Brigadier Hackett appears to have spent the morning unaware of the gravity of the situation facing his 10th Parachute Battalion pinned down near La Cabine pumping station, or of the 156 Battalion’s deteriorating situation on the Dreijenseweg. That changed with a message from Lieutenant-Colonel Des Vœux reporting that two separate company attacks on the Lichtenbeek feature had been repelled with heavy casualties and that as a result 156 Parachute Battalion had ‘for the moment shot its bolt’. Hackett responded by ordering Des Vœux to pull back and consolidate at Point 565. Des Vœux appears to have taken the opportunity to despatch the attached No.1 Troop back to the 4th Parachute Squadron RE.80 Luckily, Point 565 was still occupied by companies from 156 Parachute Battalion and the 7th KOSB and forming of the firm base was underway, if not complete, by 14:00.81 Hackett’s situation was resolved by the arrival of the 1st Airborne Division’s commander, possibly while he was dealing with the message from Des Vœux, although Hackett’s account suggests he may have been informed of an upcoming attack by the 1st Airlanding Brigade to secure the Oosterbeek Hoog railway crossing by Division HQ beforehand; though there is no mention of such a message in the Division HQ War Diary.82 As we have seen, Urquhart had left his HQ at the Hotel Hartenstein at 13:30 in one of the Reconnaissance Squadron’s armed Jeeps escorted by the Squadron’s default commander, Captain David Allsop. As moving along the north side of the railway was judged unsafe the vehicles halted on the south side and Urquhart crossed the embankment on foot, arriving at Hackett’s HQ just south-west of Johannahoeve between 14:00 and 14:20 after being strafed by German fighters on the way.83 Concerned by reports of the 1st Parachute Brigade’s lack of progress and German armour approaching from the north, Urquhart brought instructions for Hackett to abandon the effort to move into Arnhem via the Koepel feature and withdraw south of the Arnhem‒Ede railway line in order to consolidate the Divisional perimeter against attack from the east. The move was to be covered by the 7th KOSB, which was still tasked to hold LZ L for the third glider lift. Once this was accomplished, there was the prospect of a renewed 4th Brigade advance east along the Utrechtseweg to link up with the detached 11th Parachute Battalion before securing the Heijenoord-Diependaal feature north of the railway line, providing the situation was favourable and with Urquhart’s explicit approval.84 Hackett’s War Diary implies the idea of ‘cutting losses’ north of the railway line and reorienting his Brigade advance along the Utrechtseweg was his.85
Whoever was responsible, the idea of maintaining or resuming the advance into Arnhem had been overtaken by events, for the 1st Parachute Brigade and attachments were being driven out of Arnhem as Hackett and Urquhart conferred. With regard to the more immediate matter of the withdrawal south of the railway line, Hackett was understandably concerned about the obstacle the railway embankment posed to vehicular traffic, the more so because the Oosterbeek Hoog crossing was in German hands while the Wolfheze crossing, over a mile to the west, had been abandoned as part of the Division’s Phase II plan. According to Middlebrook, Urquhart announced he would order Brigadier Hicks to secure the Oosterbeek Hoog crossing, and this was passed on in person when Hicks appeared at Hackett’s HQ during the meeting.86 However, while Hackett’s War Diary account records Hicks’ arrival, agreement and departure, there is no mention of Hicks’s absence or any planning for an attack in the 1st Airlanding Brigade War Diary.87 It is also difficult to see what troops Hicks was supposed to perform the attack with, given that the 7th KOSB was holding LZ L, the 1st Border was fully occupied maintaining the western side of the Divisional perimeter and the only troops on the eastern face were a relative handful of survivors from the fighting in the outskirts of Arnhem proper; this was also around the time Lieutenant-Colonel Thompson was meeting with Hicks at the latter’s HQ in an effort to garner reinforcements and supplies for the emergency backstop position on the Benedendorpsweg. It is possible Hicks may therefore have turned up at 4th Parachute Brigade HQ in search of Urquhart after speaking to Thompson, but the clash of timings and more especially the lack of mention in any but Hackett’s War Diary account is puzzling. Either way, the episode strongly suggests that Urquhart had yet to fully grasp the reality of the situation he and his reduced Division were facing.
Hackett set about organising his general withdrawal as soon as Urquhart departed for Division HQ at approximately 15:00, but he appears to have then been distracted by a message from Division HQ reporting that the 1st Airlanding Brigade had suffered either a reverse or threat of such south of the railway line. Hackett’s reaction to this news was to order the 10th Parachute Battalion to break contact immediately, withdraw west and secure the railway crossing at Wolfheze.88 The precise timing of the order to the 10th Battalion’s is unclear but was likely shortly after 15:00, given that the information from Division HQ reportedly arrived at ‘about 1500 hrs’, and that the 10th Battalion was only part way across the landing area when the glider landing commenced just after 16:00.89 Orders for the general withdrawal were issued at 16:00 to the commanders of the 7th KOSB and 4th Parachute Squadron RE, Lieutenant-Colonel Payton-Reid and Major Perkins respectively, in person at an O Group at Hackett’s Forward HQ, and via radio to Colonel Smyth and 156 Parachute Battalion at the same time. The paratroopers were given fifteen minutes to move, the KOSB thirty and the latter was also tasked to cover the withdrawal and provide protection for Major Perkins in getting all 4th Parachute Brigade and Polish motor transport south across the railway embankment.90 Although it was not apparent at the time, these precautions were to prove simultaneously fortuitous and potentially disastrous.
