The British glider pilots, who were organized as ground troops in a special glider pilot regiment, made a much better combat showing in ‘Market’ than the American glider pilots, who were simply an element within the troop carrier squadrons. This contrast gave rise to proposals that the American glider pilots be put under the command of the airborne divisions to make good soldiers of them. A conclusive answer to that was given by General Ridgway, who observed that since the primary duty of glider pilots was to fly gliders, they belonged with the troop carriers.
The idea has been advanced that, had the American glider pilots been comparable to the British as soldiers, the 82nd Division could have sent them to the front in place of a regimental combat team and could have used the RCT to take the Nijmegen bridge on 19 September. This theory apparently rests on the fallacious assumption that the Americans, like the British, had co-pilots in their gliders and that therefore over 900 glider pilots were available. Since only a handful of co-pilots were used, it is clear after allowance for wounds, accidents and releases in distant or hostile territory that the 82nd Division could not possibly have mustered as many as 450 glider pilots at any time up to the afternoon of D+6.
Moreover, a large proportion of those it did have were engaged in essential duties, which someone would have had to do. Thus the net gain to the division from having the glider pilots organized as infantry would have been on the order of a company rather than a regiment.
The question of why they did not do better should be considered in connection with the situation then existing. It was standard procedure to collect both British and American glider pilots at divisional CP’s, use them for guard and supply duties and evacuate them as soon as possible for employment in subsequent missions. Instructions for ‘Market’ specified that they were to be used at the front only as a last resort. Nevertheless, they should have been trained for such an emergency and were not.
The equipment and briefing of the glider pilots was also unsuitable for a mission such as ‘Market’. They were given no compasses; about half of them got no maps of their destination; and the others received only a single map on a scale of 1:100,000. Most seem to have had a rather indistinct blow-up of a high-altitude photograph of the landing area. The briefings were more concerned with the landing fields than with the surrounding terrain and said little of how and where the airborne units intended to deploy.
The 101st Division, which had a broad, open zone and an efficient glider reception party, assembled its glider pilots quite successfully, but most of the 82nd Division’s gliders on D+1 had to land in rough, partly wooded areas some distance from their zones and in circumstances of great confusion because of the enemy offensive out of the Reichswald. Since the pilots of those gliders commonly had little knowledge of the terrain, very little idea of where they were and no maps or compasses with which to orient themselves, it is not surprising that many, having been separated from their comrades by some mishap, wandered about for as much as a day before finding their way to the CP.
Once assembled, the glider pilots were an amorphous mass, almost without organization and hard to handle because few knew anyone outside the 70 or 80 men from their own group. The senior glider officer in the 82nd Division’s area attempted to exercise authority, but he had little to build on. He had no staff and no formal chain of command. The group and squadron staffs who ordinarily administered and commanded the glider pilots were back in England. He was from the 50th Wing and the bulk of the pilots, being from the 52nd Wing, did not know him, questioned his authority and had no faith in his competence. After all, even the most disciplined infantry do better with officers whom they know.
Because of the lack of organization and because the officer in command could not be everywhere; details were sent out on the authority of junior airborne and glider officers without record or coordination. Furthermore, although few glider pilots left the assembly or bivouac areas without permission, a pilot not on detail could almost always get permission from someone, usually the ranking officer of his squadron or his group, to set out for home in accordance with the policy of quick evacuation. Thus many glider pilots were freed from military control to wander about on their own, hitchhiking, fighting; and sometimes just sight-seeing. The American glider pilots in ‘Market’ were under handicaps which made them seem less disciplined and competent than they were. They did need more infantry training. They did need to have a coherent and effective organization of their own instead of being the fifth wheels of the troop carrier squadrons. They also needed compasses, detailed maps and a more efficient assembly system. Had these needs been met their performance would probably have satisfied their critics. One step in that direction was taken when, shortly after ‘Market’, General Brereton ordered that all glider pilots be given broader and continuing combat training.
‘Market’ was the first major test of resupply by air and the test demonstrated that it was, though practicable, both inefficient and hazardous and beset with unsolved problems. One problem was capacity. Approximately 200 C-47s were required to carry the 265 tons a day of automatic supply set up for the 82nd Division. Stirlings could carry three tons apiece, but 38 Group had scarcely enough of them to meet the needs of one British division. While 250 converted B-24 Liberators had supplied the two American airborne divisions fairly well on D+1 and could have done better with a little more experience, the 8th Air Force, which felt its participation in ‘Market’ had seriously interrupted its bombing programme, could not be expected to loan its B-24 groups frequently or for long.
The tendency to dispersion inherent in a paradrop was accentuated by the multiplicity of small bundles and containers and by delays in getting bundles out the relatively small side door of the C-47 without the help of conveyors.37 As a result supply collection consumed an excessive amount of manpower. General Gavin was not exaggerating much when he estimated that prompt and efficient collection would take a third of his men. Obviously nothing like that number could be spared during a battle.
