Gräbner’s preparations were spotted by British sentries posted in the upper storeys of the buildings overlooking the river and the vehicles were initially assumed to be the vanguard of 30 Corps. The recognition error was swiftly recognised, however, and Major Munford, ensconced in his artillery OP in the attic of the Brigade HQ building, called down fire on the column using the target co-ordinates established with 3 Battery just after dawn; he ceased fire after the column moved onto the bridge to avoid damaging the structure.96 The precise time the SS began to move across the bridge is unclear, with times between 08:00 and 09:30 being cited in different accounts.97 Whenever it commenced, the speed differential between the different types of vehicle soon disrupted the column’s integrity and the lead Sd.Kfz. 234s not only opened up a significant gap but also easily avoided the still-smouldering wreckage of the four trucks ambushed the previous night, which Frost had assumed would present an effective obstacle.98 A daisy-chain of mines laid on the road surface also failed to impede their passage, with one vehicle losing a wheel with no noticeable loss of performance, and all five passed down the Nijmeegseweg and through the northern edge of the British perimeter. Although the armoured cars reportedly sprayed the surrounding buildings with 20mm and machine-gun fire there does not appear to have been any response from the Airborne troops, who were presumably waiting for the mines to bring them to a halt before opening fire.
The second increment of Gräbner’s force received a much warmer reception. The paratroopers in the upper storeys of the buildings level with the bridge promptly opened fire on the gaggle of half-tracks weaving and squealing across the carriageway and the volume of fire increased as the vehicles moved into view of the British-occupied buildings on either side of the embanked section of the ramp. The small-arms fire became more effective as the drop in elevation exposed the vehicle’s open-topped passenger compartments to plunging fire and heavier calibre punch was added by Sergeant Robson’s 6-Pounder on the Weertjesstraat and another commanded by a Sergeant O’Neill located on the Eusebiusbinnensingel near the Brigade HQ building. Sergeant Robson’s gun was unsighted by the bridge’s concrete parapet but spotting by Lieutenant Anthony Cox, the Anti-Tank Battery’s Liaison Officer located in the upper storey of a nearby building, allowed Robson to blow part of the parapet away with several armour-piercing rounds and engage the half-tracks as they passed the gap.99 The latter’s collective momentum nonetheless carried them off the bridge proper and a third of the way down the embanked section of ramp until the lead driver lost his nerve, possibly after being wounded, and tried to reverse back out of the storm of fire. The reversing vehicle rammed the next half-track in line and both vehicles became jammed against the parapet on the western side of the bridge, where three more half-tracks collided with them in quick succession, creating a tangle that blocked half the carriageway. The convoy of trucks bringing up the rear, protected by only their rudimentary oil-drum armour, did not get as far as the embanked section of the ramp. At least one, a Renault three-tonner, received a direct hit from either a PIAT or 6-Pounder that totally demolished the cab. The lead truck was brought to a stop over the Weertjesstraat/Westervoortsedijk underpass and the remainder backed up behind it along the concrete parapet on the east side of the bridge.100
The Airborne troops poured a merciless fire into the stalled vehicles with rifles, Stens, Brens and PIATs, augmented with more exotic weapons including the Vickers K guns mounted on Major Gough’s reconnaissance Jeep and at least one captured MP40 machine pistol wielded by Corporal Geoffrey Cockayne from the Brigade HQ element, who fired off the bulk of his ammunition after leaving the shelter of the Brigade HQ building with others to gain clearer firing positions. Lieutenant Harvey Todd, a US officer from the attached Jedburgh Team, was credited with picking off eight Germans with his M1 Carbine. Major Munford and a Private Shuttlewood claimed a similar number.101 The defender’s task was eased by several of the shot-up vehicles catching fire, giving their SS passengers and crewmen the unenviable choice of burning to death or braving the hail of fire in the roadway in an attempt to reach safety. A few made it. A signaller in the 2nd Parachute Battalion’s HQ building recalled one German emerging from a half-track halted hard against the east parapet and dashing down the embankment and across the Eusebiusbuitensingel to safety.102 Many others were not so fortunate and the roadway was soon littered with dead SS, some dismembered by bullets and shrapnel and some set ablaze by burning petrol and diesel spilled from ruptured fuel tanks.
