–66 (muddled firefight in the dark); Nordyke, All American All the Way, 457 (10th SS Panzer soldiers); Baedeker, Belgium and Holland, 404; Baedeker’s Netherlands, 288 (falcons).

  Nor had the belated arrival of XXX Corps: VW, vol. 2, 37; Forbes, The Grenadier Guards in the War of 1939–1945, vol. 1, 129–33; Margry, ed., Operation Market-Garden Then and Now, vol. 2, 349, 360–63; AAR, “The Capture of Nijmegen Bridge,” XXX Corps, UK NA, WO 205/1125. No Dutchman explained why the detonators would be placed on the wrong side of the bridges to be destroyed (Fitzgerald, History of the Irish Guards in the Second World War, 499–500).

  Enemy commanders were so confident of holding the bridges: Badsey, Arnhem 1944, 43; Forbes, The Grenadier Guards in the War of 1939–1945, vol. 1, 128 (bowled thermite grenades).

  Joining Gavin along the Malden curb: Tucker biographical data, CJR, box 103, folder 23; Chatterton, The Wings of Pegasus, 178 (“air of nonchalance”); Powell, The Devil’s Birthday, 118 (arrived in a nearby cabbage patch); OH, Eddie Newbury, Browning personal secretary, n.d., CJR, box 108, folder 6 (Twirling his mustache); Margry, ed., Operation Market-Garden Then and Now, vol. 2, 344 (airborne smock); office diary, First Allied Airborne Army, Sept. 19, 1944, Floyd Lavinius Parks papers, MHI, box 2 (“extremely pleased”); Badsey, Arnhem 1944, 60 (ink jar).

  Gavin quickly described the predicament: Kershaw, “It Never Snows in September,” 193; SLC, 175; Gavin, On to Berlin, 175, 163 (“tough and confident”); Rosse and Hill, The Story of the Guards Armoured Division, 134–35 (riverfront bandstand); Wills, Put on Your Boots and Parachutes!, 141–43 (on foot and by bicycle); Otis L. Sampson, “My Last Combat Jump,” n.d., Co E, 505th PIR, JMG, MHI, box 15 (wrapping themselves in drapes); corr, JMG to CJR, Oct. 2, 1973, and JMG to M. C. Hustinx, March 8, 1947, CJR, box 101, folders 9 & 10 (six hundred Dutch resistance fighters); Powell, The Devil’s Birthday, 118 (Browning’s radios).

  Colonel Tucker, whose helmet brim: Chatterton, The Wings of Pegasus, 178 (“Every time he did”); Gavin, On to Berlin, 173 (attack the German rear).

  Browning and Adair said little: corr, JMG to CJR, Oct. 2, 1973, CJR, box 101, folder 9 (Horrocks was skeptical); DOB, 347 (Rapido); Gavin, On to Berlin, 170–71 (“never try to fight an entire corps”).

  Two hours later, as dusk sifted: Powell, The Devil’s Birthday, 135; SLC, 153 (only large, long-range air strike); Bredin, Three Assault Landings, 126–28 (Dutch flags abruptly vanished); Margry, ed., Operation Market-Garden Then and Now, vol. 2, 395–97 (“All smiles stopped”).

  No enemy tanks appeared: Powell, The Devil’s Birthday, 135; Brereton, The Brereton Diaries, 349–50 (“flat on our stomachs”); Booth and Spencer, Paratrooper, 228 (“Great fires were burning”).

  “A blind act of malice”: Margry, ed., Operation Market-Garden Then and Now, vol. 2, 395–401.

  The boats were late arriving: Horrocks, Corps Commander, 112 (“For God’s sake, try!”); OH, Giles A. M. Vandeleur, Irish Guards, Aug. 10, 1967, CJR, box 102, folder 17 (there were twenty-six); Rosse and Hill, The Story of the Guards Armoured Division, 137 (“suitable for the quieter rivers”); Ryan, A Bridge Too Far, 406–8 (two paddles); corr, Henry B. Keep to mother, Nov. 20, 1944, JMG, MHI, box 15 (“Daddy’s tin ducking boat”).

