Arnhem

by William F Buckingham

  The problem was that Urquhart was not with the Brigade charged with the initial thrust to the Arnhem bridge. He was with an isolated and incomplete Battalion and the Brigade’s Tactical HQ consisting of Lathbury, his Brigade Intelligence Officer and presumably a signaller, out of contact with the bulk of its constituent units and with no real idea of their progress or condition. Urquhart was therefore anything but usefully placed or indeed capable of giving on-the-spot instructions, and his decision to remain with the 3rd Battalion column merely compounded his original error of leaving Division HQ without adequate communications or properly clarifying command arrangements during his absence. His reluctance to risk driving through two miles or so of unsecured territory is arguably valid, although by that logic he should not have left the landing area at all. It contrasts with the behaviour of his opposite number with the 6th Airborne Division, Major-General Richard Gale, in Normandy. At around 09:00 on the morning of 6 June 1944 Gale covered a similar distance between Ranville and the Orne bridges on foot and unescorted apart from two of his Brigadiers.57 Had he been so minded Urquhart could have taken an escort from the 3rd Battalion and walked back to the landing area under the cover of darkness, which would likely have been a safer prospect than motoring around in the stillness of the night in a Jeep.

  It is therefore valid to assume that Lathbury halted the 3rd Parachute Battalion for the night, putting his primary mission aside in the process, in order to protect Urquhart. Under normal circumstances this would have been justifiable as it was Lathbury’s military duty to protect his superior. The circumstances of the evening of 17 September 1944 were far from normal however, and the onus was therefore upon Urquhart to keep things moving ‒ but he remained little more than a bystander, his passivity allegedly arising from ignorance of the overall situation.58 Strictly speaking this was true, but given his discussions with Lathbury he cannot have been unaware that the latter had no real idea of his constituent Battalion’s progress or location, or that after five hours on the ground his Division’s primary objective had not yet been secured. On that basis alone he had no place simply acquiescing to Lathbury’s decision to halt for the night. Rather, he should have acted in line with the urgency of the situation and indeed his justification for remaining with the 1st Parachute Brigade, by taking the initiative and issuing ‘on-the-spot instructions’ for Lathbury to continue to move on Arnhem. Given that the 3rd Parachute Battalion’s C Company reached the north end of the Arnhem bridge in the early hours of Monday 18 September it is highly likely that the entire battalion could have done the same, had it been allowed to press on.59 This would have doubled the size of the infantry force defending the north end of the Arnhem bridge at a stroke, and thus might well have permitted the defenders to hold out until 30 Corps reached them. As it was, Urquhart spent the night of 17-18 September with Lathbury in a house near the Hotel Hartenstein, making frequent but futile checks on the radio communication situation, surrounded by the bulk of the 3rd Parachute Battalion. While they rested, the window of opportunity to reach the Arnhem road bridge was slowly closing, for just two miles or so to the east Sturmbannführer Ludwig Spindler was diligently piecing together what was to become an impregnable blocking line in the western outskirts of Arnhem.

  Whatever the reason, Lathbury’s decision to halt for the night did not go down well. Private Fred Moughton from the 3rd Battalion’s HQ Company later lamented being ‘held up by twopenny-ha’penny opposition’.60 Fitch’s view is unknown because he was killed two days later, but his second-in-command, Major Alan Bush, regarded the halt as ‘the start of the great cock-up’ and was convinced that Fitch would have continued moving had he been left to his own devices, probably in the wake of his C Company: ‘I felt very sorry for Colonel Fitch. Urquhart needed to get back to Division, and Lathbury wanted to get forward to the bridge. If we had not had those two with us, Fitch would have probably followed C Company around that route to the north, but he could hardly move without the approval of both the divisional and brigade commanders ‒ a hopeless situation.’61 Brigade Major Tony Hibbert was more forthright in his criticism of Lathbury’s decision. Hibbert was at the Arnhem road bridge by about 20:4562 and unsuccessfully urged Lathbury to despatch the 3rd Parachute Battalion or at least a company each from the 3rd and the 1st Parachute Battalion down the riverside LION route during their radio exchange at 22:00.63 Hibbert quite rightly pointed out fifty-seven years after the event that there should have been no question of halting after such a short period on the ground and in his view, Lathbury’s refusal to move was ‘the moment we lost the battle’.64 It is difficult to disagree with this assessment.