Not all the SS who emerged from the clusters of stalled vehicles sought safety. Impressively, some continued to try and push forward down the ramp, as did some vehicles that had not been immobilised in the initial storm of fire. One Sd.Kfz. 250 half-track veered off the ramp along a maintenance slip road called the Bleckmanslaan leading down the east side of the embankment. This carried the vehicle past and under the windows of the Van Limburg School and specifically that occupied by Sapper Ronald Emery from the 1st Parachute Squadron’s A Troop. Emery allowed the vehicle to pass before firing down into the open top from the rear, hitting the driver and co-driver, and then stood up in clear view to throw a grenade into the vehicle’s passenger compartment despite return fire from the half-track’s machine-gun; he was subsequently awarded the Military Medal.103 The last vehicle knocked out in the action was an unarmoured Sd.Kfz. 10 half-track, which also attempted to avoid the slaughter on the carriageway by taking the Bleckmanslaan; it, too, was comprehensively shot up and ended up slewed across the road with its front end poking through the roadside railings just a few feet from the Van Limburg School. As it became apparent the assault was being successfully rebuffed the buildings around the ramp echoed to exultant calls of ‘Waho Mohammed’, the war cry adopted by the 1st Parachute Brigade in North Africa, accompanied by the keening of a jammed vehicle horn.104
The attack went on for around two hours before the SS survivors finally admitted defeat and retired south across the bridge to link up with the blocking force at Elst, or possibly German reinforcements moving up to secure the south end of the bridge. Private Sims was involved in the risky business of relaying fire control orders to the mortar pits on the Weertjesstraat by shouting from an upper-storey window after Lieutenant Woods spotted a number of German trucks approaching from the south. Several vehicles were set ablaze before the remainder withdrew in some confusion, helped on their way by the Vickers guns emplaced at the front of the White House.105 In spite of all this, at least half a dozen SS men remained trapped among the wreckage and were captured by a patrol from the 2nd Parachute Battalion’s B Company moving onto the bridge after dark.106
Gräbner’s impetuous and poorly executed attempt to force a way across the Arnhem road bridge thus achieved little apart from virtually destroying II SS Panzerkorp’s single most powerful integral unit for no practical return. Around ten armoured vehicles and up to a dozen trucks were left scattered across the north ramp, forming an inextricable block across much of the carriageway along with approximately seventy dead including Gräbner, whose body was never found.107 In contrast, British losses appear to have been light in the extreme, but while the successful repulse boosted morale it brought no real respite. At 10:00 the house held by Lieutenant Donald Hindley and men from the 1st Parachute Squadron’s HQ and Signals Troop on the Eusebiusbuitensingel opposite the Van Limburg School was attacked by infantry moving under covering fire from machine-guns, although the Sappers succeeded in driving the attackers back. An hour later Kampfgruppe Brinkmann launched another attack on the east side of the British perimeter, which, apparently learning from the earlier attempt to rush the bridge underpass, was more carefully focussed on securing the crossroads formed by the junction of the Westervoortsedijk, Eusebiusbuitensingel and Oostraat.108 The blow therefore fell on buildings occupied by Lieutenant Patrick Barnett’s Brigade HQ Defence Platoon and Lieutenant Gerald Infield’s 8 Platoon from C Company 3rd Parachute Battalion and appears to have involved Obersturmführer Ziebrecht’s Panhard armoured cars, again
