by Ian Gardner
Ken Johnson’s squad came across a farmhouse with a large pigpen containing a sow and about a dozen piglets. “My buddy jumped over the fence and grabbed one of the offspring, which instantly began squealing for its mother. Despite being hungry I asked him to put it back. The guy flatly refused, until I told him that he had a mother who loved, cared, and prayed for him just like the little critter he was now holding in his hands. I guess conscience got the better and he kissed the piglet on the forehead before placing it back in the pen with its brothers and sisters.”
Cowboys and Indians
From time to time the British directed a battery of low-intensity spotlights across the river. The heavy cloud base common at this time of year allowed ambient light to reflect downwards onto the enemy held ground. The artificial “moonlight” lit up the area in front of the MLR, effectively silhouetting all German movement on the northern bank. One night in the I Company sector, Harold Stedman was just finishing his stint on OP duty in an old building close to the river: “There was about 300 yards of open ground between the dike and the outpost line of resistance [OPLR],” recalled Harold. “From our OP we had a direct radio link to whoever was manning the 60mm mortar. At the first sign of movement or noise out on the river the guy on duty would call for a parachute flare. If an enemy patrol was trying to cross, the OP would then call in a fire mission from the mortar team before alerting Andy Anderson… Around midnight, I rode back to our RV on the company bicycle to where Frank Lujan was waiting. Handing Frank the bike, I told him there was nothing happening, and headed off to my foxhole.” Lujan never returned from his shift and a couple of days later, Stedman heard via “Arnhem Annie” that his best friend had been captured and executed.
The German radio station hosted by “Arnhem Annie” entertained the Allied troops by playing swing and big band music, intercut with propaganda and calls for the Allies on the Island to surrender. One of Annie’s more popular lines was “Just bring a toothbrush, overcoat, blanket and come across the river where you will be treated like kings.” In a cheeky response, A/506 actually sent a patrol across the Rijn and left a toothbrush, coat, and blanket with a short note labelled for the attention of Annie. It later transpired that Frank Lujan was not executed, and after the war he told Stedman that a party of around 15 enemy soldiers had captured and taken him back across the river: “The Germans ‘liberated’ Frank’s jumpboots before marching him all the way to a prison camp in East Prussia.”
Shortly after Lujan’s abduction, Harold Stedman was helping a wounded colleague to the company aid post when he came close to death: “On the way back, I heard [a noise] and decided to crawl up the embankment when something else suddenly gained my attention! Looking down, I was shocked that my hands were now between the trigger wires of an ‘S’ mine, known to us as a ‘Bouncing Betty.’When tripped, the partially buried German anti-personnel mine would launch into the air and explode, showering the area with high-velocity steel ball bearings. Carefully raising my hands, I slowly backed away but it was a miracle that the thing didn’t go off.”
Bob Webb was working with a colleague down by the river in the G Company area and recalls an equally sticky moment:
We entered a house and walked right in on four isolated enemy soldiers [probably from 10th Naval Training Battalion or 26th Security Battalion], who surrendered without a fight.
Before we could do anything, two SS soldiers [most likely from 5th SS Panzer Grenadiers], presumably from the same patrol, entered the room and forced us to squat on the ground, hands on heads against the wall. Things really started to look bad when one of the SS men, a sergeant, started to argue our fate with the other soldiers. Help was at hand when a couple of G Company guys burst in and took control. Five of the enemy soldiers instantly put down their weapons and took a step back except for the SS sergeant. The tension began to mount as we speculated what might happen next and much to our relief, the sergeant surrendered.
Evacuating the Island
Between October 19 and 21, the Allies ordered the evacuation of thousands of the women and children from Dodewaard, Hemmen, and Zetten, while villages further east, such as Andelst and Valburg, were evacuated at a later date. By and large most of the families were put on boats and sent across the Waal as Frits van Schaik recalls: “My parents, who came from Dodewaard, filled a wheelbarrow with as much food and clothing as they could carry and walked to the embarkation point at Slijk-Ewijk.”