  While the 1st Parachute Battalion was trying to bypass German opposition on the Amsterdamseweg/LEOPARD route and the 3rd Parachute Battalion was digging in around the Hotel Hartenstein, the 2nd Parachute Battalion was pushing into Arnhem proper. Screened from the SS atop Den Brink by B Company, Major Digby Tatham-Warter and A Company led the way across the Arnhem city boundary at approximately 19:30 accompanied by Lieutenant-Colonel Frost. A and HQ Companies were trailed by Major Hibbert’s swollen Brigade HQ column, which by this point had attracted part of the 1st Parachute Squadron RE, a platoon and attached section from 250 (Airborne) Light Composite Company RASC, a two-strong Jedburgh Team, Major Gough and two armed Jeeps from the Reconnaissance Squadron and a party from the 3rd Airlanding Battery RA led by the Battery commander, Major Denis Munford. There were also two units accompanying Hibbert by prior arrangement, Lieutenant-Colonel Eric Townsend and the bulk of 16 Parachute Field Ambulance RAMC and Lieutenant Wilfred Morley’s fifteen-strong No.1 Section from the 1st (Airborne) Divisional Provost Company CMP with twenty POWs. Townsend’s and Morley’s men struck out for their own specific objectives soon after crossing the city boundary. The Field Ambulance was tasked to establish a Main Dressing Station (MDS) for the 1st Parachute Brigade in the St. Elizabeth Hospital and was treating casualties from the 2nd Parachute Battalion at that location by approximately 22:00, using two operating theatres with the assistance of volunteers from the Dutch staff.65 The Provost Section was tasked to secure the main police station in the centre of Arnhem, presumably to serve as a POW holding facility. They arrived there at approximately 23:00, picking up Sergeant Harry Parker and Private Robert Peatling who had become separated from the 3rd and 2nd Parachute Battalions respectively on the way, after seeking directions from the rather bemused occupants of the Dutch Civil Defence HQ.66

  After the Arnhem railway bridge had been blown literally in the face of Lieutenant Barry and 9 Platoon, C Company paused to reorganise before setting out for its secondary objective, the primary German HQ in the centre of Arnhem located near the main railway station. Lieutenant David Russell and 7 Platoon led the Company past the bottleneck at Den Brink and then came upon a group of German troops disembarking from a bus outside the St. Elizabeth Hospital:

  After a quick whispered briefing by Major Dover, my platoon opened fire with small arms. This resulted in much scuffling, moaning and groaning, shouting ‒ every sign of a party caught by surprise. A number of survivors dived into the shelter of a vehicle against the hospital. The Piat fired on them ‒ more groaning, and the survivors ran off into the hospital entrance. Another Piat was fired which resulted in more cries – ‘Nicht schiessen!’ and so on.67

  Russell’s men then shot up an approaching white vehicle which proved to be a Dutch ambulance carrying Captain John Tobin from 16 Parachute Field Ambulance. No one appears to have been hurt in the incident, but Tobin was understandably ‘very annoyed’.68 C Company then pushed on to within 600 yards of their objective, and at around 21:30 ran into German troops blocking the Brugstraat in a densely built-up area with no room to deploy. Two paratroopers were killed in the exchange, possibly by fire from an armoured half-track mounting a 75mm gun of some description, perhaps a Sd.Kfz. 251/9; the vehicle was knocked out by Private William Saunders from 7 Platoon’s HQ element using a 2-inch mortar as a makeshift anti-armour weapon.69 Despite this, th
e Company was obliged to fall back and Dover elected to occupy a large building on the north side of the Utrechtsestraat belonging to the PGEM power company, where they remained for the rest of the night.