No such supply fiasco as had occurred in ‘Neptune’ took place in ‘Market’. However, at the most generous estimate 1 Airborne Division got less than 15 percent of the supplies dropped to it, the 101st Division got less than 50 percent of its supplies and the 82nd less than 70 percent. Much less would have been retrieved, particularly in the case of the 82nd Division, had not the Dutch been exceptionally helpful and honest. All three airborne divisions concluded that the bulk-loaded glider was a far more efficient means of supply than the parachute. However, gliders were so expensive and so vulnerable to bad weather or enemy action that parachute resupply still had to be relied on.
One of the features of a resupply schedule to isolated troops is its inflexibility. The missions must be flown or the men will die. The British learned at Arnhem just how risky such missions could become. Out of 630 planes sent on resupply missions they lost 52, an average of 8.5 percent and had 281 planes, 44 percent of the total, damaged. They considered losses on this scale unacceptable except in emergencies. Suggested remedies included high-altitude dropping, which was notoriously inaccurate with the techniques then used 38 and drops from a pull-up after a low-level approach, a tactic which made navigation very difficult and was unlikely to reduce losses when the enemy was massed near the drop point. Probably aware of such objections, the RAF commanders arranged to have supplies - delivered in the bomb racks of fighter-bombers of 83 Group and were about to try this experiment when 1 Airborne was evacuated. This abdication by the British troop carriers is striking evidence that the hazards of resupply had not been sufficiently appreciated.38
In spite of its failure and in spite of some mistakes, ‘Market’ was from the troop carrier point of view a brilliant success. The divisional commanders and the Polish brigade commander were unanimous in praising the skill and courage of the troop carrier crews and in calling the missions the best they had ever had in combat or even in training.
The bold decision to fly by daylight had proven safe and successf
ul. In the first two days, before the enemy could react effectively, troop carrier losses had averaged less than 3 percent and only one major American mission had losses heavier than 5 percent. Operation by daylight not only brought a tremendous increase in navigational accuracy, it also cut the assembly time of the airborne to one-third that normally required at night. The average assembly time for a regiment was 45 minutes and almost all regiments and smaller units were able to assemble at 80 to 100 percent of strength within an hour of arrival. The excellent drop given the 376th Field Artillery was especially noteworthy as proving that by daylight artillery could be dropped successfully to support paratroop infantry.
Cautious critics qualified their praise of this achievement by noting that crushing air superiority had been needed in ‘Market’ to protect airborne missions in daylight from enemy aircraft and flak. Some 5,200 sorties had been flown to protect the troop carriers from the remnants of the Luftwaffe and to neutralize anti-aircraft batteries. Flak suppression had proven both difficult and dangerous against well-camouflaged opponents who knew when to hold their fire. Nevertheless, the guns had been silenced. As for the Luftwaffe, it was never able to break through the cordon of Allied fighters. Its only successful attacks against the troop carriers were made on one occasion when arrangements for escort and cover had broken down.
Helpful as daylight was, it did not eliminate the need for pathfinders. The three serials which missed the mark in the initial paratroop drops were all trying to hit unmarked zones. The British, as a result of their difficulties in locating obscure supply drop points, were emphatic in recommending maximum use of visual aids.
Among the most significant and successful innovations were the use of alternate routes and multiple traffic lanes. The former had paid high dividends on D+1 when shifting from the southern to the northern route saved that day’s missions from being grounded. The latter had proven that it was possible to cut the long troop carrier columns in half or even in quarters and send the segments in abreast so that a whole division might be landed in an hour.
When all is said, it is neither the monumental size nor the operational intricacies of ‘Market’ which linger longest in the memory. It is the heroism of the men who flew burning, disintegrating planes over their zones as coolly as if on review and gave their lives to get the last trooper out, the last bundle dropped. It is the stubborn courage of the airborne troops who would not surrender though an army came against them. In the sense that both troop carrier crews and airborne troops did all that men could do, there was, as Gavin said, no failure in ‘Market’.
A few months previously Flight Lieutenant A. A. Williams had joined SHAEF Joint Field Censorship Group and censors were needed to accompany the Public Relations party, which included BBC and the press reporters. He was the only member of the RAF to be dropped with the ground forces. ‘What the hell are you sticking your neck out in this lot for?’ said an old squadron leader friend in the mess at the airfield of our embarkation. The full significance of his remark failed then to register, but within a few hours I was to know what he meant. Four years as an intelligence officer on Fighter Command stations was scarcely a fitting preparation for an airborne operation and for the ‘Hell of Arnhem’ at that. But, looking back and packed with excitement as every minute of those momentous ten days and nights were, I now know that I would not have missed one minute of it all. It seems now that, for me, all the wars in history were packed into those brief ten days.
‘The enemy was undoubtedly taken by surprise; the weather was favourable. The German General Staff, however, recovered rapidly within a short time of the initial landings as to extemporize a formidable reply. Apparently resigning himself to conceding to the advancing British 2nd Army the two bridges at Eindhoven and Nijmegen, the enemy concentrated all his available and formidable forces, with powerful reinforcements from Northern Holland and Germany itself, in his savage and desperate endeavour to annihilate the small force that alone stood in his way to the consolidation of his positions in defence of one of the most formidable natural barriers in Europe.