Clazien Hermse recalls the evacuation of her family from Hien: “At the time my dad remained behind because the authorities wanted the men to help round up abandoned livestock. The rest of us, including my mum and brother, were driven by the British to Slijk-Ewijk, where we crossed the river and were sent to the Albertijnen Klooster [convent] at Heesch, near Nijmegen. Here we were allocated small rooms, called cells, that had previously been occupied by monks. Sleeping on straw-covered floors, everybody soon became infested with fleas and lice. After being disinfected with DTT, we were moved to Tilburg where the factories could provide more space for the growing numbers of refugees.”
Because he was already a refugee, Wim de Bosch’s evacuation was slightly different as he briefly recounts: “As we were being transported by cart to Andelst, there was a restriction of two bicycles per family and after crossing the Waal we were driven in a convoy of British trucks to Neerbosch en Nistelrode, near Eindhoven.”
Zetten was the last village in the immediate battle area to be evacuated, as Jannie Arnoldussen recalls.
After boarding American and Canadian army vehicles, we were transported to the cloister at Heesch. The following day we moved a further 50 miles southwest to the Van Arendonk shoe factory in Tilburg. My mother had just been given a pile of blankets and allocated a space on the factory floor, when she bumped into her brother, who was living with his wife above a local café, and he kindly invited us to stay with them. The evacuation was a difficult time for everyone, and we survived on a diet of horsemeat, soda crackers, and soup provided by mobile kitchens. But life still went on and and rather bizarrely in December, I got a job working for the Hema Company.* making Christmas decorations!
After arriving at a wool factory in Tilburg, teenager Daan Viergever and his family (also from Zetten) were taken to a private house by local boy scouts, who helped carry and unpack their belongings as Daan recalls: “Our hosts were Kees and Cor Beers, along with their 22-yearold daughter Corrie. I instantly fell in love with the gorgeous raven-haired beauty, who was always listening to the Philips Corporation radio station ‘Horizon Nederland’ which broadcast dance-band music and news from ‘free’ Eindhoven.”
Bandit country
On October 21, 3rd Bn were preparing to hand over control of their sector to 1st Bn. H Co’s 1 Ptn and 3 Ptn were asked to remain and help support a forthcoming mission to rescue a group of British paratroopers from the Veluwe. Three separate five-man night patrols were sent across the river to Wageningen, one of which was led by Alex Andros from 3 Ptn with Capt Bill Leach (Regt S-2). Leach needed intelligence on enemy troop strength, possible OPs, and a Nebelwerfer position, which had been causing problems along the MLR.
The team would be crossing the river underneath an intermittent barrage from a pair of 40mm Bofors antiaircraft guns, belonging to the 81st Antiaircraft Battalion. Andros selected four men, Sgt George Montilio, Mike Eliuk, Jim McCann, and S. O. Phillips, and recalls, “I was amused to learn that the regiment had very unimaginatively hidden several small rubber rafts in an old boathouse down by the river, especially for the patrols to use. After safely crossing the Rijn, we left big Mike Eliuk (who was one of our strongest guys) to guard the dinghy, and headed across a wide flood plain towards the tree line.”
While crossing the open ground, Montilio and Andros heard the click of a rifle bolt and stopped dead in their tracks. “It was obviously someone on outpost duty but we weren’t sure if we should change our route or even go back,” recalls Andros,
but I decided to hell with it and we carried on. Alt
hough Wageningen was quiet, we spotted a couple of mortar positions and several 88mm gun sites in the distance. Before moving westwards into the suburbs we stopped for a short period to observe three enemy soldiers laying communications wire.
The abandoned mansions in this part of the town were clearly occupied by the Germans, as we could see the odd sliver of light emanating from some of the cellars. We tried to stay off the main drag but ended up climbing over dozens of garden fences, which really slowed us down, so reluctantly we returned to the road. After carefully retracing our steps to the river, we were relieved to find Mike Eliuk waiting patiently by the boat. Paddling back we were just approaching the southern bank, when our own forces opened up with rifle fire and hand grenades. Realizing the mistake they quickly stopped, but it was lucky that none of us was hurt!