  Lieutenant Grayburn and 2 Platoon continued to lead A Company’s advance on the Arnhem road bridge, taking a number of individual Germans prisoner in the first stage of the move. Preoccupied with Major Crawley’s fight on Den Brink, Frost briefly lost contact with Major Tatham-Warter and his men and had to rush forward accompanied by his Intelligence Officer, Lieutenant Clifford Boiteux-Buchanan; they were guided in the right direction after 300 yards or so by an A Company soldier escorting ten German POWs. Frost was then able to bring the remainder of the 2nd Battalion forward in A Company’s wake, with a slight detour to the north end of the pontoon bridge site. The bridge proved to be unusable, with only a section moored to hand on the northern bank, so Frost detached a party from Support Company, probably from the Battalion Assault Platoon, to guide B Company to the site when it broke contact at Den Brink, in the hope they could devise some way of crossing the river. Frost then pressed on over the remaining half-mile or so to the road bridge.70 Grayburn and his men arrived there ahead of him at around 20:00 and A Company reorganised under the bridge’s huge north ramp prior to establishing a defensive perimeter. 2 Platoon was then despatched to cover the lower embanked section of the ramp, while 1 and 3 Platoons occupied houses covering the approaches to the bridge. A Company’s advance to the bridge had gone extremely well, covering the seven miles from the landing area in just less than five hours at a cost of only a single fatality and a small number of wounded. Frost arrived with HQ and Support Companies while A Company was reorganising. Spirits were understandably high and inevitably generated a considerable hubbub in addition to the noise generated by several hundred men and numerous vehicles in a relatively confined space. Lieutenant Vlasto recalled that things were organized ‘amid the most awful row…The CO [Frost] arrived and seemed extremely happy, making cracks about everyone’s nerves being jumpy.’71 Despite the noise, the Airborne interlopers remained undetected, partly because 2 Platoon remained concealed and allowed German vehicles to cross the bridge unmolested, and partly because of the inexperience of the twenty very young or overage German soldiers guarding the bridge. In their ignorance these soldiers remained ensconced inside their makeshift bunkers in the structural concrete towers at each end of the bridge, rather than patrolling. This error was shortly to cost those at the north end their lives.

  The first attempt to secure the road bridge was an impromptu effort by Lance-Sergeant Bill Fulton and his Section from 3 Platoon. Ordered to secure the end of the bridge by an unidentified officer, Fulton’s seven-strong band made their way onto the bridge ramp via a stairway cut into the embankment and, after pausing for a truckload of German troops to depart, moved along the right side of the structure and took several individual Germans prisoner before Fulton’s luck ran out: ‘I saw a rifle starting to point at me. I swung round to the right and started firing my tommy-gun. I know I hit him because he fired his rifle as he was falling forward and I caught the bullet in the top of my left leg. I told the section behind me to report back that the bridge was well manned and would need more troops. I managed to crawl behind an iron girder, and eventually a couple of medics came for me.’72 The second attempt was organised by Major Tatham-Warter and went ahead around the same time Major Hibbert arrived at the bridge with the Brigade HQ column, at 20:45. After blackening their faces and wrapping their steel-shod ammunition boots in strips of material obtained from nearby houses, Lieutenant Grayburn’s 2 Platoon stealthily advanced from their positions on the ramp embankment in two files hugging the edges of the roadway. They had penetrated onto the bridge proper and were approaching the improvised bunker when a machine-gun therein opened fire; according to one source the fire was thickened by armoured half-tracks from SS Panzer Aufklärungs Abteilung 9 shooting from the south end of the bridge.73 Caught in the open with no cover to hand, the paratroopers had no alternative but to withdraw back to the embankment. There were no fatalities but eight men were wounded including Lieutenant Grayburn, who was hit in the shoulder, but despite this he supervised his Platoon’s withdrawal and was the last man off the bridge. One of the wounded, making his way off the ramp and calling loudly for a stretcher-bearer, was confronted and sharply admonished by Lieutenant-Colonel Frost for making noise; according to an eyewitness he responded with ‘Excuse me, sir, but I’m fucking well wounded,’ in calm and measured tones.74

