However, while the 1st Battalion 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment might well have been able to reach and secure the Nijmegen road bridge had it been despatched earlier on 17 September, it is not at all certain it could have held onto it. Warren had only two rifle companies to hand and an understrength Battalion simply lacked the numbers to effectively hold one end of the bridge, let alone the whole structure, as events at Arnhem were to show. The task required at least a full regiment with supporting elements, and a combination of Browning’s edict, the need to protect DZ T and the sheer size of the 82nd Airborne Division’s perimeter meant that Gavin was simply unable to spare sufficient men in the opening stages of MARKET. It should also be remembered that Model had specifically ordered that linkage between the Allied lodgements on the Waal and Lower Rhine was to be prevented at all costs.124 His selection of Nijmegen as the schwerpunkt of the German effort to counter MARKET meant that any US foothold on the River Waal would have been faced with ferocious and unrelenting attack with everything the Germans could bring to bear, and it is extremely likely that such a response would have overwhelmed an understrength Battalion in short order. At least one US participant was of the same opinion. Writing three years after the event, then Captain Delamater, the 1st Battalion’s Executive Officer, stated: ‘I believe at least 90% of us fully believed that we could take the bridge with one Bn. had we been able to reach it before dark. I, personally, have since changed my mind to the extent that we could not have taken and held the bridge even one day [original emphasis].’125 Given the ferocity of subsequent German resistance in Nijmegen and the systematic manner in which the British enclave at the Arnhem road bridge was isolated and overwhelmed, it is difficult to disagree with this assessment.
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Twenty miles south-west of Nijmegen the 101st Airborne Division’s 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment was deployed in and around Veghel covering the road and rail bridges across the River Aa and parallel Zuid Willems Canal. The town had been secured by 15:00 with little resistance and around fifty Germans taken prisoner, although the process of establishing a defensive perimeter was again slowed by the understandably ecstatic locals; as the Division’s semi-official history put it, ‘throngs of civilians gathered around any group of soldiers, chattering and offering them goodies. It became hard to believe that there was still a war to be fought. But, starting from the top and working down, discipline reasserted itself, and the town was organized for all round defence.’126 In addition, the two Platoons from the 326th Airborne Engineer Battalion that had jumped in with the 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment set about erecting a supplementary crossing over the Zuid Willems Canal, in order to permit two-way traffic when 30 Corps arrived. Men from Lieutenant-Colonel Robert A. Ballard’s 2nd Battalion fired on and then captured a German bus loaded with supplies that inadvertently drove into their midst, taking the wounded driver and his four passengers prisoner. The most spectacular incident involved a German light tank of some description and a staff car, which approached a roadblock established on the St. Oedenrode–Veghel road two miles or so west of the latter. The block was manned by Captain Vernon Kraeger’s Company G from the 3rd Battalion and the paratroopers initially assumed the vehicles belonged to 30 Corps. On recognising their error they opened fire and scored a direct hit with a Bazooka but the rocket failed to explode and the tank carried on across the Zuid Willems Canal and into Veghel unscathed, despite being peppered with small-arms fire by the surprised paratroopers holding the Canal bridge. Lieutenant-Colonel Kinnard was alerted by radio and deployed Bazooka men to meet the threat, but the tank appears to have turned off to the south between the Canal and the River Aa and disappeared before reaching the 1st Battalion’s positions. The staff car was not so lucky. Kraeger’s men shot it up after the driver unwisely ignored signals to stop; he was wounded and his passengers, a Major and a senior NCO, were captured. Colonel Johnson was reportedly extremely angry over the collective failure to deal with the armoured interloper, and this presumably spurred Kraeger’s men to beef up their roadblock by placing logs across the road, with the assistance of some local farmers.127