  As a Royal Engineer major gave rudimentary instructions: OH, Robert M. Tallon, March 6, 1968, CJR, box 103, folder 20 (“Head them upriver”); Nordyke, More Than Courage, 225 (pork chops); 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; OH, Giles A. M. Vandeleur, Irish Guards, Aug. 10, 1967, CJR, box 102, folder 17 (milky smoke screen); AAR, 3rd Bn, 504th PIR, n.d., NARA RG 407, E 427-A, CI, folder #171 (Four hundred grunting men).

  Instantly German fire from three directions: AAR, 3rd Bn, 504th PIR, n.d., NARA RG 407, E 427-A, CI, folder #171 (“mackerel on the feed”); Ryan, A Bridge Too Far, 406–8; SLC, 180; OH, Robert M. Tallon, March 6, 1968, CJR, box 103, folder 20 (direct hit from a mortar round); Burriss, Strike and Hold, 113–15 (engineer shot through the head), 116–17 (“Thy will be done”); Nordyke, More Than Courage, 234 (“his skull dropped”).

  “It was a horrible, horrible sight”: OH, Giles A. M. Vandeleur, Irish Guards, Aug. 10, 1967, CJR, box 102, folder 17.

  The roar of gunfire and ripping canvas: Nordyke, More Than Courage, 237, 256; Reuben H. Tucker, ts, n.d., CJR, box 103, folder 23 (“look at ’em”).

  Half made the far shore: SLC, 181; AAR, 3rd Bn, 504th PIR, n.d., NARA RG 407, E 427-A, CI, folder #171 (galley slaves).

  “God help anyone in front of us”: Nordyke, More Than Courage, 240.

  “jack-in-the-box shooting”: OH, Theodore Finkbeiner, Jr., March 4, 1968, CJR, box 102, folder 24; SLC, 181.

  One company slaughtered the enemy garrison at Hof: AAR, “The Capture of Nijmegen Bridge,” XXX Corps, UK NA, WO 205/1125; Powell, The Devil’s Birthday, 160; corr, Henry B. Keep to mother, Nov. 20, 1944, JMG, MHI, box 15 (“driven to a fever pitch”).

  Sensing that the day had turned: AAR, Co. A, 1st Bn, 504th PIR, n.d., NARA RG 407, E 427-A, CI, folder #171 (yellow recognition flags); Fitzgerald, History of the Irish Guards in the Second World War, 504 (high in the girders); corr, Henry B. Keep to mother, Nov. 20, 1944, JMG, MHI, box 15 (“gargoyles”); corr, Virgil F. Carmichael, Oct. 13, 1967, CJR, box 102, file 16 (shot trying to surrender); Nordyke, More Than Courage, 260 (“Old German men grab”); Kershaw, “It Never Snows in September,” 211–12 (“throwing our wounded from the bridge”); SLC, 183 (Two hundred and sixty-seven enemy bodies).

  Paratroopers darting through river grass: Nordyke, More Than Courage, 263 (“Roman candle balls”); Forbes, The Grenadier Guards in the War of 1939–1945, vol. 1, 137–38 (skidded sideways); AAR, “The Capture of Nijmegen Bridge,” XXX Corps, UK NA, WO 205/1125 (detonators lashed to a catwalk).

  “The most gallant attack”: Horrocks, Corps Commander, 112; SLC, 183; Kershaw, “It Never Snows in September,” 211–12 (“blow up the bridge”); Nordyke, More Than Courage, 264 (“They’re over the Waal”).

  Montgomery monitored the battle: Hamilton, Monty: The Final Years of the Field-Marshal, 1944–1976, 73, 76, 87–89.

  “Things are going to work out alright”: msg, BLM to DDE, Sept. 20, 1944, DDE Lib, PP-pres, box 83.

  “I regard general situation on rivers”: Powell, The Devil’s Birthday, 184.

  “all was not well”: Randal, A Short History of 30 Corps in the European Campaign, 35.

  “General, you’d better get the hell back here”: OH, JMG, 1975, Donald G. Andrews and Charles H. Ferguson, SOOHP, MHI, JMG papers, box 1.

  Racing to his command post: corr, JMG to MBR, Jan. 27, 1973, CJR, box 102, folder 6; Gavin, On to Berlin, 176–77.

  But troubles in the Anglo-American rear: SLC, 187; “A Historical Study of Some World War II Airborne Operations,” [1951?], WSEG Staff Study No. 3, CARL, N-17309.1 (another 85,000 Germans); John C. Warren, “Airborne Operations in World War II, European Theater,” 1956, AFHRA, historical study no. 97, 150; Margry, ed., Operation Market-Garden Then and Now, vol. 2, 569.

