Arnhem

by William F Buckingham

  As the take-offs got underway the glider combinations were lifting off at a rate of one every thirty-five to sixty seconds. All of the 1st Airborne Division’s first-lift gliders took off without serious accident, although there were some minor mishaps. One Horsa aborted during take-off at Keevil due to load balance problems. A tractor swiftly towed the Horsa off the runway and around the perimeter track to the rear of the queue where the balance problem was resolved by reorganising the passenger seating; the Horsa was then hitched to another Stirling and towed aloft. At Manston the Horsa carrying Major Robert Cain and his men from B Company, 2nd South Staffords came adrift from its Albemarle tug five minutes after take-off. The glider landed safely in a convenient field after crashing through a fence. Major Cain noted the forced landing was a ‘terrible anticlimax after the tension and high spirits of the morning’ and that there was a good deal of cursing from his men as they unloaded the lightweight motorcycle and Airborne handcarts full of equipment and supplies for transport back to Manston.38

  Once aloft the glider combinations flew west, climbing to a height of 2,500 feet before levelling off. Those from Fairford did so for at least fifteen minutes before reversing course to form up, while some continued as far as the Bristol Channel. One of the latter, a Stirling from the Keevil-based No. 299 Squadron towing a Horsa loaded with twenty-one men from the 9th Airborne Field Company RE was unwittingly carrying Operation MARKET’s first Army fatalities. The combination was just inland of Weston-super-Mare when the horrified Stirling tail-gunner, Sergeant Wally Simpson, saw the Horsa’s tail detach, leaving the fuselage and wings to plunge earthward; fortunately for the tug the tow-rope snapped under the sudden strain. The tug crew subsequently visited the crash site to find the tail section had come to rest on a road and the main body of the Horsa looking ‘like a matchbox that had been stepped on’.39 The reason for the Horsa’s disintegration was never ascertained, and may have been connected to the numerous explosive devices the Sappers were carrying. As the rear section of the Horsa fuselage was designed for rapid post-landing removal to ease unloading, it may also have been due to a malfunction of that feature. Not all failures had such deadly results, although some were equally alarming for those involved. Lieutenant Graham Wadsworth, Sergeant George Kay and Trooper Bill Cook from HQ Troop 1st Airborne Reconnaissance Squadron were lifted from Tarrant Rushton in a Horsa carrying their armed Jeep. As the combination turned over the Bristol Channel, Cook saw a foot-wide strip of fabric tear off from the full width of the glider’s port wing, allowing the slipstream to ripple and billow the wing’s surface alarmingly. After sampling a bottle of rum belonging to Sergeant Kay, Cook informed Lieutenant Wadsworth, who in turn alerted the glider pilots. The combination duly returned to Tarrant Rushton, where repairs to the Horsa were carried out in less than half an hour, before taking off again in a vain attempt to catch the glider stream. Trooper Cook thus listened to reports of MARKET on the radio that night in his otherwise deserted billet.40 Another Horsa carrying men from the 7th KOSB from Blakehill or Down Ampney towed by a No. 46 Group Dakota ran into trouble when the tug lost power and then recovered and surged ahead. The slackening and then sudden tension on the tow-rope tore a section out of the port wing that extended into the fuselage roof, and one of the Borderers lost his maroon beret to the slipstream while reporting the extent of the damage. When the tug lost power twice more the pilot decided to abort and cast the Horsa off to land at the US 356th Fighter Group’s base at Martlesham Heath near Ipswich. The Americans were not fazed in the slightest at the arrival of a platoon of fully armed and battle-kitted British Airborne infantrymen, as Lance-Corporal Stan Livesey noted: ‘The amazing thing is that the moment we stopped and opened the door a PX van, with two American girls, was there waiting for us with coffee and chewing gum – two smashing bits of crumpet they were. Then we were all taken to the officers’ mess and fixed up with real ham and eggs.’41