The 501st Regiment’s 1st Battalion and a detachment from Regimental HQ had been misdropped three miles downstream near the town of Kameren and Lieutenant-Colonel Kinnard was obliged leave a party of thirty-eight under Captain William G. Burd to gather in equipment bundles and assist Captain David Kingston, the Battalion Medical Officer, with eight jump casualties; they had been gathered in a temporary aid post located in a large stone building near the DZ known locally as the Kasteel. Burd’s party was attacked by a force of Germans shortly after the remainder of the 1st Battalion had moved off, and the resultant firefight was heard by a Lieutenant Holt moving with the Battalion’s rear element. Holt informed Kinnard when he reached Veghel and although initially sceptical, Kinnard sent his Supply Officer, Lieutenant Clark Howell, back to the DZ with a small patrol to clarify matters. Howell duly reported that Burd’s party was indeed besieged in the Kasteel by a force of around fifty Germans armed with mortars, and his report was subsequently confirmed by stragglers from Burd’s party who fetched up at 1st Battalion HQ. Kinnard promptly sought permission to send a company to their aid but Colonel Johnson was unwilling to sanction diverting such a large force and a Platoon led by 1st Lieutenant Louis E. Raffety was despatched shortly before dark instead.128 The rescuers got as far as Heeswijk, half a mile or so short of the DZ, before bumping into a force of Germans in the darkness. The resulting fight halted the advance and obliged Raffety to order his men to dig in and wait for daylight.129
Apart from this, the first part of the night of 17-18 September passed relatively quietly for the remainder of the 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, with what action there was involving the 3rd Battalion. Lieutenant-Colonel Ewell’s men were deployed in and around Eerde, three miles or so west of Veghel, and manning the log roadblock on the adjacent St. Oedenrode–Veghel road. A German staff car and two trucks were ambushed while trying to drive into the town at 19:00 and a German patrol that probed the Airborne perimeter two hours later was driven off, apparently without any US losses. The remainder of the Regiment was deployed to protect the various objectives in and around Veghel proper. Kinnard’s 1st Battalion was responsible for the bridges across the River Aa, with Captain Stanfield A. Strach’s Company A assigned the road bridge, Company C the railway bridge to the north while Captain Ian B. Hamilton’s Company B covered the south-eastern approaches to the town. Kinnard also despatched his Demolitions Officer, Lieutenant Lee J. Bowers, to destroy a section of railway track a mile east of the railway bridge, thereby pre-empting the problem encountered by the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment near Groesbeek. Ballard’s 2nd Battalion held the Zuid Willems Canal crossings with Companies D and F, commanded by 1st Lieutenant Richard D. Snodgrass and Captain Robert F. Harwick respectively, deployed to protect the road and rail bridges while 1st Lieutenant Frank A. Gregg’s Company E covered the north-western approaches astride the Zuid Willems Canal. Gregg’s unit appears to have occupied its position after dark, possibly relocating from another site. He and his men were thus unable to properly familiarise themselves with the terrain or register their attached 81mm mortars. The problem was exacerbated by fog that rose from the river and canal after dark.
While the 501st was settling into positions around its various objectives, its German opponents were busy organising their response. As we have seen, Feldmarschall Model at Heeresgruppe B had set matters in motion at 17:30 with his operation order that gave Generaloberst Kurt Student’s 1 Fallschirmjäger Armee responsibility for destroying the US airborne landings in the vicinity of Eindhoven. To this end Student was reinforced with two formations: Generalleutnant Walter Poppe’s 59 Infanterie Division, which was regrouping with other elements of 15 Armee at Tilburg after escaping to German-held territory across the Scheldt Estuary; and Major Berndt-Joachim Freiherr von Maltzahn’s Panzer Brigade 107, which was en-route to Aachen to help defend the city from the advancing US 1st
Army. Student’s task was further assisted by an intelligence windfall, in the shape of a briefcase of documents recovered from a Waco CG4 glider that came down near his HQ at Vught. According to Student, the briefcase contained a complete copy of the MARKET operation order that showed ‘the dropping zones, the corridor, the objectives – even the names of the divisions involved. Everything!’130 This seems rather unlikely given the security routinely attached to such sensitive documentation, although all four of the Waco CG4s carrying elements of Browning’s Forward Corps HQ were lost on the fly-in, one of which reportedly came down near Vught.131 On the other hand, seven of the 101st Airborne Division’s allotment of seventy Waco CG4s also came down prematurely in Holland, and another source specifically suggests that the information referred only to the 101st Airborne Division and 30 Corps. Whatever the truth of the matter, at 23:30 on 17 September Heeresgruppe B issued a report that credited a combination of captured documentation and prisoner interrogation for providing an outline of those Allied formations’ proposed tasks, complete with outline orders of battle for each.132
