German troops on the south bank then opened fire, wounding Barry in the leg and right arm and killing one of his men.
Precisely who was responsible for dropping the railway bridge is unclear. One source credits a mobile detachment from Bataillon Krafft, although another refers to a ten-man demolition party commanded by an NCO being billeted in nearby houses on the south bank. The timings, the fact that the soldier who ignited the charge appeared on the south bank and the substantial nature of the charge suggests it was pre-placed, making the latter explanation the most likely.35 Precisely who ordered the bridge to be rigged for demolition is similarly unclear, given that Obergruppenführer Bittrich professed ignorance of any such arrangements to Hauptsturmführer Hans Möller shortly after the event.36 As wiring up major pieces of infrastructure for demolition lay outside Hauptsturmführer Krafft’s pre-landing replacement training remit and he appears to have lacked the resources and equipment anyway, it was presumably done on the orders of the Arnhem Stadtkommandant, Generalmajor Kussin, without Bittrich or other commanders being made aware. Whoever was responsible, the destruction of the railway bridge denied the 2nd Parachute Battalion access to the south bank of the Lower Rhine. This in turn frustrated Frost’s plan to despatch a company across the river to permit the Arnhem road bridge to be seized from both ends simultaneously and also effectively put the Arnhem pontoon bridge beyond reach, for the centre span proved to be moored inaccessibly on the south bank. Frost was therefore left with no option but to push on into Arnhem toward the north end of the Arnhem road bridge. A combination of circumstances and the planners’ failure to inform Frost of the existence of the Heveadorp ferry thus imposed a deleterious and arguably lethal penalty on the Arnhem portion of Operation MARKET.
While C Company was making its unsuccessful bid for the railway bridge Major Tatham-Warter’s A Company was experiencing problems in the push into Arnhem. Shortly before 19:00 Lieutenant Robin Vlasto’s 1 Platoon led the way through an underpass carrying the LION route under the branch line running south from the Oosterbeek Laag station to the demolished bridge; at this point the Benedendorpsweg became the Klingelbeekseweg. As they rounded a bend just beyond the underpass a German armoured car emerged from a group of buildings flanking the road and opened fire, hitting the men on either side of Vlasto, killing one and seriously wounding the other in the hand. 1 Platoon went to ground while Major Tatham-Warter had the lead 6-Pounder anti-tank gun unhitched from its Jeep and brought into action, but the armoured car reversed out of sight before the crew could open fire. While all this was going on the 2nd Parachute Battalion received another flying visit. Having left Division HQ at some point before 17:00 also with the intention of warning the 1st Parachute Brigade about the alleged failure of the coup-de-main against the Arnhem road bridge, Major-General Urquhart travelled along the LION route in pursuit of Lathbury. He came upon the 1st Parachute Brigade HQ column and after passing on word of the Reconnaissance Squadron’s alleged absence urged Major Hibbert on with that parting shout mentioned earlier of ‘Hibbert, for God’s sake get your brigade moving or the bloody Germans will get to the bridge before us’.37 The comment appears to have been prompted by Urquhart’s perception that the Brigade HQ column and rear of the 2nd Battalion were not moving with sufficient urgency, which he also expressed to Frost’s Battalion HQ staff after working his way up the column; Frost himself was up at the front of the column overseeing Major Tatham-Warter’s efforts to clear the road. On being informed that Lathbury had been last seen heading north to harass the 3rd Parachute Battalion, Urquhart abandoned his intention of speaking to Frost and, deciding that the latter had matters in hand, drove off toward the centre TIGER route in pursuit of the 1st Parachute Brigade’s commander.38 Urquhart, incidentally, was being trailed by the hapless Major Gough seeking to report to his Division commander as ordered. Having missed Urquhart at Division HQ by a matter of minutes, Gough set off down the LION route in pursuit and missed him again at Hibbert’s Brigade HQ column by a similar margin.39
Back at the head of the 2nd Battalion column Lieutenant Vlasto resumed the advance, initially using a row of buildings as cover, only to come under fire from Den Brink bluff overlooking the riverside road from the north. The railway branch line formed a convenient firebreak between Oosterbeek and the western outskirts of Arnhem proper, Den Brink dominated that firebreak, and the parkland atop the bluff had recently been occupied by Hauptsturmführer Möller’s ninety-strong SS Panzer Pionier Abteilung 9, which had rushed down from its billets at Brummen, twelve miles north-east of Arnhem.40 The fire was sufficiently heavy to interfere with further passage along the riverside road, so Lieutenant-Colonel Frost ordered Major Douglas Crawley’s B Company to clear the feature at approximately 19:00, in order to permit the remainder of the Battalion to proceed unhindered. The railway line ran through a cutting along the western edge of Den Brink and Crawley despatched Lieutenant Peter Cane’s 6 Platoon up the cutting as a concealed avenue to get men onto the feature and outflank enemy firing on the riverside road. Unfortunately Möller had stationed one of his numerous machine-guns to cover the cutting as it curved to the east. Lieutenant Cane was killed in the first burst of fire along with an NCO, likely Corporal Edgar Rogers, and Privates Claude and Tom Gronert, twins who had joined up together and received consecutive Army numbers.41 Major Crawley’s B Company remained embroiled with SS Panzer Pionier Abteilung 9 for the next four hours or so, and a combination of their efforts and the onset of darkness permitted the remainder of the 2nd Battalion to pass along the riverside road unmolested.