  In all twenty-two Horsas lost their tow while still over south-east England. Some were cast off by their tugs when the latter suffered engine problems, mostly from the twin-engine Dakotas, which were arguably underpowered for glider towing in comparison with the four-engine bombers employed by No. 38 Group. Most, however, were simply tow-rope failures, many resulting from sudden changes of direction to avoid collision. This was especially the case with combinations taking off from Blakehill Farm and Broadwell, which had converging flight paths, and the problem was exacerbated by poor station keeping in the low cloud that lingered over the airfields in Oxfordshire. The Horsa losses fell disproportionately on the 1st Airlanding Brigade and especially the 1st Border and 7th KOSB, which lost a total of fourteen gliders.42 The Border’s losses included the machine carrying the Battalion commander, Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Haddon, in the second combination to lift off from Broadwell. After a promising start his Horsa suffered a series of instrument malfunctions that obliged the pilot to cast off and force-land; his passengers were back at Broadwell by midday, arranging a place in the second lift. The Albemarle towing the Horsa carrying Lieutenant John Wellbelove, a CanLoan officer commanding the 1st Border’s 13 Platoon, abandoned the tow not long after taking off from Manston when its engines began to overheat; the Horsa landed safely and its passengers whiled away the time waiting for transport watching the aerial armada passing overhead and picking mushrooms. Lieutenant Robert Crittenden’s platoon from C Company 1st Border had perhaps the most spectacular experience of the day following a tow-rope failure. Despite the loose end of the rope trying to hammer its way through the glider’s plywood side, the pilot managed to bring the Horsa to rest in a cornfield near Braintree in Essex after careering across two fields and through a wire fence and a hedge. The commander of a nearby USAAF base came to the rescue by ferrying Crittenden and his men back to their start point in the American unit’s B-26 Marauder bombers, with the Platoon’s Airborne handcart being lashed into a bomb bay. All went out with the second lift the following day, bar one man injured in the landing.43

  The first parachute transports, carrying the Pathfinder units tasked to drop in ahead of the main body to mark the landing areas, left while the glider combinations were still taking off. The 186 men from the 21st Independent Parachute Company tasked to mark the British drop and landing zones departed from Fairford at 10:00 in twelve Short Stirlings from No. 190 Squadron. It was the first time the Pathfinders had jumped from Stirlings, which was a daunting prospect in itself. The exit was a large, coffin-shaped aperture in the floor at the back of the fuselage, which gave a clear view of a heavy U-shaped bar designed to prevent parachute strops fouling the tailplane. On jumping the parachutist’s head appeared to barely shave this bar, while the violent slipstream caused severe oscillation when the parachute canopy deployed; an attempt to use the Stirling for training descents in early 1944 resulted in over a hundred qualified paratroopers refusing to jump in spite of all the disciplinary sanctions refusal entailed.44 For the Arnhem jump the 21st Independent’s three platoons were divided into sticks of fifteen or sixteen, at least four members of which were equipped with kitbags containing Eureka beacons and other bulky marker aids; all the marking equipment was carried in triplicate so that any given platoon could carry out the tasks of the other two in an emergency. In order to ensure a swift exit and thus tight stick these men were placed around the aperture to be the first to exit; stick commanders generally placed themselves in the middle of the stick with a senior NCO bringing up the rear. The US Pathfinders took off at 10:25 in six C-47s, two carrying men from the 82nd Airborne Division to Grave and Groesbeek and the remainder carrying the 101st Airborne Division’s Pathfinders to Veghel and Son‒St. Oedenrode. The time difference may have been due to the British formation attempting to disguise its intent as part of the wider preparatory bombing effort by taking a circuitous route, whereas the US aircraft appear to have dispensed with subterfuge in favour of taking a direct route to their target; the fact that the British Pathfinders were only allotted twenty minutes to carry out their wo
rk ahead of the 13:00 deadline for the arrival of the main force supports this assumption.45