Capt Leach woke Col Sink when the patrol reported to Regimental CP at the church in Zetten. Bleary-eyed he thanked the men for a job well done and told them to go and get breakfast. “Mike Eliuk and I spotted a bottle of brandy and some glasses on a table in the back room of the CP,” recalled Spencer Phillips. “We poured ourselves a drink and were just about to take a sip when Sink walked in. Although the old man gave us a fierce look, he never said a darn word as we gulped down our drinks and saluted.”
* Max Nathan survived the war and used the money given to the Den Hartogs to start a new life in Israel.
* Hema “Hollandse Eeheidsprijzen Maatschappij” or Holland Uniform Prices Company was a chain of cheap department stores.
12
“Operation Pegasus I”
The rescue of the British Paras – October 22, 1944
Second Lieutenant Ed Shames had recently taken command of E Co’s 3 Ptn and was assigned to outpost the dijk between Heteren and Randwijk, despite the fact that the remainder of the 2nd Bn was now in divisional reserve. The platoon CP was located three miles away to the west in the ruins of a fruit-processing factory in the Drielsche Zeeg area. Uncompromising, “the Mutiny Platoon,” led by a rumbunctious senior NCO, had earned itself a ramshackle reputation with its own code and ethics, but things were about to change. “I was informed word had gone around that some ‘hard-ass’ former first sergeant was taking over and the men were intent on showing me who was boss,” recalls Ed. “On my first day I called a meeting at the factory. Twenty percent of the platoon failed to turn up including the platoon sergeant. I made it clear that we would reconvene the following morning and expected ‘ALL’ repeat ‘ALL’ to be present.”
The next day everyone was in attendance except for the sergeant. “It was clear that this guy had no place in my world,” remembers Ed. “I spoke passionately and frankly to the men and informed them that I was replacing their former leader with 25-year-old Sgt Paul ‘Hayseed’ Rogers. I had noticed Paul previously during my role as operations sergeant and was impressed by his quiet countryboy honesty and military professionalism.”
Looking around the room Shames continued, “As you know we have been designated as ‘Regimental Patrols Platoon.’ I’m not sure that this is any kind of an honor as most likely we will be getting the garbage and the danger that goes with it. I’m gonna bend the ‘rules’ governing night-patrolling and from now on everytime we go out, I’ll be going with you … this is the way it should and will be.”
The members of 3 Ptn seemed to appreciate Shames’ sentiment and he could feel the atmosphere in the room changing in his favor. “I am a perfectionist, and although it is not always possible to attain, we will bust a gut trying. There are two reasons for this. The first is to accomplish whatever mission we are given and secondly, if we understand our role inside and out, then we will have a better chance of getting home and it is my job to get you home. I didn’t come here to be loved but I would want you to respect me … if I earn it. Likewise, I expect you to prove yourselves as soldiers and individuals – if not you’ll be out of here before you know it!”
The patrol sector for 3 Ptn was a large area from the fruit-processing factory, to the windmill at Heteren, to the brick factory near Randwijk. At the time Ed Shames was lucky to have Pvt Robert McArdle as his runner. McArdle was a resourceful man who could beg, borrow, and steal virtually anything as Shames fondly remembers:
We had an abundance of cherries and 29-year-old “Mac” turned out to be brilliant at trading them for all manner of other goods and supplies. Because of the distances between OPs, “Mac” managed to procure a step-through moped that I used to check on the defenses like some kind of crazed commuter. We called the windmill in the east of our sector [owned by the Aalbers family who were corn dealers from Heteren] “Fire at Will” due to the heavy shelling it constantly received. During my first week with the platoon, I remember riding on the “putt putt” to drop off Cpl Walter Gordon for OP duty at the windmill, when the Germans opened up with an 88 from across the river. The rounds were landing all around as we hurtled along the dike towards the mill. All the while Gordon was shouting in my ear at the top of his voice, “God dammit sir you’re gonna get us both killed like this!” All we could do was grit our teeth and laugh like lunatics, as I squeezed the last ounce of speed out of the bike.