  That same morning, Hell’s Highway: Ryan, A Bridge Too Far, 476–77; Horrocks, A Full Life, 228 (“blackest moment”); SLC, 189–92; Kershaw, “It Never Snows in September,” 283–87 (destroy fifty vehicles).

  The new bridgehead over the Waal: SLC, 184–86; Crosswell, Beetle: The Life of General Walter Bedell Smith, 720 (supplies promised by SHAEF); OH, JMG, 1975, Donald G. Andrews and Charles H. Ferguson, SOOHP, MHI, JMG papers, box
1 (“Why die now?”); corr, JMG to MBR, Jan. 27, 1973, CJR, box 102, folder 6 (found Colonel Tucker in a farmhouse); Powell, The Devil’s Birthday, 162–63 (“What in the hell are they doing?”).

  At 1:30 P.M. on Thursday: AAR, 3rd Battalion, Irish Guards, UK NA, WO 171/1257 (captured German map); SLC, 185 (waited in ambush); Fitzgerald, History of the Irish Guards in the Second World War, 508–9 (“head to tail in silhouette”); Ellis, Welsh Guards at War, 229 (“these sad flat lands”); Margry, ed., Operation Market-Garden Then and Now, vol. 2, 576–77 (“not going to get a yard”).

  “But farther they could not go”: Forbes, The Grenadier Guards in the War of 1939–1945, vol. 1, 141; T. G. Lindsay, “Operation Overlord Plus,” n.d., LHC, 43–44 (plover and pheasant).

  The British survivors at Arnhem were now pinched: Urquhart, Arnhem, 105–7, 131; Saunders, The Red Beret, 242–43 (“I used to watch an apple tree”).

  Between mortar barrages, called “hate” by the British: Powell, The Devil’s Birthday, 208 (“In the Mood”); By Air to Battle, 124–25 (notched their rifle butts); Kershaw, “It Never Snows in September,” 240 (“room to room”); Middlebrook, Arnhem 1944, 344–46 (“You have no idea”); Baynes, Urquhart of Arnhem, 147 (kept the 9th SS Panzer at bay).

  Of nearly 9,000 British soldiers inserted: Middlebrook, Arnhem 1944, 39, 339, 398–400. Urquhart cited eighty-four supply planes lost (AAR, “Airborne Division Report on Operation Market,” 1st Airborne Division, Jan. 10, 1945, CARL, N-5647, 34).

  “Thou shalt not be afraid”: By Air to Battle, 125; http://www.pegasusarchive.org/arnhem/jimmy_cleminson.htm.

  “Our casualties heavy”: Urquhart, Arnhem, 132.

  Relief came, though far too little: Sosabowski, Freely I Served, 152, 156, 164; John C. Warren, “Airborne Operations in World War II, European Theater,” 1956, AFHRA, historical study no. 97, 138–39 (forced many befuddled pilots); Middlebrook, Arnhem 1944, 410–11, 341–43 (narrowing Urquhart’s river frontage); SLC, 186–86; Margry, ed., Operation Market-Garden Then and Now, vol. 2, 588–89.

  A night passed, then another: Chmielewska-Szymańska, Życie i działalność Stanisława Sosabowskiego, 144–45; Sosabowski, Najkrótszą Drogą, 247; Peszke, “The Polish Parachute Brigade in World War II,” Military Affairs (Oct. 1984): 188ff.

  A battalion from the Dorsetshire Regiment: “Pegasus and the Wyvern,” Royal Engineers Journal (March 1946): 22ff.; SLC, 196–97; Powell, The Devil’s Birthday, 215 (“quite useless”); Swiecicki, With the Red Devils at Arnhem, 82 (“Everything would seem to point”).

  When the end came, it came quickly: Horrocks, A Full Life, 230–32; Urquhart, Arnhem, 170–77 (trundled the lightly injured); Badsey, Arnhem 1944, 76 (medical truces).

  “The night was made for clandestine exits”: Powell, The Devil’s Birthday, 221; author visit, May 24, 2009; Badsey, Arnhem 1944, 83 (shuffled through the mud flats); Urquhart, Arnhem, 170–77 (“Let’s be having you”); By Air to Battle, 130 (Cointreau and mugs of tea); Margry, ed., Operation Market-Garden Then and Now, vol. 2, 684.