reported as tanks by the British. Sergeant Robson’s 6-Pounder was credited with knocking out one while another may have fallen victim to a PIAT, and further support was provided by 3 Battery via Captain Henry Buchanan, an artillery forward observer attached to the 2nd Parachute Battalion.109 By 13:00 the Bren Groups defending the south side of the Van Limburg School had been drawn into the fray, presumably as the German advance brought them into view, and the school was subjected to an hour-long mortar bombardment in response, although one source suggests some of this might have been fire from the 2nd Battalion’s Mortar Platoon, which was stopped after the occupants confirmed their occupation with cries of ‘Waho Mohammed’.110
Not all of the 2nd Parachute Battalion’s elements enjoyed such success on Monday morning. Major Victor Dover and C Company had spent the night holed up in the PGEM building on the Utrechtsestraatweg a mile or so north of the road bridge and 600 yards short of its objective, the main German HQ in Arnhem. Following radio contact with Battalion HQ just after dawn the latter mission was abandoned in favour of moving south to join the bridge perimeter via a dogleg to the west to reach the riverside road. The Company moved out the back of the hotel at 07:00 with Lieutenant David Russell’s 7 Platoon in the lead but movement was again complicated by the maze of small walled backyards and worse, the dogleg west carried them toward the Municipal Museum and into the area occupied by Kampfgruppe Harder as a backstop to Spindler’s main blocking line. The paratroopers were quickly spotted and when Lieutenant Russell led a dash across the to the next block he discovered the road was swept by 20mm and machine-guns firing on fixed lines, which deterred the remainder of the Company from crossing, leaving Russell, a Sergeant Campbell and six men isolated. The road was almost certainly the Nachtengaalstraat and attempts to cross were further complicated by high chain-link fencing running along both sides, which the desperate paratroopers tried to breach with PIATs. Private William Saunders used the last of his 2-inch smoke bombs to cover the crossing but the appearance of German armoured vehicles obliged the paratroopers to withdraw farther west, covered by Sergeant Campbell throwing hand grenades at the vehicles from No. 34 Nachtengaalstraat. Eventually the survivors, many of whom were wounded and virtually out of ammunition, were pinned down just 300 hundred yards or so from the 3rd Parachute Battalion’s positions near the Rhine Pavilion. Faced with imminent annihilation, Dover surrendered. Three officers and around 100 men thus passed into captivity, equivalent to a third of the 2nd Parachute Battalion’s rifle strength. Lieutenant Russell and his little band were more fortunate and succeeded in breaking through the German line to link up with Lieutenant Cleminson’s platoon near the St Elizabeth Hospital.111
While Frost’s party was defending its grip on the north end of the Arnhem road bridge, the remainder of the 1st Parachute Brigade spent the morning trying to reach them. Although the unit War Diary refers to the 3rd Parachute Battalion setting off from its overnight location on the western outskirts of Oosterbeek at 08:30, the move actually began some hours earlier. Lieutenant-Colonel Fitch was still in the unenviable position of running his Battalion with his Brigade and Division commanders looking over his shoulder and the Battalion thus only moved off after consultation with Lathbury and Urquhart. The latter gave Fitch permission to abandon his assigned TIGER/Utrechtseweg route and sideslip south onto the riverside LION route used by the 2nd Parachute Battalion the previous night, and thus to do what he would likely have done nine hours before, left to his own devices. His superior showed no such inclination. At this point Urquhart had been absent from and out of touch with his HQ for over twelve hours. Given the lack of radio communication and his consequent inability to influence or even properly monitor the situation, the logical thing for Urquhart to do on the morning of Monday 18 September would have been to borrow an escort from Fitch and return to the landing area. Instead, he elected to maintain his self-imposed isolation from the levers of command by staying with the 3rd Battalion when it resumed the advance toward Arnhem, as did Lathbury and his Tactical Brigade HQ.
