The Wolfhezeweg ran through open fields for almost 1,000 yards before entering a wooded area. The wooded area was occupied by Hauptmann Weber and his patrol from 213 Nachrichten Regiment, recovering from its skirmish with the 2nd South Staffords at LZ S. R Company made contact at approximately 17:00 and Major Timothy immediately launched a hasty attack that pushed the hapless Luftwaffe signalmen back in a series of sharp, close-range encounters.3 Bren gunner Private John Hall recalled his Platoon commander, Lieutenant Michael Kilmartin, skilfully manoeuvring 1 Platoon through the woods and seeing an NCO cut down while moving forward to secure a German who looked to be surrendering; Hall and his comrades responded with a pact not to take any more prisoners.4 The Company became dispersed by the fighting, obliging Major Timothy to reorganise before performing a concerted left-flanking attack around the west side of the Wolfhezeweg.5 The 1st Parachute Battalion’s Mortar Platoon, commanded by Lieutenant George Guyon, deployed in a clearing in the woods to render support but his radio set failed at the crucial moment and he was reduced to arranging a chain of men to pass back information from his mortar controller travelling with R Company’s lead elements. One of the relay chain was killed and three or four were wounded in the process but despite this and the poor visibility the controller was able to search out likely German locations with accurately placed salvos of mortar bombs, forcing one group of Germans to abandon a truck.6 The left-flanking attack carried R Company the rest of the way to the Amsterdamseweg but there they ran into armoured vehicles identified as tanks but which were likely the detachment of armoured half-tracks from SS Panzer Aufklärungs Abteilung 9. Timothy’s men had no answer to this and were obliged to seek whatever cover they could. The resultant fighting went on for five hours or more, during which R Company lost all contact with the remainder of the 1st Battalion and around half its strength killed, wounded and missing, although many of the latter had likely become separated in the undergrowth and darkness.
The fight on the Wolfhezeweg initially also drew in elements of Major Ronald Stark’s S Company, but Dobie intervened at 18:00 and ordered a move along a track running east in an effort to bypass R Company’s fight and access the Amsterdamseweg closer to Arnhem; radio contact with Major Timothy was lost in the process and the 1st Battalion HQ signallers were also unable to contact 1st Parachute Brigade HQ.7 The by-passing did not reflect any lack of aggression but was a deliberate tactic to preserve the Battalion’s fighting power for securing and holding its primary objective, about which Dobie had briefed his company commanders prior to arrival in Holland, although R Company’s rapid and aggressive action against 213 Nachrichten Regiment strongly suggests that the 1st Battalion would likely have been capable of dealing with the light armour ranged against them using Gammon bombs and PIATs had it been so ordered, using the wooded terrain and darkness for concealment.8 After moving east for around an hour Dobie decided to try and access the Amsterdamseweg again. Lieutenant Robert Feltham’s 7 Platoon from S Company was leading the Battalion column at this point, and Sergeant Frank Manser was despatched 500 yards or so up a side track to check if the way was clear. It was not, for 300 yards from the end of the track Manser saw ‘lots of vehicles, armoured cars, etc., and lots of troops moving about ‒ a company at least, possibly more, obviously getting themselves into defensive positions’.9 Erecting the blocking line along the Amsterdamseweg was thus in full swing by 19:00, and Manser may have witnessed the arrival of Hauptsturmführer Klaus von Allwörden’s SS Panzerjäger Abteilung 9, given that the Battalion War Diary referred to the Germans being equipped with five tanks and fifteen half-tracks;10 von Allwörden’s force boasted three infantry companies built around 120 dismounted self-propelled gun crewmen augmented with a draft of Kriegsmarine personnel, two Panzerjäger IV self-propelled guns and a handful of towed 75mm PaK 40 pieces.11
Sergeant Manser’s report prompted Dobie to attempt another sidestep and while this was being organised he despatched Major John Bune, the 1st Parachute Battalion’s deputy commander, to guide R Company back to the main Battalion location. By this time it was almost completelyy dark and at 20:00, half an hour after Bune’s departure, the Battalion’s temporary perimeter was bumped by a German armoured vehicle supported by infantry. The Germans were driven off in the ensuing firefight, which cost the paratroopers six casualties and appears to have gone on until Major Bune returned at 22:00 accompanied by R Company’s second-in-command, Captain Peter Mansfield. The latter informed Dobie that Major Timothy had successfully broken contact but was unable to move effectively due to half his force