Arnhem

by William F Buckingham

  By this point overall responsibility for retaking the Arnhem road bridge had devolved from Hauptsturmführer Brinkmann to Brigadeführer Heinz Harmel, commander of 10 SS Panzer Division, who, on returning from a trip to Berlin in the early hours of Monday 18 September, also found himself tasked to prevent the Allies seizing the Waal crossings at Nijmegen. Despite being obliged to shuttle back and forth between the Lower Rhine and the Waal via the crossings at Huissen and Pannerden, Harmel spent sufficient time at Arnhem on Monday to appreciate that while the eventual result was likely inevitable, digging out the British would nonetheless be difficult, time-consuming and costly in lives for both sides. In the early morning of Tuesday 19 September he therefore had the recently captured Lance-Sergeant Stanley Halliwell from the 1st Parachute Squadron RE carry a request for a meeting to Frost; Harmel appears to have mistaken Halliwell for a sergeant-major. Halliwell may have been wounded in the arm. As no truce was in effect Halliwell was obliged to dash forward shouting for his compatriots not to shoot him when his German escort became embroiled in a firefight and then spent ten fraught minutes braving the fire-raked streets searching for Frost who, perhaps predictably, told him to tell Harmel to ‘go to Hell’. Understandably wary of relaying such a response and despite having given Harmel his parole to return, Halliwell opted to remain with his comrades in the perimeter. For his part Harmel appears to have anticipated that there would be no British surrender and no returning ‘sergeant-major’.26

  In the meantime the balance had swung further against Frost’s embattled band with the arrival of the second increment of reinforcements ordered up by Wehrkreis IV twenty-four hours earlier. Drawn from Panzer Ersatz Regiment 6 ‘Bielefeld’, Panzer Kompanie Mielke was a driver training unit named for its Leutnant commander equipped with six Panzer III and two Panzer IV tanks. Obliged to detrain at Zevenaar where there was a suitable unloading platform, Mielke’s unit arrived in Arnhem in the early hours of the morning after a ten-mile road march and was assigned to Knaust, presumably because the industrial area to the east of the road bridge provided better room to manoeuvre than the narrow streets to the west and north; Knaust’s command was then upgraded to kampfgruppe status. The German attack was resumed after daylight and may have begun with an attack supported by Brinkmann’s reconnaissance vehicles, given that PIAT-gunner Private Robert Lygo was awarded the Military Medal for driving off three armoured cars that approached the building held by A Company’s 3 Platoon at the junction of the Westervoortsedijk and Ooststraat.27 Be that as it may, Mielke’s Panzer IVs appear to have approached the fight via the Westervoortsedijk with one being knocked out around 200 yards east of the road bridge ramp, next to the industrial buildings wrested from Lieutenant Infield’s 8 Platoon the previous day. The vehicle likely fell victim to Sergeant Robson’s 6-Pounder 300 yards away on the Weertjesstraat, and may have been unaware of its proximity to the British positions given that it ended up facing away from the bridge; it also appears to have been reversing when an armour-piercing shot penetrated its schürzen side-armour and snapped the right track. The second Panzer IV was also knocked out on the Westervoortsedijk a hundred yards or so closer to the bridge by three hits to the hull front that set it alight. The vehicle came to rest with a pipe bridge linking buildings on either side of the road collapsed across its engine deck, although it is unclear whether this occurred at the time or later.28

  Whether by accident or design Leutnant Mielke’s Panzer IIIs were deployed out of sight of the British anti-tank guns on the riverside Nieuwekade (New Quay), although at least some of the paratroopers were aware of their presence. Presumably prompted by the engagement with the Panzer IVs, Private Cecil Newell was ordered to accompany an unnamed officer with his PIAT to ‘see if there were any tanks about’. Using the bridge support pillars on the riverside road for cover, Newell stepped out to peer down the Nieuwekade: ‘Well! There were about 20 tanks, or so it seemed, all lined up facing us with their crews standing waiting. I thought to myself I don’t know what you’re [the officer] going to do, but I know what I’m doing! I sneaked back round the pillar and there he was coming back round on his side.’29 Suitably chastened, Newell returned to his slit trench and the officer disappeared whence he had come. The Panzer IIIs advanced to the attack shortly thereafter. Private Len Hoare from the 2nd Battalion’s Mortar Platoon recalled a tank appearing under the bridge ramp only fifteen yards or so from his mortar pit at the junction of the Weertjesstraat and Eusebiusbinnensingel, which knocked out a nearby 6-Pounder, likely Sergeant Robson’s gun, and machine-gunned the mortar pit before withdrawing. The machine-gunning set light to the primary mortar bomb charges stacked near the mortar pit and wounded Hoare in the left wrist; as he was already wounded in the right arm he was given first aid in the Mortar Platoon house before being removed to the Aid Post in the cellar of the Brigade HQ building.30