It is unclear if it was the result of the captured documentation or a local initiative prompted by the earlier operation order from Heeresgruppe B, but the 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment’s quiet night came to an abrupt end in the early hours of 18 September. Using the fog to mask their approach, German infantry attacked the elements of Company E deployed east of the Zuid Willems Canal at 02:00, overrunning some outposts and pushing the remainder back to the Company’s main line, with a large warehouse becoming the focus of the fighting. In all the Germans launched three separate attacks down the east side of the canal, with the heaviest commencing at 04:00. At one point Lieutenant Joseph C. McGregor’s Platoon was driven out of its position and although seriously wounded, McGregor personally covered his men’s withdrawal with his Thompson sub-machine gun. By first light E Company had lost seven dead and twenty-six wounded including the Company commander, Lieutenant Gregg, who sustained the first of three wounds he was to suffer in Holland. McGregor was dragged to safety by his men and subsequently awarded the Silver Star for his actions. The fighting east of the Zuid Willems Canal went on all night, and the Germans also launched two additional company-sized attacks against other sectors of the 501st Regiment’s Veghel perimeter, which were beaten off.133
Things were less fraught back at the main landing area where Major-General Taylor had initially set up his Division command post in the woods to the south of DZ C, manned by thirty-one signalmen who had also jumped with the first parachute lift. This little band was augmented within an hour with the arrival of other Division HQ elements with the glider lift, and radio contact was established with all three of the Division’s three Parachute Infantry Regiments shortly after 14:00. By 21:00 Division HQ had been relocated to a more substantial location in a school building in Son proper, and field telephone lines had been run out to the 502nd and 506th Regiments’ locations and the Division Artillery HQ. The major drawback was a lack of communications with 30 Corps, initially due to the non-arrival of gliders carrying a detachment of British signallers. Taylor’s signallers nonetheless managed to establish communications with the 101st Airborne Division’s rear HQ in England, which was in turn able to relay communications with British 2nd Army HQ, but no firm information on 30 Corps’ progress was gained and this remained the case when direct contact was established with British 2nd Army later in the night. The British GHQ Liaison Regiment detachment attached to Taylor’s HQ did succeed in making direct contact with 30 Corps HQ via their dedicated PHANTOM net, but their signal was not recognised by their opposite number with 30 Corps because of a coding mix-up.134
It was also business as usual for Major William E. Barfield and the 326th Airborne Medical Company. The Company’s first increment, carried in six Waco CG4s and consisting of fifty-two men including members of the Auxiliary Surgical Team equipped with two Jeeps and two trailers, landed without incident on LZ W at 13:45. A temporary aid post established at the southern edge of the landing area was receiving casualties by 15:00, and surgical operations were being carried out in the Auxiliary Team’s two specially equipped tents by 17:00. The Company was relocated to a hospital building in Son by 19:00, and by midnight a total of 107 assorted casualties had been treated.135
Most of the remainder of the 101st Airborne Division also enjoyed a relatively quiet night. At Son Company C of the 326th Airborne Engineer Battalion had fabricated a footbridge across the Wilhelmina Canal within two hours of the bridge being blown, but the resultant structure could only support a few men at a time and it took until midnight to pass the whole of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment across to the south bank. Colonel Sink was consequently unable to move on Eindhoven at 20:00 as planned, and he postponed the move altogether after Dutch Resistance reports of a German regiment recently arriving in the city; the information was accurate and referred to a kampfgruppe from Ausbildungs und Ersatz Regiment ‘Hermann Göring’, elements of which had been occupying the buildings at the south end of the Son bridge when the crossing was demolished.136 Sink therefore ordered his Regiment to establish a defensive perimeter around the village of Bokt a mile south of the Wilhelmina Canal and wait for daylight. The opportunity for rest was spoiled in the early hours by heavy rain, although some of Sink’s men coped better than others. HQ Company commandeered a large barn, and Privates Donald Hoobler and David Webster from Company E negotiated a night in the kitchen of a nearby farmhouse by trading cigarettes and D-Ration chocolate for jars of preserved fruit with the farmer.137 To the north of the Canal Lieutenant-Colonel Cassidy and the 1st Battalion 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment spent an equally quiet night in St. Oedenrode, as did Regimental HQ and the 2nd Battalion protecting the landing area for the second lift.