being casualties. Dobie therefore ordered Major Bune to return to R Company, accompanied by the Battalion medical officer, field ambulance detachment and Battalion transport to assist with the casualties and to bring in Major Timothy and the fit portion of his Company to the main Battalion column. In the interim, patrols were despatched to try and find a way through to the Amsterdamseweg, sparking spasmodic fighting and firing in the surrounding woods.12 Dobie appears to have settled down to wait for Major Timothy, but all that changed at around midnight when the 1st Battalion signallers picked up a clear signal reporting that the 2nd Parachute Battalion had secured the Arnhem road bridge. Major Christopher Perrin-Brown, commanding T Company, was with Dobie when the signal arrived:
I don’t think David Dobie replied to the message. He just called an O-Group. He was of the opinion that we were in such a muck in the woods that we would never fight our way through. He said ‘I’m not going on to the north of Arnhem; we’ll try to get down to help Johnnie at the bridge.’13
At 01:00 on Monday 18 September Lieutenant-Colonel Dobie therefore abandoned his attempts to reach the high ground to the north of Arnhem and moved the 1st Parachute Battalion south-east toward the Arnhem bridge, where Lathbury should have sent it in the first place. Guides were left to direct R Company, although the latter never reached the rendezvous; Major Timothy and forty of his men linked up with the 2nd South Staffords and eventually rejoined Dobie in the evening of Monday 18 September, and while R Company’s wounded appear to have reached the landing area, Major Bune and the Mortar Platoon were listed as missing and likely fell victim to an encounter with a German patrol.14 Major Perrin-Brown’s T Company led off, moving stealthily through the pitch-black woods. This was no easy task, and matters were compounded by the need to manhandle the heavily laden Jeeps and Bren Gun Carriers with their engines switched off, some towing trailers or 6-Pounder anti-tank guns belonging to the attached Troop from the 1st Airlanding Anti-Tank Battery.15 After two hours, T Company’s lead element, Lieutenant John MacFadden’s 9 Platoon, clashed with a group of Germans occupying a track junction. The Germans withdrew after suffering a number of casualties, but Lieutenant MacFadden was badly wounded in the process and subsequently died in captivity.16 Eventually, the 1st Parachute Battalion column left the woods and appears to have followed a minor road across the Arnhem‒Ede railway line into the northern outskirts of Oosterbeek. By this point Dobie’s unit had been on the move or fighting for nearly twelve hours non-stop and had suffered around a hundred casualties including eleven dead and a large number of missing, many of whom had simply become separated in the darkness.17 As Major Timothy pointed out in a post-war interview the missing men ‘weren’t all killed or wounded. The idea is that you meet up again somewhere but it didn’t often happen.’18
Having reached Oosterbeek, Dobie decided to access the Utrechtseweg/TIGER route running east as the most direct route into Arnhem proper, with Major Stark’s S Company taking the lead. By 04:30 Lieutenant Robert Feltham’s 7 Platoon was approaching the point where the Utrechtseweg passed under the embanked railway branch line running south from the main Arnhem‒Ede line to the Oosterbeek Laag Station and thence over the Lower Rhine. The embankment was occupied by German troops, most likely elements of Hauptsturmführer Hans Möller’s SS Panzer Pionier Abteilung 9, which had been ensconced on the wooded bluff on the east side of the railway line known locally as Den Brink since about 18:00 on 17 September. The Abtei
lung numbered in the region of ninety men equipped with at least two Sd.Kfz. 251 armoured half-tracks and a collection of weapons and stores scrounged through Möller’s contacts at II SS Panzerkorps HQ, including a large number of MG42 machine-guns.19 They may also have been reinforced, given that the 1st Parachute Battalion War Diary referred to S Company coming under fire from mortars and armoured car-mounted 20mm guns. The SS allowed the first two paratroopers to pass through the underpass, seized them and then opened fire on the remainder of the lead section when they scrambled back for cover. The rest of 7 Platoon attempted to assault the German strongpoint but was rebuffed by the weight of return fire, losing seven dead and a number of wounded, including Lieutenant Feltham. The firefight went on for around an hour and Major Stark was organising a full company attack when Dobie intervened after meeting Captain Anthony Harrison from the 3rd Airlanding Light Battery RA at around 05:00. Harrison and the Forward Observation (FO) party from his E Troop had accompanied the 2nd Parachute Battalion to the Arnhem bridge, and had been despatched back to the landing area by the Battery commander, Major Dennis Munford, to report the seizure of the bridge to Division HQ and bring the Battery forward in support; the meeting was fortuitous, as Harrison had intended to follow the riverside LION route and only ended up on the Utrechtseweg after taking a wrong turning. On learning that Frost’s Battalion was in serious need of reinforcement Dobie decided to sidestep south again onto the riverside LION route. The 1st Parachute Battalion therefore disengaged from the fight that had cost S Company a further thirty casualties and moved south at 05:30.20