Lieutenant-Colonel John Fitch’s 3rd Parachute Battalion moved off from the landing area after finally being released by Lathbury at 15:10. Lieutenant James Cleminson and 5 Platoon from Major Peter Waddy’s B Company led the way, with the remainder of the Battalion column stretching out for over a mile in their wake. In addition to the Battalion HQ and three Rifle Companies, the column included Lieutenant Edward Shaw and C Troop from the 1st Airlanding Anti-tank Battery RA with three 6-Pounder guns, half of C Troop 1st Parachute Squadron RE under Captain Cecil Cox, a detachment from 16 Parachute Field Ambulance RAMC and an FO party from the 1st Airlanding Light Regiment RA. The column also included two Bren Gun Carriers and a score of Jeeps followed by Major Mervyn Dennison and A Company bringing up the rear. The route from the landing area took the Battalion south through the centre of Heelsum, where it received an enthusiastic reception from the inhabitants, and then east onto the Utrechtseweg/TIGER route, which ran into and across the northern edge of the Doorwerthsche Bosch forest toward Oosterbeek. There was practically no concerted opposition for the first two hours or so of the march, although at least one man was killed, likely by a sniper. Lance-Corporal William Bamsey was moving with Corporal Robert Allen with A Company at the rear of the column:
We sensed enemy ahead and both paused ‒ me behind one tree, Bamsey at the side of another. A shot rang out from the right. Bamsey collapsed like a puppet whose strings had been cut. I…dashed across and pulled Bamsey behind a tree. He had been shot through the throat, and the bullet had broken his neck.42
Twenty-one-year-old Lance-Corporal Bamsey was the 3rd Parachute Battalion’s first fatality of Operation MARKET.43
At around 17:00, after almost two hours on the move, 5 Platoon was in the vicinity of a crossroads on the Utrechtseweg near the end of the forested area. The lead scouts had just passed the junction when a camouflaged Citroën saloon car emerged from the road running north-west to Wolfheze and made to turn left toward Arnhem. Lieutenant Cleminson’s two lead Sections, which were advancing on either side of the road, promptly opened fire and the shot-up vehicle came to a halt in the middle of the road with a body hanging from the front passenger door. 5 Platoon pressed on, ‘leaving it for someone else to sort out’.44 The Citroën was carrying the Stadtkommandant of Arnhem, Generalmajor Friedrich Kussin, with his batman and driver; 5 Platoon’s accurate shooting killed all three men outright. Kussin had been conferring with Hauptsturmführer Kra
fft at the latter’s temporary HQ at the Hotel Wolfheze, which lay 800 yards up the side road, and he had rashly disregarded advice from Krafft’s men that the Utrechtseweg route back to Arnhem might be unsafe. His two companions paid a high price for their commander’s haste, and the bullet-riddled car with Kussin’s body hanging from the passenger door became one of MARKET’s most enduring images.45
Fifteen minutes and a few hundred yards later Lieutenant Cleminson’s 5 Platoon had emerged from the woods and was approaching another crossroads among a group of houses at Koude Herberg, approximately halfway to the Arnhem bridge. At that point a German vehicle, likely a half-track mounting a 20mm gun, emerged from a side road and opened fire along with German infantry stationed on either side of the road. They appear to have belonged to Bataillon Krafft’s mobile reserve, 9 Kompanie. The 3rd Parachute Battalion had passed the southern end of the Bataillon’s outpost line, which now lay a few hundred yards to the north-west. A PIAT team with one of the lead Sections was shot up immediately along with a Jeep towing a 6-Pounder before the crew could unhitch and deploy their gun. Major Peter Waddy and Lieutenant Cleminson tried to organise a flanking movement through the houses but were frustrated by a combination of German fire and the chain-link fencing the locals used to delineate their property boundaries. Attempts to engage the vehicle with Gammon bombs proved ineffective as it remained outside effective throwing range, and an attack by Major Waddy with a Very pistol was equally ineffective. The vehicle then disengaged by pulling back up the side road; according to one account the vehicle crew dismounted briefly to drape one of the British wounded across the front of their vehicle, presumably as a human shield. It or another vehicle then reappeared from another side road near the 3rd Battalion Rear HQ and sprayed the column with fire, forcing the Battalion second-in-command, Major Alan Bush, to take cover behind a tree with a member of the Battalion Intelligence Section. Major Bush made a successful dash for safety, while his companion remained behind and was captured. 9 Kompanie then withdrew, taking six prisoners with them. The clash lasted for ten to fifteen minutes and cost the 3rd Battalion five wounded and two killed: Corporal Benjamin Cope and Gunner George Robson.46