  Dawn caught the division: “Pegasus and the Wyvern,” Royal Engineers Journal (March 1946): 22+; Tucholski, Spadochronowa opowieść, czyli o żołnierzach gen. Sosabowskiego i cichociemnych, 72–73 (flailed for the southern bank); Waddy, A Tour of the Arnhem Battlefields, 177 (only four of twenty-five aboard).

  Urquhart was among those: Urquhart, Arnhem, 179–80.

  “You did all you could”: Baynes, Urquhart of Arnhem, 151. Historian Max Hastings concluded that Browning “displayed shameful incompetence and merited dismissal with ignominy” (Inferno, 561).

  In the small hours of Friday, September 29: “Germans Use Expert Swimmers to Mine Dutch Bridges,” Military Intelligence Service, no. 25, Jan. 1945, NARA RG 498, ETO HD, admin file #494L, 61+; Margry, ed., Operation Market-Garden Then and Now, vol. 2, 706–7 (air cylinders); “Forced Crossing of the Rhine, 1945,” Aug. 1945, CE, Historical Report No. 20, CEOH, box X-32, folder 20, 14; Randal, A Short History of 30 Corps in the European Campaign, 38.

  This rude gesture hardly dampened: Powell, The Devil’s Birthday, 232 (“decided victory”); Brereton, The Brereton Diaries, 360–61 (“brilliant success”); Hart-Davis, ed., King’s Counsellor, 258 (“well pleased with the gross result”); AAR, Operation Market Garden, 21st AG, n.d., CARL, R-13333, 115 (“90 percent successful”); Orange, Tedder: Quietly in Command, 279 (“one jumps off a cliff”); OH, F.A.M. Browning, Feb. 1955, NARA RG 319, SLC background papers, 2-3.7 CB 3 (“Who was to tell”); SLC, 198 (“We have no regrets”).

  Brave words from a division commander: Middlebrook, Arnhem 1944, 445; SLC, 200 (losses in MARKET approached 12,000); VW, vol. 2, 54 (in 17,000 air sorties); Ryan, A Bridge Too Far, 523; Kershaw, “It Never Snows in September,” 311 (total German losses); De Slag Om Arnhem, 24 (went on finding skeletons). A recent German study puts Model’s losses around Arnhem alone at 3,300 (Ludewig, Rückzug, 278).

  Even decided victories and brilliant successes: AAR, Operation Market Garden, 21st AG, n.d., CARL, R-13333, 115 (Montgomery blamed the weather); AAR, “Operations in Holland,” First Allied Airborne Army, Dec. 1944, NARA RG 334, E 315, ANSCOL, Act R A-104, box 62; Brereton, The Brereton Diaries, 360–61.

  Browning blamed Sosabowski: In 2006, Queen Beatrix awarded the Bronze Lion to Sosabowski, who died in 1967 (Dreel ferry signage, author visit, May 24, 2009. www.ww2awards.com/person/34944).

  “too busy fighting Eisenhower”: Baynes, Urquhart of Arnhem, 160, 167 (“a bit more constructive criticism”).

  “a single controlling mind”: ibid., 159.

  Horrocks at least had the grace: Horrocks, A Full Life, 231; Keegan, ed., Churchill’s Generals, 236–38 (had failed to keep a senior Dutch officer).

  Several hundred fugitive Allied troops: brochure, “Airborne Museum ‘Hartenstein,’” Oosterbeek, author visit, May 2009, 12–13; Badsey, Arnhem 1944, 83–85; Middlebrook, Arnhem 1944, 439 (more than six thousand others); Hastings, Armageddon, 56 (“Green grow the rushes”); Arthur, Forgotten Voices of World War II, 364 (“show these bastards”).

  The Dutch too would tramp away: “Freedom Trail Arnhem,” n.d., city of Arnhem, author visit, May 24, 2009; Powell, The Devil’s Birthday, 229 (plundered the city and eating dogs and tulip bulbs); Saunders, The Red Beret, 262 (execution of fifty resistance members); VW, vol. 2, 416–17 (rail strike); Nijmegen signage, author visit, May 22, 2009 (five thousand buildings); Hitchcock, The Bitter Road to Freedom, 122 (sixteen thousand died of starvation); Urquhart, A Life in Peace and War, 75 (“can never again afford”).