Lieutenant-Colonel John Frost’s 2nd Parachute Battalion moved off for Arnhem at 15:10.21 Accessing the allotted LION route involved moving south from the Brigade RV to Heelsum, and then east along the Koninginne Laan through the Doorwerthsche Bosch forest toward Heveadorp and Oosterbeek. Major Digby Tatham-Warter’s A Company led the way, spearheaded by Lieutenant Andrew McDermont’s 3 Platoon. Frost had selected A Company as his ‘spearhead company’ because he considered Tatham-Warter something of a ‘thruster’.22 The latter was certainly something of an eccentric. It is unclear if he carried it into Holland or acquired it after landing but Tatham-Warter spent much of the battle carrying a furled umbrella rather than a weapon, ostensibly as a recognition measure. He had also trained his Company to respond to bugle calls, a measure prompted by his lack of confidence in the issued radio equipment; to this end two men in Company HQ and in each platoon carried bugles and were trained in a number of calls based on those used by Sir John Moore’s Light Division in the Peninsular War.23 A Company was trailed by Major Victor Dover’s C Company, followed by Major Douglas Crawley and B Company and then Major Tony Hibbert and the Brigade HQ column. The latter moved off at 15:45 after the Brigade’s radio equipment had been unpacked and partly netted in. A Company had barely moved off when a number of German vehicles approached, presumably along a track running south-west from the Hotel Wolfheze. Reacting quickly, Lieutenant McDermont’s men went to ground and comprehensively shot them up killing fifteen of the passengers and capturing fifteen more, to Lieutenant-Colonel Frost’s slight chagrin: ‘As we passed their [A Company’s] old positions we found two lorries and three motor-cars in various stages of destruction…It seemed a pity that the vehicles were now unusable but there had been no time to arrange an ambush. It was however an encouraging start.’24 According to one account, the Germans were a reconnaissance element from Bataillon Krafft’s 2 Kompanie.25 Several other surprised off-duty German soldiers were scooped up by the paratrooper’s advance, some of them walking with girlfriends, and Signalman Bill Jukes saw one out for a Sunday afternoon bicycle ride: ‘When he saw us, he probably thought his last hour had come. His machine began to wobble until he eventually fell off. We took him prisoner and loaded him and his bike with all our gear and took him along with us.’26
The advance through Heelsum was slowed by enthusiastic Dutch civilians eager to greet their liberators but speeded up again as A Company followed the Koninginne Laan into the forest toward Heveadorp, alternating lead platoon as they went. At some point in this stage of the approach march Brigadier Lathbury drove up the column to confer with Frost, informing him of the alleged failure of the 1st Airborne Reconnaissance Squadron’s coup-de-main to seize the Arnhem road bridge; Lathbury may have also suggested that Frost mount part of his A Company on the Battalion transport as a makeshift replacement. On the other hand, Frost’s account refers to the idea occurring before Lathbury arrived, allegedly on gaining information from a POW regarding German strength in Arnhem; he may also have been influenced by Lathbury’s alleged radio message transmitted before he left the landing area at 15:30.27 Either way, according to Frost the sound of the 3rd Battalion having a ‘bit of a battle’ on the TIGER route to the north was audible during the meeting, which would place it around 17:00. Lathbury then left to harass the 3rd Battalion while Frost appears to have gone forward to confer with Major Tatham-Warter regarding the makeshift transport plan. Tatham-Warter was apparently enthusiastic but while Frost was waiting for the Battalion HQ group to close up, A Company’s lead elements ran into opposition as it neared Heveadorp on the eastern outskirts of the Doorwerthsche Bosch forest. Lieutenant John Grayburn’s 2 Platoon was in the lead and had taken a left at a T-junction when the remainder of the Company came under rifle fire followed by a few inaccurate mortar bombs. Grayburn immediately put down a smokescreen with his Platoon 2-inch mortar and attacked toward the source of the firing, while Lieutenant McDermont’s 3 Platoon moved to seal the opposite flank; this prompted a German withdrawal leaving a number of casualties behind.28 The 2nd Parachute Battalion War Diary claims it had encountered ‘the southern flank