  A third attempt at around 22:00 was more successful. A Jeep deftly reversed Sergeant Ernest Shelswell’s 6-Pounder gun part way up the ramp embankment, from where it was manhandled onto the ramp facing the bridge. At the same time 1 Platoon used a PIAT to blow a hole in the upper storey of the house they were occupying; the hole was level with the bunker and gave a flame-thrower team from Captain Trevor Livesey’s B Troop, 1st Parachute Squadron RE a clear line of fire.75 Several rounds of armour-piercing shot were then pumped into the bunker, and while the flame-thrower missed the bunker the jet of flame detonated ammunition stored in wooden huts behind it and ignited the paintwork on the bridge superstructure, bathing the north end of the bridge, the ramp and adjacent buildings in orange light. Frost had intended to push men across to the south end of the bridge at that point, but was forestalled by the arrival of a four-truck convoy that made the mistake of approaching tentatively from the south. Tatham-Warter’s men opened fire as the convoy neared the knocked-out bunker; at least one of the trucks was also carrying ammunition and the resultant explosion destroyed the vehicle and set the others ablaze. Several of the occupants were killed, others were taken prisoner and a German NCO reportedly charged the British positions and killed one paratrooper with a pistol before being despatched. The destruction of the convoy stymied Frost’s plan to push over the bridge altogether, as the combination of blazing vehicles and burning paintwork made it impossible to cross.76 Despite this setback, Frost had nonetheless succeeded in effectively securing the 1st Airborne Division’s primary objective within six hours or so of leaving the landing area and with only part of his 2nd Parachute Battalion.

  While all this was going on the Airborne troops establishing a perimeter facing out from the bridge were also making contact with Germans, few if any of whom were expecting to see the British so far from their landing area. Possibly the first was a 120-strong Vergeltungswaffe 2 ballistic missile unit that included Leutnant Joseph Enthammer, billeted in a school a few hundred yards from the road bridge. Despite witnessing the parachute drop in the distance, the rocket troops were held back from participating in the counter-measures in light of their specialist nature, and were then ordered to evacuate the area. Assigned to command a seventeen-man rear party, Enthammer was not able to leave the school until around 21:00, by which time it was too late: ‘We couldn’t have travelled more than 300 to 400 metres before British soldiers stepped out and halted the lorry in the street. What could we do? We were virtually unarmed except for a few rifles. It came as a complete surprise.’ Enthammer and his little group were herded into a nearby house and kept quiet about their unit affiliation and recent activities, probably a wise decision given the well-publicised damage V2 attacks were wreaking on London and south-eastern England at that time.77 The paratroopers also clashed with SS Panzergrenadier Regiment 21’s fifty-strong 3 Kompanie, which had pedalled the twenty-five miles from its billets in Deventer after commandeering bicycles from Dutch civilians at gunpoint. Nineteen-year-old Rottenführer Rudolf Trapp, one of the few veterans in 3 Kompanie, found himself under fire from all directions in the darkened streets under the north ramp and rapidly realised that digging out the paratroopers was going to be ‘no easy task’.78

  A similar clash brought the British presence at the bridge to the attention of the German senior commanders. When Gräbner’s reconnaissance unit was despatched to Nijmegen Hauptsturmführer Heinrich Brinkmann’s SS Panzer Aufklärungs Abteilung 10 was transferred to 9 SS Panze
r Division in exchange, with effect from 17:30 on 17 September.79 Brinkmann had already been ordered to patrol along the north bank of the Lower Rhine as far as Emmerich, twenty-five miles upstream from Arnhem, in order to ascertain the extent of the Allied landings. Finding no sign of Allied activity, Brinkmann ordered Obersturmführer Karl Ziebrecht’s 1 Kompanie, equipped with a number of captured French Panhard armoured cars dubbed Panzerspähwagen P204 (f) in German service, to proceed to Arnhem in line with fresh instructions from II SS Panzerkorps to secure the road bridge there. Approaching the crossing at around 20:00 the Panhard’s were fired on by Frost’s men; taken aback by the unexpected turn of events, Ziebrecht pulled his vehicles back and radioed news of the encounter to Obersturmbannführer Paetsch at 10 SS Panzer Division HQ, who in turn passed it up the chain to II SS Panzerkorps and Heeresgruppe B.80 The arrival of the next unit at the bridge highlighted the potentially fatal consequences of the German failure to properly secure the crossing. Hauptsturmführer Karl-Heinz Euling’s Bataillon from SS Panzergrenadier Regiment 22, reinforced with SS Panzer Pionier Bataillon 10 and redesignated Kampfgruppe Euling, had been ordered to proceed from its billets at Dieren, eleven miles north of Arnhem, and secure the road and rail crossings across the River Waal in Nijmegen. Some elements appear to have crossed the Lower Rhine just before access to the Arnhem bridge was blocked by the British paratroopers, but the bulk of the unit became embroiled in a fight at the bridge ramp that went on through the night and into the morning of Monday 18 September.