  Meanwhile three Panzer IIIs set about shelling the large house occupied by Lieutenant Andrew McDermont and 3 Platoon on the corner of the Ooststraat and Westervoortsedijk flanking the bridge. The house linked the east and west sides of the British perimeter and was thus vital to its integrity, but the German fire was so intense that Captain Anthony Frank, who had taken over A Company when Major Tatham-Warter was elevated to Battalion command, gave Lieutenant McDermont permission to withdraw from the rear of the building and set up under the bridge ramp.31

  The German attacks on the bridge perimeter after daylight on Tuesday morning again concentrated primarily upon the eastern side, presumably because the German units on the opposite side were still preoccupied with blocking the remainder of the 1st Parachute Brigade near the Municipal Museum and St Elizabeth Hospital. However, the compact nature of the bridge lodgement meant there was a certain amount of overflow and the easterly concentration was probably not especially noticeable to the Airborne soldiers. After an especially intense mortar bombardment Private James Sims, still ensconced in a Mortar Platoon slit trench on the Weertjesstraat with Sergeant McCreath’s small pack, witnessed a German infantry attack from under the bridge ramp that reached the front of the White House before fading away. One of the attackers fell wounded just ten yards from Sims and a British stretcher-bearer was shot down as he attempted to render assistance, an act which elicited a collective ‘howl of rage’ from the paratroopers who witnessed it. Shortly thereafter Sims discovered, via a shouted enquiry from the upper storey of the Mortar Platoon house, that he was the sole occupant of the traffic island, everyone else having been withdrawn to the relative safety of the surrounding buildings. Braving German fire that struck his small pack, Sims reached the safety of the Mortar Platoon house, which by this time had been fully barricaded for defence. Despite the Germans cutting off the mains water supply morale remained high, thanks to an abundant supply of wine and spirits. The telephone lines were not cut, however, and when Sims inadvertently reached out for a jangling receiver in the hallway his wrist was seized by a Sergeant with the words ‘That’s Jerry ringing up, but the lady of the house isn’t at home. Got it?’32

  Back at the western outskirts of Arnhem the remainder of the 1st Parachute Brigade and reinforcements spent the dark early morning hours of Tuesday 19 September preparing to resume the effort to break through to the Arnhem road bridge. Lieutenant-Colonel Dobie and Lieutenant-Colonel McCardie had come up with a joint plan to lead the survivors of the 1st Parachute Battalion and the South Staffords’ A, B and D Companies forward again at 01:00 but this was abandoned on the hour when Division HQ ordered a withdrawal to Oosterbeek. It is unclear if the timing was coincidental but the withdrawal order was the result of Hicks’ knee-jerk reaction to an erroneous report that Frost’s force at the bridge had been overwhelmed. While preparations for the withdrawal were underway the 11th Parachute Battalion arrived at Dobie’s location on the Utrechtseweg after its eight-hour march from the landing area. Dobie does not appear to have been enamoured with the withdrawal order and when it was rescinded at 02:30 he immediately called an O Group with McCardie and Lieuten
ant-Colonel Lea. Dobie’s Intelligence Officer Lieutenant Vladimir Britneff, described the meeting: ‘The scene was, I suppose, dramatic – a darkened, bullet-shattered house with Col McCardie and others sitting and standing round a table lit by a single candle; a wireless set whistling in the background.’33 Dobie made clear his determination to reach the embattled Frost before first light and outlined a straightforward scheme to achieve that objective. The c.140-strong remnant of the 1st Parachute Battalion was to attack along the Onderlangs riverside road while the 2nd South Staffords did the same along the upper Utrechtsestraatweg toward the Municipal Museum, with the 11th Parachute Battalion moving up behind Dobie’s battalion. The start time for the attack was set for 03:30.34