‘By holding Arnhem as they did, the 1st Airborne Division achieved a great part of their object by preventing its use by the Germans as a short route to reinforce their troops defending the vital bridge farther south, at Nijmegen. General Eisenhower has stated that the results achieved by the division were of incalculable value. The enemy reinforcements which the ‘Red Devils’ fought and held at Arnhem were the best troops he had available. The utmost savagery with which he fought - formidable 88s, self-propelled guns, six-inch mortars, numerous tanks, flame-throwers, machine guns and snipers, all concentrated upon a position that had shrunk to a bare thousand yards square - was sufficient proof of his intention to hold Arnhem at all costs. It is said that between 12,000 and 15,000 Germans were killed. At least 25 tanks and many SP guns were destroyed by a force whose armaments, glider-borne as they were, were severely limited not only in numbers, but also in size.
‘As an RAF officer, with little experience of military operations or of the Army in general, let me say at once that those soldiers were magnificent. No words of mine can describe with anything approaching adequacy the calm confidence and debonair bearing of the officers, the sheer determination and eagerness of their men, to smash tanks and to kill as many Germans as possible. As the days went by, when the position became more and more critical and the already small perimeter of operations was being gradually reduced under great pressure; when ammunition dwindled and food and water became non-existent, the stark determination of these supermen increased. So often has the word ‘heroes’ been heard during this grim war that it is in danger of growing trite. But these airborne soldiers were magnificent indeed. As the story of their heroic battle against every sort of odds has been unfolded, it is fitting that the whole world, not excluding even Germany, has paid tribute to the epic character of the 1st Airborne Division’s stand at Arnhem. ‘The scenes at the airfield of our embarkation were unforgettable. Hundreds of Horsa gliders, numbered and spick and span, awaited the split-second timing of attachment to the giant Stirlings and the take-off. One had the impression of a huge race-course paddock - hundreds of thoroughbreds being saddled and cantering up the ‘straight’ - in this case the wide runway - to the starting-post. Everyone was in holiday mood, but for sheer efficiency and accuracy of ‘timing’ it approached perfection. At last our turn came. ‘All aboard!’ said the sergeant pilot, with a wide grin. Jeep and trailer, packed with vital radio apparatus and other gear, had been previously loaded and securely clamped down. The last cigarette, the last ‘Good luck everybody!’ and my first glider flight had begun. People would be going to church now, I thought. The huge air armada, with the tremendous roar of its engines, must have been somewhat disturbing for the good citizens of Southern England. But to us, off on a great adventure, it was indeed thrilling. ‘You may stand at the back of the cockpit,’ the pilot told us. How peaceful and beautiful the English countryside looked that Sunday morning!
‘Trouble began early; in fact, before we even crossed the Dutch coast. Flak! A noise like a thousand woodpeckers pecking at the bottom of our glider. Big holes torn in the wings. Not until we actually landed did we know that our Signals staff sergeant had been hit in three places. Not a word did he say about it for the rest of the journey. At last our pilot turned and pointed downwards. There, between patches of beautiful woods, in a stubble clearing sat dozens and dozens of gliders. Most had made perfect landings; a few had come to grief; wings torn off through colliding with trees; some had side-slipped in. How can we possibly get down among that lot? I thought. But - by a miracle it seemed to my uninitiated eye - our grinning pilot found a lane and made a wizard landing. For a moment we all looked at each other and then - action! ‘We had landed right in the middle of a major war. Fierce fighting was going on in the woods all around. Bullets whistled over our heads as we set about unloading. It was then we discovered that the staff sergeant was badly wounded. A hasty field dressing was all
we could do. Jeep and trailer unloaded, we piled in, the wounded man made as comfortable as possible. Then followed a nightmare ride through the woods, through a din of bullets and the rat-tat-tat of machine guns. We had our rendezvous, but our first objective was the casualty station. This proved lucky for us, really, for we actually took what was perhaps the only ‘safe’ lane through those woods.
‘Eventually we hit a road leading to the main Arnhem highway. Pleasant Dutch farms came into view. Outside of one a group of Dutch people, obviously beside themselves with delight at our coming, greeted us with the traditional ‘V’ sign. There were the old and the quite young - we saw few of military age. Very friendly and in typically Dutch style, long wide trousers and peak caps. We gave them chocolate from our smock pockets. How delighted they all were!
‘Oosterbeek is a pretty village of artistically designed villas. That is - it was! In the centre stood a large house, obviously a country sports club in peacetime, with a really charming wooded part, of stately beech trees and laurel bushes, adjoining. This was to be divisional headquarters; our home for nine days of sheer hell. A target of major importance to the ever-closing-in enemy, he gave us all he had to give, a simply terrific pounding - shells, mortars, machine guns and snipers in the adjoining woods - for the whole nine days and nights.
A Bridge Too Far Page 14