  The main body of the MARKET parachute force began to take off at 11:00, with an aircraft leaving the ground every five to twenty seconds.46 Eight C-47s carrying the 1st Airborne Reconnaissance Squadron’s parachute contingent left Barkston Heath at dead on the hour, the 82nd Airborne Division’s transports began taking off from Cottesmore, Folkingham and Spanhoe at precisely 11:09, and the aircraft carrying Support Company 2nd Parachute Battalion at 11:30, ten minutes after the first lift-off from Saltby. The last parachute transport was aloft by 11:55.47 At that point in excess of 20,000 men, 330 guns, 551 Jeeps and Universal Carriers and 590 tons of assorted equipment were in the sky over southern England.48 After rendezvousing with the glider serials over Hatfield and March the airborne host shook itself out at a height of 1,500 feet into three parallel streams ten miles apart and up to 100 miles long; in some places it took an hour and a half for the streams to pass a fixed point. By chance Sunday 17 September has been designated a Day of Thanksgiving for RAF Fighter Command’s victory in the Battle of Britain, and the noise of the MARKET force drowned out singing and church organs alike, drawing out worshippers and householders within earshot to witness the spectacle. The sight of a vast airborne army en route to strike at the heart of enemy territory bore eloquent witness to the reversal of British fortunes since the dark days of 1940. 1st Lieutenant James J. Coyle from the 2nd Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry exchanged waves with a group of nuns in a convent courtyard, and the party atmosphere continued aboard at least some aircraft. According to Private Roy Edwards from the 1st Parachute Brigade ‘it was like going on a bus outing to the seaside.’ Some sang popular songs and more ribald ditties.49

  The aircraft jockeyed into their final formation as the two streams crossed the coast. On the Northern Route the No. 46 Group Dakotas towing the 1st Airlanding Brigade took the lead as the armada crossed the Suffolk coast at Aldeburgh, trailed by No. 38 Group’s various four-engine bombers towing the other British glider-borne elements. Next came the C-47s of the US 50th and 52nd Troop Carrier Wings carrying the 1st Parachute Brigade and the 82nd Airborne Division’s three Parachute Regiments and other elements. At the rear came the glider combinations carrying Browning’s Forward Corps HQ. The high spirits among the airborne soldiers ebbed somewhat as the flight crossed the hundred miles of water to the Dutch coast. At least one man watched the Suffolk coastline until it disappeared in the distance with tears in his eyes, although most were less overtly emotional. Many men smoked or read newspapers and paperback books, and two paratroopers from the 3rd Parachute Battalion were observed playing chess for the entire crossing. Private Leo Hart, a Normandy veteran from the 82nd Airborne Division, was annoyed by a green paratrooper in his stick asking if the C-47’s flimsy aluminium bucket seats were bulletproof.50 Major Alan Bush, the 3rd Parachute Battalion’s second-in-command, later described himself as ‘the only person to have vomited my way into Europe. I was sick all the way even though I had flown many times. It wasn’t apprehension, because it all went like a practice drop; it was the petrol and oil fumes that did it.’51 There were also some lighter moments during the crossing. Sergeant Bill Oakes, flying as co-pilot in a 1st Airlanding Brigade Horsa, was horrified to see some of his passengers blithely boiling a mess tin of water on a chemical stove set up on the glider’s plywood floor. To make matters worse, the stove was set up next to an Airborne handcart loaded with mortar bombs. When the tea makers and their companions standing by with mugs proved impervious to his anger and alarm Oakes appealed to the first pilot, Staff Sergeant Bert Watkins; Watkins responded with a cheery ‘Tell ’em not to forget us when the tea’s ready.’52 Three Horsas were obliged to ditch in the North Sea, two with tug engine problems and one owing to tow-rope failure; all ditched successfully with crew and passengers being picked up by the rescue craft stationed along the fly-in route.53 One was flown by Staff-Sergeant Cyril Line, who was obliged to cast off when his Stirling tug suddenly lost both starboard engines. Matters were not helped by his passengers beginning to break an escape route through the roof of the Horsa immediately on Line’s co-pilot issuing the standby to ditch order. Line just had time to order them to desist as they were weakening the fuselage to the point of collapse before the Horsa hit the sea. The glider broke up on impact, but Line and all his passengers were picked up within minutes by one of the rescue launches.54 At one point the northern airborne stream found itself flying straight at a formation of B-17 bombers flying a reciprocal course; collision was averted when the US machines climbed to pass above the glider serials.55