While Major Waddy was reorganising B Company to resume the advance, Lieutenant-Colonel Fitch was rejigging his plan in an effort to avoid being ambushed again. B Company was to filter west toward Arnhem by moving south of the Utrechtseweg while Major Richard Lewis and C Company did the same to the north, although it is fair to assume that the final decision was not actually made by Fitch. It is unclear precisely when he arrived at the 3rd Parachute Battalion column, but Brigadier Lathbury was present in the aftermath of the clash with Bataillon Krafft’s mobile reserve and his micromanaging tendencies rapidly came to the fore ‒ he appears to have begun virtually running the 3rd Battalion over Fitch’s head. It is therefore likely he badgered if not simply ordered Fitch to despatch C Company to the north, with both men moving to C Company’s location in the middle of the column to brief Lewis. Lieutenant Leonard Wright’s 9 Platoon was selected to lead the move, and he received short shrift from Lathbury as he tried to brief his men on their new mission: ‘I had my O-Group standing by; that was routine. But, before I could start to brief them, I heard the high-pitched voice of the brigade commander…He asked what I was doing, and I replied “Briefing my O-Group sir.” He snorted, very sharply, “They don’t need briefing, just tell them that’s the bloody way. Get Moving!” So I did.’47 Briefed or not, C Company moved off at 18:00 along a track leading north to the Arnhem‒Ede railway line, which Major Lewis thought might provide a protected route to Arnhem proper, while B Company led the remainder of the Battalion column down the Utrechtseweg at around the same time.
While all this was going on Major-General Urquhart had finally caught up with Lathbury and by 18:30 he was conferring with him and the hapless Fitch near Generalmajor Kussin’s shot-up Citroën. At that point elements of Bataillon Krafft opened fire from the woods to the north of the Utrechtseweg with machine-guns and mortars, hitting Major Mervyn Dennison’s A Company at the tail of the Battalion column. As the head of the column was already on the move at this point, Dennison’s men would likely have contented themselves with returning fire while advancing away from the attackers, but Lathbury had other ideas and ordered Lieutenant Tony Baxter and 3 Platoon to drive the attackers back:
I had two or three men hit by the first fire. Lathbury and Urquhart were both in the platoon position, taking cover behind a tree. Lathbury knew me and said ‘Baxter, collect up your platoon and clear that wood.’ I called out to the three section commanders, telling one to take the right, one the left, and the third to come with me. We just spread out and rushed into the trees.48
After a sharp exchange during which Lieutenant Baxter’s thumb was almost severed by a German bullet, Major Dennison ordered 3 Platoon to withdraw and called an O-Group at the edge of the woods. The SS pushed forward again under another mortar barrage and one mortar bomb landed among the O Group, killing two or three of the assembled Section Commanders and wounding Baxter again in the head and shoulders. Dennison then led A Company forward overrunning several machine-gun positions in two hours of inconclusive fighting before the SS finally broke contact, leaving behind an estimated forty dead and a dozen prisoners; the fight cost A Company eighteen casualties, three of them officers, and at least two dead.49 In the meantime the remainder of the 3rd Battalion had advanced a few hundred yards into the outskirts of Oosterbeek without meeting any more opposition. Lieutenant Cleminson and 5 Platoon pushed into the grounds of the Hotel Hartenstein, formerly the Staff Mess for Heeresgruppe B HQ. Apart from a few Germans seen across the parkland to the rear of the hotel, no opposition was encountered and Cleminson and his men enthusiastically helped themselves to Generalfeldmarschall Model’s abandoned lunch before being chased out of the building by Major Waddy. An order to halt was then received at around 19:30.