The 3rd Battalion’s advance was again led by B Company, spearheaded by Lieutenant James Cleminson’s 5 Platoon and accompanied by Fitch and his Tactical Battalion HQ, Urquhart and Lathbury, a party from the 1st Parachute Squadron RE and a single 6-Pounder anti-tank gun. HQ Company came next with Major Dennison’s A Company bringing up the rear. The column also included the remaining two 6-Pounders from C Troop 1st Airlanding Anti-tank Battery, a detachment from 16 Parachute Field Ambulance and a Forward Observer party from the 1st Airlanding Light Regiment RA, along with two Bren Carriers and around twenty Jeeps. B Company made good progress in the pre-dawn darkness, moving through Oosterbeek onto the riverside Benedendorpsweg, through the Oosterbeek Laag underpass and up the incline of the Klingelbeekseweg as it rose several yards of elevation to the junction with the Utrechtsestraatweg, without any enemy contact. The advance continued until 5 Platoon reached the Rhine Pavilion, 300 yards or so east of the junction of the Klingelbeekseweg and Utrechtsestraatweg and almost three miles from the Battalion’s start point. Major Waddy’s Company had therefore covered as much ground as the previous day in around three hours, with Lieutenant Cleminson’s 5 Platoon reaching a point just over a mile from the Arnhem road bridge. At this point Lieutenant-Colonel Fitch called a halt because the Battalion column had become separated; as it grew light the German troops occupying Den Brink and adjacent buildings had opened fire on HQ Company’s lead element, which consequently lost sight of the tail end of B Company. Major Waddy therefore ordered B Company and its companions to take cover in some large houses on the right of the Utrechtsestraatweg backing onto the Lower Rhine and ordered Lieutenant Cleminson and 5 Platoon to withdraw the hundred yards or so back from the Rhine Pavilion to rejoin the rest of the Company.112 The 1st Parachute Battalion was also on the move in the pre-dawn gloom, following Lieutenant-Colonel Dobie’s chance 05:00 meeting with Captain Anthony Harrison, who had informed Dobie that Frost was in urgent need of reinforcement and presumably that the riverside LION route was clear. At that point the 1st Battalion’s S Company had been embroiled with elements of SS Panzer Pionier Abteilung 9 holding the underpass carrying the Utrechtsestraatweg under the Arnhem‒Ede railway line for the better part of an hour, and Major Stark was preparing to launch a full company attack on the roadblock. Dobie cancelled the attack and ordered another side-slip onto the LION route beginning at approximately 05:30. The 1st Battalion therefore broke contact, withdrew into the eastern edge of Oosterbeek to reorganise and then struck south-east to pick up the Benedendorpsweg as it passed through the Oosterbeek Laag underpass. Arriving there at around 07:00 Dobie found the 3rd Battalion’s HQ and A Companies still stalled and took them under command; having lost R Company and most of his support elements and attachments the previous night, the 3rd Battalion’s 3-inch mortars, Vickers Medium Machine Guns and 6-Pounder anti-tank guns were especially welcome additions.113
Up at the head of the 3rd Battalion column near the Rhine Pavilion Lieutenant Cleminson was champing at the bit to continue the advance; as he put it years after the event, ‘The Germans were certainly not in major strength yet, and I had only had one serious casualty in my leading section so far that morning.’114 This, however, was not actually the case, for the Germans were there in sufficient strength and they were deployed in depth across Cleminson’s projected line of advance. In fact, 5 Platoon had inadvertently halted only 200 hundred yards short of a kampfgruppe made up of the 350-strong SS Panzer Artillerie Regiment 9, reinforced with elements from SS Panzergrenadier Regiments 19 and 20 occupying a blocking position on the Utrechtsestraatweg and Onderlangs just east of the Arnhem Municipal Museum. A few hundred yards behind them, manning another line running south for around 300 yards from Arnhem’s main railway line to the Lower Rhine was Kampfgruppe Harder, made up of around 350 dismounted tank crewmen, fitters and logistic troops from SS Panzer Regiment 9, augmented with a draft of 100 Kriegsmarine personnel. This was the southern section of the Sperrlinie or blocking
line erected during the night by Sturmbannführer Ludwig Spindler to seal off the British airborne force to the west of Arnhem, as ordered by II SS Panzerkorps at 17:30 on 17 September. To this end Spindler had been given command of all 9 SS Panzer Division’s Warnungs Kompanien and other units in the immediate area, including a detachment of unarmed Reichsarbeitsdienst workers who had to be armed with captured British weapons.
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