The exception to this general quietude was Company H and latterly the rest of Lieutenant-Colonel Robert G. Cole’s 3rd Battalion 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment. The former was tasked to secure the road and bridges over the Wilhelmina Canal just south of Best but a navigation error brought Captain Robert E. Jones and his men to a crossroads just east of the town where they were drawn into a prolonged fight with FlaK Abteilung 424 and then a convoy of reinforcements from 59 Infanterie Division. As word of Company H’s fight filtered back to Battalion and then Regimental HQ it rapidly became apparent that securing the Best bridges was too much for a single Company and at 18:00 Colonel Michaelis ordered Lieutenant-Colonel Cole to take the remainder of the 3rd Battalion to assist. Cole appears to have followed the same route from DZ B but was also brought to a halt a mile or so short of Best, this time by mortar and artillery fire that prevented further movement. As the light was starting to fade he therefore ordered his men to dig in for the night and, mindful of the urgency of the situation, radioed Jones and ordered him to reinforce one of his platoons with the machine-gun and engineer elements and send it to secure the bridges immediately. Jones therefore broke contact, withdrew south-east into the edge of the Zonsche Forest, ordered his men to reorganise and dig in and at around sunset despatched Lieutenant Edward L. Wierzbowski’s 2nd Platoon south as ordered. Company H remained isolated in its new location for the remainder of the night, apart from radio contact with Battalion HQ, as a number of patrols sent out by Cole failed to make contact in the darkness; three small patrols despatched by Jones in Wierzbowski’s wake were similarly unsuccessful. The Germans had no such difficulty and frequent contacts throughout the night cost Company H a total of thirty-nine casualties.138
Lieutenant Wierzbowski was meanwhile experiencing problems of his own. Moving in pitch darkness and then heavy rain was a time-consuming process, made even slower by the need for stealth when crossing the frequent firebreaks in the woods to avoid alerting German machine-guns firing on fixed lines. As a result, the paratroopers did not reach the Wilhelmina Canal until 21:00, and then some 500 yards east of the road bridge; the railway bridge lay three-quarters of a mile beyond. The Platoon spent another hour crawling stealthily along the dyke
before Wierzbowski called a halt while he scouted the approaches to the bridge with his point man, Private Joe E. Mann. The pair became cut off by an unwitting German sentry and while they remained undetected other Germans somehow spotted their companions. Around thirty minutes after Wierzbowski had gone forward the remainder of the Platoon was attacked with a number of stick grenades thrown across the canal followed by small-arms, mortar and artillery fire. A number of men began digging in at the base of the dyke but some had become restive during their commander’s absence and promptly fled across the open ground for the shelter of the woods to the north. However, Wierzbowski and Mann were able to rejoin the Platoon under cover of the enemy fire, and the Lieutenant led the group back sixty yards along the canal before ordering them to dig in. A swift headcount revealed that the reinforced 2nd Platoon had been reduced to fifteen men and three officers, equipped with a single .30 machine gun with 500 rounds, a Bazooka with five rockets and a mortar of undetermined calibre, likely a 60mm piece, with six rounds. The German mortar and artillery fire finally ceased at 03:00 and Wierzbowski and his somewhat reduced band hunkered down in their muddy foxholes to await daylight in the continuing rain.139
By daylight on Monday 18 September Operation MARKET was thus proceeding fairly well, with crossings over six of the eight major watercourses in the Airborne Corridor secured intact within eighteen hours of the landings. At the northern end of the corridor one of the 1st Parachute Brigade’s battalions had secured the north end of the Arnhem road bridge over the Lower Rhine and a second battalion was moving to reinforce. In the centre the 82nd Airborne Division had secured the Groesbeek Heights as specifically ordered by Browning, along with the bridge over the River Maas at Grave, one intact bridge and two crossing sites over the Maas-Waal Canal and had penetrated to within a mile of the Nijmegen road bridge. In the south the 101st Airborne Division had secured five bridges over the River Dommel in St. Oedenrode, a further four across the Zuid Willems Canal and River Aa in and around Veghel, and had a Battalion moving to secure the additional road and rail crossing over the Wilhelmina Canal near Son. Virtually complete surprise had been achieved over the German defenders, although the reactions of their higher command levels had been extremely efficient and their counter-measures were starting to make themselves felt, notably at the western side of the 1st Airborne Division’s landing area, in Nijmegen and at Veghel and Best. Perhaps most serious was the 101st Airborne Division’s failure to capture the first bridge in the chain, over the Wilhelmina Canal near Best, but the site had been secured in readiness for the bridging train accompanying the lead elements of 30 Corps. The problem was that the GARDEN ground advance was not mirroring the speed or efficiency of the airborne troops in the corridor.
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