of a strong enemy position’, but the Germans may have been a small guard force for the nearby Heveadorp ferry across the Lower Rhine.29 Although it was known to the 1st Airborne Division’s intelligence, Frost does not appear to have been made aware of the ferry’s existence. While that was perhaps just as well, given the number of missions the 2nd Parachute Battalion had already been tasked with, possession of the ferry with its capacity of eight Jeeps or equivalent would have been a useful additional avenue for the 1st Parachute Brigade to approach its bridge objectives from the south. Whoever the Germans were, they did give Tatham-Warter the satisfaction of hearing his bugle-call communication system functioning properly in action; he may have blown the signal to resume the advance personally in front of Frost, who had come forward to investigate.30
The residents of Heveadorp also turned out to greet their liberators, pressing fresh fruit and jugs of milk on the heavily laden paratroopers and twining orange flowers in their clothing and equipment. One elderly gentleman generously offered Frost the use of his car; Frost politely declined by pointing to his personal Jeep a few yards back in the column.31 The process was repeated with even greater enthusiasm a mile or so further on as the LION route morphed into the Oosterbeekweg and passed into the much larger town of Oosterbeek, where it changed again into the Benedendorpsweg. The 2nd Battalion reached there at some point before 18:00 and A Company’s second-in-command Captain Anthony Frank recalled ‘the incredible number of orange flowers or handkerchiefs that suddenly appeared like magic’ and the ‘problem of trying to stop them [Dutch civilians] slowing our men down by pressing cakes, milk etc on them’. Private Sidney Elliot was less concerned with disciplinary matters and more interested in shaking hands, accepting the gifts and being ‘lucky enough to receive the odd kiss’.32 In some instances the proffered beverages were rather stronger than milk and orders were passed down the column forbidding the acceptance of alcohol, although it is unclear to what extent they were obeyed by the independently minded paratroopers. The move through southern Oosterbeek was not totally without opposition, with A Company, still at the head of the Battalion column, receiving some scattered rifle shots as it approached the eastern outskirts of the town. More seriously, a German machine-gun team fired on Private James Sims and the rest of the 2nd Battalion’s Mortar Platoon as they
passed a tall hedge which was
…raked from end to end belly-high by machine-gun fire. Although the enemy could not see us they hit at least three of our lads, one of them with an incendiary bullet. This was the youthful Brum Davis [sic]. The rest of us had already flattened ourselves on the tarmac but my helmet seemed to stick up an awful long way as the bullets swept over us again and again….The firing ceased as the German machine-gun crew departed, having achieved what they set out to do ‒ hold us up.33
As the 2nd Parachute Battalion column traversed the southern outskirts of Oosterbeek, Major Victor Dover’s C Company peeled off across the riverside polder toward the Battalion’s first objective, the bridge carrying the railway line south across the Lower Rhine from the Oosterbeek Laag railway station. Dover was accompanied by Captain O’Callaghan and 2 Platoon from the 9th (Airborne) Field Company RE and had detailed Lieutenant Peter Barry’s 9 Platoon to secure the bridge with Lieutenant Ian Russell and 8 Platoon providing a smokescreen with their 2-inch mortar. Access to the bridge was via a long embanked ramp, upon which a train had been abandoned, and it was protected by flak positions which had been hit by the RAF as part of the pre-landing preparation; the polder was dotted with dead cows killed in the attack. 9 Platoon had closed to within 500 yards without incident when a solitary German appeared at the southern end, ran to the centre of the bridge and then escaped unscathed despite Lieutenant Barry directing a Bren Group to rake the structure. Prompted by Major Dover, Barry took a nine-man Section forward, climbed the embankment and moved onto the north end of the bridge structure. As there was still no German response Barry told his Section:
We might as well carry on and capture the whole bridge…We threw a smoke grenade; unfortunately the wind was in the wrong direction, but it gave some cover…We ran across, as fast as we could, through the smoke…We got about fifty yards and then needed to pause; we had a lot of equipment on and soon got short of breath. So I told them to get down. We were just above the water by then. The centre span of the bridge exploded then, while we lay there, and the metal plates right in front of me heaved up into the air. It was lucky that we had stopped when we did, otherwise we would have all been killed; no one was wounded by the explosion.34
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