  21st Army Group had nearly doubled the perimeter: SLC, 204–5.

  That task would entangle most of Second Army: Rapport and Northwood, Rendezvous with Destiny, 381 (oxtail soup); Arthur, Forgotten Voices of World War II, 368 (empty oil drums); Fauntleroy, The General and His Daughter, 134–35 (“I’d be mortified”); SLC, 206 (another 3,600 casualties); corr, JMG to MBR, Oct. 3, 1944, MBR papers, MHI, box 21 (“much more vicious”); T. G. Lindsay, “Operation Overlord Plus,” n.d., LHC, 54–55 (which they stalked on ice skates).

  “an epic cock-up”: Arthur, Forgotten Voices of World War II, 346–47.

  Eisenhower offered Montgomery a fistful: corr, DDE to BLM, Oct. 11, 1944, DDE Lib, PP-pres, box 83.

  Montgomery shifted his command post: Biographer Nigel Hamilton considered MARKET GARDEN to be “Monty’s worst mistake of the war” (Monty: Final Years of the Field-Marshal, 1944–1976, 56, 97, 115).

  “will not affect operations eastward”: Fraser, And We Shall Shock Them, 348.

  “the last occasion of the war”: Hastings, Armageddon, 60–61.

  “The opening of the port”: BLM, M-527, Sept. 27, 1944, National Archives of Canada, RG 24, vol. 1054 2, file 215A21.016(9).

  “There was a change of mood after Arnhem”: Hastings, Armageddon, 141.

  “The picture is not very good”: diary, Sept. 24, 1944, Raymond G. Moses papers, MHI, box 1.

  “I am not looking forward to the winter”: Fauntleroy, The General an
d His Daughter, 57.

  CHAPTER 6: THE IMPLICATED WOODS

  Charlemagne’s Tomb

  For the most loyal Germans: “Concise Guide to Aachen Cathedral,” n.d., Europäische Stiftung für den Aachener Dom, www.aachendom.de; “Aachen at a Glance,” Aachen Tourist Service, author visit, Sept. 25–27, 2009.

  It was said that the fearless burghers: Friedrich, The Fire, 116–17, 246–47.

  Now smoke rose from Aachen again: SLC, 252 (First Army had narrowed its front), 281–84 (eighteen thousand German troops); “Aachen: Military Operations in Urban Terrain,” 26th Infantry Regiment Association, 49 (Seventy-four American gun batteries); Middleton, Our Share of Night, 345 (“gray and brown mass”).

  To help VII Corps complete Aachen’s encirclement: “Breaching the Siegfried Line,” XIX Corps, Oct. 2, 1944, Charles H. Corlett papers, MHI, box 1, 9–15 (Napalm fizzled); SLC, 260–61, 279–80 (“We have a hole”), 294 (“job is finished”).

  Hobbs was dead wrong: “German Reaction to XIX Corps Breakthrough Siegfried Line, 2–16 Oct., 1944,” n.d., NARA RG 407, ML, box 24130; SLC, 287 (huge white cross); “Battle of Aachen, 18th Infantry Regiment,” n.d., NARA RG 407, E 427-A, CI (gobbled down the breakfast).

  Field Marshal Rundstedt warned Berlin: SLC, 299n; Wheeler, The Big Red One, 337 (hardly a mile separated); “The Fall of Aachen,” n.d., Stanhope Mason papers, MRC FDM, 1994.126 (“no middle course”).

  Lest the Germans miss the message: “The Fall of Aachen,” n.d., Stanhope Mason papers, MRC FDM, 1994.126; “Aachen: Military Operations in Urban Terrain,” 26th Infantry Regiment Association, 17–18.

  Aachen’s dismemberment began in earnest: “Aachen: Military Operations in Urban Terrain,” 26th Infantry Regiment Association, 17–18; Daniel, “The Capture of Aachen,” lecture, CO, 2nd Bn, 26th Inf, n.d., Quantico, Va., 8–11 (tossed one thousand grenades).

  They found a “sterile sea of rubble”: SLC, 308, 289; Daniel, “The Capture of Aachen,” lecture, CO, 2nd Bn, 26th Inf, n.d., Quantico, Va., 5 (“Knock ’em all down!”).