  Just a matter of yards from where Dobie, McCardie and Lea were making their arrangements, Lieutenant-Colonel Fitch was implementing his own scheme to get the surviving 140 men from the 3rd Parachute Battalion through to the Arnhem road bridge. The first stage began at 02:30 with a silent, house-by-house withdrawal to the Rhine Pavilion, controlled by the officers and NCOs commanding each group. The move was completed without casualties despite the paratroopers coming under machine-gun fire on two occasions, although their success was doubtless assisted by the German withdrawal earlier in the night. After regrouping at the Pavilion, Fitch then led his much-diminished Battalion eastward through the darkness along the riverside Onderlangs road. All went smoothly until the lead elements approached the new German line, as unwittingly witnessed by Major Deane-Drummond and Lieutenant Dickson. The paratroopers then came under intense mortar and machine-gun fire that rapidly inflicted a dozen casualties including the Battalion Liaison Officer Lieutenant Stanley Dean and Regimental Sergeant Major John Lord, both of whom were evacuated to the St Elizabeth Hospital. Unable to proceed in the face of such intense fire or to identify its source, Fitch decided to withdraw to the Rhine Pavilion to regroup at around 04:00 for another attempt after daylight. To that end he despatched his second-in-command, Major Alan Bush, and Captain Geoffrey Dorrien-Smith from B Company, to the rear; it is unclear whether they were tasked to prepare a rally point, an intermediate covering position, or both.35

  By this point the larger attack organised by Dobie was also underway, with the depleted 1st Battalion contingent crossing the start line and heading down the Onderlangs at 04:00, thirty minutes behind schedule. The late start was attributed to an unspecified delay by the 2nd South Staffords, although the latter actually moved off up the Utrechtsestraatweg later still.36 While Dobie was ignorant of Fitch’s near-simultaneous attack, the volume of German fire less than a mile ahead must have alerted him to the presence of friendly troops to his front, and before long wounded and stragglers from Fitch’s unit were passing back through the advancing 1st Battalion, including a passing encounter between Dobie and Captain Dorrien-Smith. The two officers had served together in the 3rd Parachute Battalion in North Africa and a jovial ‘Good morning!’ from Dobie drew a testy ‘Where the hell do you think you’re going?’ from Dorrien-Smith. ‘I’m going up there’ replied Dobie, to which Dorrien-Smith responded ‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you. It’s full of mortars and machine-guns.’ ‘How do you know?’ queried Dobie. ‘Because I’ve bloody well been there’ retorted Dorrien-Smith and Dobie’s attempt to gently chide him with, ‘Well, come and show us,’ was equally unsuccessful as Dorrien-Smith disappeared into the darkness with a curt ‘Not bloody likely.’ According to Lieutenant Britneff, Dobie was ‘quite infuriated’ to learn that his planned route was likely blocked, although the sound of the 3rd Battalion’s rebuff ought to have made that clear. He may therefore have been annoyed about losing the element of surprise to Fitch.37

  Whatever the reason for his annoyance, Lieutenant-Colonel Dobie elected to push on – although in reality he had little option. As there was no communication link with Colonel McCardie apart from runners, halting at this point would have potentially left the South Staffords to carry on alone. The 1st Parachute Battalion’s advance paralleled both sides of the Onderlangs with Major Stark’s S Company moving along the riverside to the right while Major Perrin-Brown’s T Company moved along the scrub-covered slope to the left, apparently trailed by R Company and Dobie’s command group; the remainder of HQ Company had been left to follow up behind the South Staffords. Dobie’s two lead Companies were down to around platoon strength by this time, while R Company consisted of the fifty or so stragglers gathered up by Major Timothy in Oosterbeek the previous day; Major Toler and his party of forty B Squadron Glider Pilots were initially retained by Lieutenant-Colonel McCardie and then released at 03:30 to return to Division HQ, presumably in line with standing orders for the highly trained pilots to be safeguarded whenever possible.38 The 1st Parachute Battalion advanced for thirty minutes or so before being detected, probably as it drew level with the Municipal Museum up on the Utrechtsestraat to the left. At that point the Germans illuminated the riverside area with flares and opened fire with mortars, automatic weapons and infantry guns, some of which were mounted on half-tracks stationed among the houses on the high ground, as noted by Hauptsturmführer Möller on the Utrechtsestraat not far from the Rhine Pavilion: ‘There was rifle fire and machine guns rattled continuously. Muffled “dumpfs” signalled the barking of mortars…Flares rose steadily to our left, something like 400 to 500 metres away, where there was open ground down to the Rhine.’39 The fire intensified with first light and some of the Germans were close enough to lob hand-grenades down onto the T Company men below. At around this time R Company appears to have passed through Major Perrin-Brown’s men to deal with a troublesome strongpoint; Private Bryan Willoughby recalled being joined by another company as the advance faltered in the face of a ‘very determined Spandau machine-gun. I heard an order given by an officer from the newly joined company – “Take that gun out!” There was a pause; nothing happened; then a rush accompanied by shouts of “Waho Mahomed” followed by complete silence. I was glad not to be involved in that.’40