At this point it is convenient to debunk the enduring myth that Bataillon Krafft was responsible for blocking the 1st Parachute Brigade’s advance into Arnhem. Rboert Kershaw credits Krafft with single-handedly holding up the 1st Parachute Brigade for the entire afternoon, inflicting significant casualties and only withdrawing after dark when threatened with imminent encirclement.50 However, this appreciation is based solely on Krafft’s self-serving version of events, which is also cited in a similar work as an exemplar of German operational efficiency; even Middlebrook, while pointing out the inconsistency between Krafft’s account and those of British participants, nonetheless gives the SS commander partial credit for the deed.51 The problem with this is that Krafft’s version of events was not intended to provide an objective record of events for posterity, but rather to ingratiate him with his SS superiors with an eye to personal advancement in true National Socialist fashion. Consequently, Krafft’s account is somewhat at variance with the verifiable evidence. As we have seen, Krafft’s first contact with the 1st Airborne Division did not involve the 1st Parachute Brigade at all, but was an extended skirmish with the 9th Field Company RE, which was not even seeking to leave the landing area. The second involved ambushing lead elements of the 1st Airborne Reconnaissance Squadron followed by another extended skirmish, and the ‘blocking’ in that instance was largely self-inflicted. With regard to interfering with the 1st Parachute Brigade, Bataillon Krafft had no contact whatever with the 1st Parachute Battalion and its sole contact with the 2nd Parachute Battalion appears to have been 3 Platoon ambushing and wiping out the motorised reconnaissance element from 2 Kompanie as the paratroopers moved off from the Battalion RV. Of the two contacts with the 3rd Parachute Battalion, the first held up the advance for less than an hour and the second occurred at the rear of the 3rd Battalion column while the head was actually on the move, away from the attack, toward Arnhem. The SS broke contact on both occasions and as such both incidents amounted to merely harassing rather than blocking the 1st Parachute Brigade’s advance.
This begs the question as to why the bulk
of the 3rd Parachute Battalion came to a halt in Oosterbeek at 19:30 rather than pushing on into Arnhem. The answer is that the halt was actually self-imposed and the instigator appears to have been Brigadier Lathbury. As we have seen, Lathbury had spent the bulk of his time after leaving the landing area at 15:30 harassing the 2nd and 3rd Parachute Battalions to greater haste. Yet at 19:30, within ninety minutes of pressing if not actually ordering Fitch to detach a third of his combat power and modify his plan of advance in the interests of speed, Lathbury totally reversed tack by halting the 3rd Battalion for the night; the decision was justified in a radio conversation with Major Hibbert two-and-a-half hours later by claiming that he was in contact with the enemy and that the men of the 3rd Parachute Battalion were tired.52 This was a curious claim, given that the 3rd Battalion was not in contact at that time and as Major Hibbert later pointed out, there should have been no question of halting because the 3rd Parachute Battalion had only been on the ground for five hours and fighting for a fraction of that period.53 The situation at that point was far from satisfactory, given that the bulk of the 1st Parachute Brigade was only halfway to its objectives at best.54 Something must therefore have prompted Lathbury’s change of tack, and the only significant event up to that point was Urquhart’s arrival at the 3rd Parachute Battalion’s location, and more specifically his decision to remain there for the night. Urquhart was actually on the verge of departing for Division HQ when Bataillon Krafft attacked the tail of the 3rd Parachute Battalion column but then changed his mind, partly because it would involve travelling through unsecured territory in darkness and partly because his Jeep had been struck by a German mortar bomb that seriously wounded Corporal Warford, while leaving the allegedly malfunctioning No. 22 Set undamaged.55 Urquhart therefore decided to remain where he was on the grounds that he was ‘with the brigade charged with the initial thrust to the bridge and thereby usefully placed to give on-the-spot instructions’.56
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