  The B-17s had been engaged in final preparatory bombing missions in Holland, possibly against the German anti-aircraft battery at Wageningen, twelve miles west of Arnhem. A total of twenty-four Douglas Bostons, forty-eight North American Mitchells and fifty de Havilland Mosquitoes from the British 2nd Tactical Air Force bombed a number of targets in and around Arnhem itself. The airfield at Deelen, which had been heavily bombed by the RAF on 3 September, was hit again and a Dutch SS barracks at Ede was attacked at the request of Brigadier John Hackett, whose 4th Parachute Brigade was to land on DZ Y in the second lift on 18 September; Ede lay only a mile or so west of the DZ. The Mosquitoes struck the Willems Barracks in Arnhem proper with considerable accuracy and set it ablaze but some bombs fell in nearby streets, setting a high school and restaurant on fire as well. Arnhem’s fifteen firefighters led by Dirk Hiddink were despatched with instructions to let the German-occupied barracks burn while trying to save the surrounding civilian buildings, but the damage was too extensive for their two handcarts of equipment to make much impression. Other aircraft knocked out twelve flak positions around the Arnhem road bridge but again some bombs fell wide, hitting the prison, courthouse and the church, convent and school belonging to the Insula Dei Catholic community. A good many civilians in Arnhem and the surrounding area were in church when the bombing began, including 1,200 assembled in the city’s Grote Kerke. The congregation reacted by standing and singing the Dutch national anthem, accompanied by a hand-pumped organ as the raid had cut off the electricity. The numbers of German casualties are unclear, as are those for the Dutch civilians killed on the morning of 17 September, being folded into the total of 188 killed during the subsequent battle. Thirty-seven Dutch civilians were killed in Wageningen and fifty-nine at Ede. A further ninety were killed in the attack on the flak train and mental asylum at Wolfheze authorised in writing by Mackenzie in Urquhart’s stead just before the MARKET force began to take off. According to an eyewitness, the attack, apparently carried out by USAAF B-26 Marauders, came in two waves. The first struck the area of the railway station, creating around 200 craters stretching away to the north. The second wave hit the asylum area in the woods just east of LZ Z and walked their bombs on into Wolfheze proper, but did not actually hit the main hospital building occupied by the Germans; forty-six of the ninety civilians killed in or around Wolfheze were asylum patients. In fact the flak train posed no threat to the British landing area. Originally employed in removing equipment from Deelen airfield after the RAF bombing on 3 September, the train had been badly damaged by Allied fighter-bombers, which also destroyed or put out of action all six of the 20mm flak guns it mounted.56

  While all this was going on the MARKET force was approaching the Belgian and Dutch coast. Two glider combinations did not quite make landfall. One Horsa, piloted by Captain Wreford Tallentire and carrying part of Browning’s Forward Corps HQ, was ineffectually shelled by a German shore battery after ditching off Walcheren Island in the Scheldt Estuary. All aboard were rescued unharmed by a British rescue launch in the evening, and the inaccurate artillery fire proved to have been a deliberate ploy on the part of the gunners, who were impressed Red Army prisoners of Armenian extraction; eight were subsequently executed for sabotage. Lieutenant W. G. Beddowe and his platoon from the 7th KOSB were less fortunate when their Horsa ditched just off the beach. After wading ashore they became MARK
ET’s first Allied prisoners of war.57 The head of the northern stream made landfall at waypoint BERMUDA over Schouwen Island at around 12:15, approximately 100 miles and forty minutes’ flying time from the landing areas. It also brought the aerial armada within range of unsuppressed flak guns positioned on Schouwen, which claimed three victims from the 82nd Airborne Division’s formation. One C-47 from the 315th Troop Carrier Group, flown by Captain R. E. Bohannan, was set ablaze by tracer rounds igniting the A5 Parapacks slung beneath the fuselage. 1st Lieutenant Virgil Carmichael from the 2nd Battalion 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment watched from the door of his nearby C-47 as Bohannan kept the doomed transport flying long enough for the stick of fifteen paratroopers from Company H to jump followed by crew chief Sergeant T. N. Carter, identifiable by his aircrew-issue white canopy. The latter was barely clear when the C-47 nosed over and bored straight into a flooded area at full throttle, killing Captain Bohannan and the rest of his crew, Lieutenants D. H. Felber, B. P. Martinson and Staff-Sergeant T. P. Epperson.58 The incident prompted a number of jumpmasters including 1st Lieutenant James Megellas from the 3rd Battalion 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, to order their sticks to stand and hook up their static lines, an instruction not normally issued until the aircraft was approaching the jump point. Another victim was an unidentified C-47 towing a CG-4, which also appears to have been hit. Major Dennis Munford from the 1st Airlanding Light Regiment RA watched the US glider come apart: ‘Men and equipment spilt out of it like toys from a Christmas cracker.’ The C-47 tug crash-landed, killing its crew.59