  The 2nd South Staffords parallel advance up the Utrechtsestraatweg did not proceed as planned; the glider soldiers did not leave their forming up positions just west of the St Elizabeth Hospital until thirty to forty-five minutes after the 04:00 deadline. The reason is unclear but Colonel McCardie may have held back in the hope that the remainder of his second lift would arrive before the attack commenced. If so, he almost got his wish, for Major Commings’ party finally came up to the rear of the 11th Parachute Battalion on the Utrechtsestraat at around 05:00, just minutes after the attack commenced.41 The attack was led by Major John Phillp’s D Company followed by Captain Reginald Foot and B Company, with Major Thomas Lane’s A Company bringing up the rear. The attack force numbered approximately 340 men, including McCardie’s HQ element, Captain Arthur Willcocks and Lieutenant Jack Reynolds with No.1 Mortar Platoon carrying their weapons and ammunition in Airborne handcarts, and Lieutenant David Russell and a small group from the 2nd Parachute Battalion’s C Company; the latter had volunteered to join the attack in an effort to rejoin their parent unit at the Arnhem road bridge.42 D Company led the way past the brightly lit and Red Cross-bedecked St Elizabeth Hospital, the illumination surreal amidst the debris and dead from earlier fighting, and on up the leafy, tree-lined incline of the Utrechtsestraat. The elevation there gave a clear field of view over the Lower Rhine and Arnhem proper, and Lieutenant Russell recalled seeing ‘big fires near the road bridge, an awesome sight with a church tower silhouetted against the flames and the greying sky’.43 Initially, the only sign of opposition encountered came from random bursts of automatic fire, some from German elements in the houses facing the St Elizabeth Hospital who quickly withdrew through the hospital grounds, and some from machine-guns and 20mm weapons firing on fixed lines down the Utrechtsestraat or across it from side streets on the left. The narrow attack frontage left little room for manoeuvre, an ironic turn of events later noted by Sergeant Norman Howes from the South Staffords’ A Company: ‘It was totally unlike any other action. We had spent months
and months practising battalion attacks on a 400- to 500-yard front, and the battalion finished up attacking up a street no more than fifty yards wide.’44

  Major Phillp’s men ran into the main German line at 05:00, not far past the St Elizabeth Hospital. The first clash likely involved men from Möller’s SS Panzer Pionier Abteilung 9 and Lieutenant Ernest Roebuck’s 21 Platoon and began with a sustained burst of machine-gun fire that killed Roebuck, inflicted a number of other casualties and forced the rest of 21 Platoon to seek cover; a Lance-Sergeant Cockayne attached to the Platoon had a lucky escape when a German bullet pierced the front of his Airborne helmet without injuring him.45 Captain Ernest Wyss, D Company’s second-in-command, played an inspirational role in keeping the attack moving while brandishing his trademark walking stick: ‘Yet still, Captain Wyss ran up and down totally ignoring all the stuff and metal flying about him, his voice growing ever hoarser…Where men flagged or hesitated he was there. You just could not crawl and watch him stand upright; you had to follow his lead.’46 Inspirational it may have been but such blatant disregard for personal safety could not go on indefinitely; Wyss was mortally wounded and died the following day. In around thirty minutes of ferocious house-to-house fighting D Company drove the Germans back 300 yards along the Utrechtsestraat, but at a cost of forty per cent of its strength including four of its six officers; in addition to Roebuck and Wyss, Major Phillp was shot in the stomach and CanLoan Lieutenant James Erskine from 19 Platoon was also badly wounded.47 With D Company rendered incapable of continuing without consolidation and reorganisation, Lieutenant-Colonel McCardie pushed B Company through to take the lead at c.05:30. At this point the Utrechtsestraat angled up and away from the river, with the right side bordered by the landscaped and wooded parkland sloping down to the riverside. Captain Foot’s men were able to use the top of the slope for cover against fire from Germans stationed in the buildings on the left of the road, although this appears to have exposed them to German overshoots from the 1st Parachute Battalion’s fight down on the Onderlangs.