On the night of October 15, a man swam across the river and came ashore directly opposite one of the listening posts in the 3 Ptn sector. “A couple of my people near the brick factory challenged the guy, only to be told that he was a British paratroop officer with an important message for Second Army,” recalled Ed Shames. “Initially I found it hard to believe because the river at this point was much wider, extremely fast-flowing and bitterly cold. I explained who we were and after a short ‘interrogation’ the British officer requested a meeting with Colonel Sink.”
The swimmer was LtCol David Dobie, commanding officer of 1st Bn, the Parachute Regiment. Thirty-two-year-old Dobie had been captured at Arnhem on September 19, along with his adjutant, Maj Nigel Grove. Wounded by shrapnel, both men were taken to a German military hospital at Apeldoorn from where Dobie made good his escape. After being picked up by the Dutch underground he joined around 80 British paratroopers who were being hidden in private dwellings around the town of Ede. At the time Ede was full of refugees, who had been evacuated in early October from Wageningen, making it easier for the British to blend in. Several weeks later an escape plan was hatched during a meeting with Brig Gerald Lathbury, commanding officer of the 1st Parachute Brigade, at a safe house in Ede, where the brigadier had been recovering from wounds previously sustained at Arnhem.
There were now around 2,500 enemy troops stationed in the area, belonging to the ID 363 who had established a headquarters in the town. It had originally been intended to re-equip the paratroopers to enable them to fight a guerrilla war until the Allies crossed the Rijn. A Belgian Jedburgh agent, Gilbert Sadi-Kirschen (“Captain King”), whose team (codenamed “Claude”) parachuted with the 1st Airborne Division, had arranged airdrops of weapons, ammunition, rations, and uniforms via his Special Forces radio link to London. However, with the Island offensive now in stalemate, Lathbury decided that he had no choice other than to evacuate the small airborne force to protect the lives of the local population, who would be at serious risk if the British remained.
Lathbury and his officers were well aware of a service telephone line from the PGEM power station in Ede to Nijmegen but preferred to use Sadi-Kirschen’s secure radio link to the UK. However, when the need arose for more expedient communications, Lathbury turned his attention towards the telephone at the power plant. It did not take long for the brigadier to decide that Dobie, with his natural ability to improvise, would be the best man for the proposed escape. On October 14, after several intensive briefings, Dobie, accompanied by his Dutch guides, said a few last farewells and headed for the Rijn. Before leaving Ede, the colonel agreed a time with Maj Allison Digby Tatham-Warter (CO, A Co 2 Para) that two nights hence they would talk via telephone from Nijmegen.
Shortly after arriving at Sink’s CP in Zetten, Dobie was dispatched to XXX Corps HQ in Nijmegen. During
the two days that followed, the telephone link between Tatham-Warter and Dobie played a crucial role in shaping events. LtGen Sir Brian Horrocks visited the 506th CP during the morning of October 18. Initially, Sink was not overly optimistic when asked about the possibilities of rescuing the British. But because Dobie had come ashore in the E/506 sector, he naturally asked Col Strayer for assistance. Coincidentally, Strayer and Dobie were no strangers and had worked together in the UK during exchange visits.
From his CP at Lonkhuyzen farm (opposite Hemmen Castle) Strayer and Regt S-3 Maj Hester met with the 2nd Bn company commanders and intelligence staff. Later that evening Ed Shames was ordered to Lonkhuyzen, along with 1st Lt Fred “Moose” Heyliger (1 Ptn), and 1st Lt Harry Welsh (2 Ptn). “Heyliger and Welsh collected me in a jeep from the canning factory and drove to Strayer’s CP, where he was waiting for us in the cab of a 6 x 6 truck. The colonel said very little about what we were doing or where we were going during the long journey towards Nijmegen. It was dark by the time we reached our destination which, as I recall, was a large barn. As we entered the dimly lit building, I was surprised to find around 70 people sitting on benches and folding chairs. For the most part they were British but we also noticed some Polish troops and eight or nine Americans.”