As it was, the order to break contact reached the 10th Parachute Battalion while it was pinned down astride the Amsterdamseweg by fire from numerous German machine-guns, mortars and under attack by armoured vehicles near La Cabine pumping station. Adjutant Nicholas Hanmer, schooled in the principle that disengagement while under attack was akin to suicide, was appalled and shouted across to Colonel Smyth ‘We can’t withdraw from here ‒ the Jerries are all around us,’ to which his Battalion commander responded laconically ‘We’ve got our orders – let’s get going.’91 Captain Queripel’s A Company was brought across the Amsterdamseweg under cover of smoke and the Battalion began to withdraw south-west through the woods toward LZ L, covered by elements of D Company, although the attackers fell upon Major Peter Warr’s B Company as it prepared to move. This sparked a close-quarter fight during which Warr shot a German officer demanding his surrender from ‘six yards range’.92 Despite this and a number of men becoming separated in the confusion, the bulk of the 10th Battalion drew clear into the open landing zone despite German fire; Captain Hanmer noted that there was ‘much fire from the northern edge and it caused many casualties…Lieutenant Miles Henry, the Intelligence Officer, was walking next to me when he was hit by a burst of machine-gun fire. I remember that he was hit in the back by such a heavy burst that bits of haversack were coming out of his front. I wanted to put his body in the jeep, but the CO said we had to leave him.’93 Lieutenant Henry had been assisting Sergeant-Major Robert Grainger in carrying a Lance-Corporal Horton, who had been wounded in the kneecap and thigh. All three men were felled by the same burst of fire. Henry was ‘knocked fifteen feet’ by the impact, Horton was wounded for the third time and Grainger was wounded in the ear by a round that pierced his Airborne helmet; the latter two recovered but Henry died later of his wounds.94 It was around this time, with the 10th Parachute Battalion stretched out diagonally across the landing area, that the third lift began to arrive.
The first element of the third lift to approach Arnhem, albeit only slightly ahead of the glider lift, was the 164-strong resupply flight heading for DZ V, almost two miles east of LZ L on the north side of the Amsterdamseweg. Consisting of 101 Stirlings from RAF No. 38 Group and sixty-three Dakotas from No. 46 Group, the supply flight had taken off when visibility improved after midday, using the shorter southern route in an effort to make up for lost time; this took the formation over Kent and across the Ch
annel to Ostend before turning north at Ghent and flying up the airborne corridor at 1,500 feet. Two aircraft, both Stirlings, were lost in the fly-in. Flight-Sergeant Ray Hall’s machine from No. 295 Squadron was hit by anti-aircraft fire after straying too close to the German front line near Ostend and crashed killing all eight men aboard.95 The second, from No. 190 Squadron, was also brought down by flak, again with no survivors. This was just the beginning.
By the time the supply flight neared Arnhem, the Germans had pulled together an integrated anti-aircraft defence system around the city, linked into the extensive Luftwaffe early warning system. Observers in German-held Dunkirk were able to identify Allied transport formations using the southern cross-Channel route and warn of their approach up to an hour before they reached Arnhem. In conjunction with the Luftwaffe liaison officer attached to II SS Panzerkorps, this permitted 300 fighter aircraft from 3 Jagd-Division to be vectored onto air and ground targets as required from airfields at Dortmund, Paderborn and Gutersloh among others; the Jagd-Division had been temporarily released by Oberbefehlshaber (OB) West to participate in operations in Holland, and it was this initiative that prompted the widespread strafing attacks on the 1st Airborne Division. The warning system and intelligence also proved useful on the ground, with the arrival of Luftwaffe Oberstleutnant Hubert von Svoboda and his FlaK Brigade early on 19 September. Apparently consisting of the 88mm gun-equipped FlaK Regiment 46 augmented with smaller detachments equipped with 20mm, 37mm and 105mm pieces, the Brigade had travelled the sixty or so miles from its various static locations in the Ruhr towed by a variety of vehicles including gas-powered trucks and agricultural tractors. On arrival three detachments were assigned to 9 SS Panzer Division, and were presumably the source of the light flak guns that had turned the tide for Kampfgruppe Bruhn on the Dreijensweg. As a further centralisation measure von Svoboda was placed in command of all anti-aircraft units in the Arnhem area.96
As a result, No. 46 Group’s Dakotas flew into a wall of anti-aircraft fire as they approached DZ V from the south at their drop height of 900 feet. Two machines from the front of the formation were shot down almost immediately. One, from No. 575 Squadron, went down in a German military cemetery just north of Arnhem while the other, flown by Pilot-Officer Leonard Wilson from No. 271 Squadron, narrowly missed a number of 20mm guns deployed on the Amsterdamseweg alongside the DZ; Wilson was killed but his navigator and three of the RASC despatchers aboard managed to bale out.97 RCAF Pilot-Officer Brock Christie from No. 48 Squadron belly-landed his stricken machine near Wolfheze by the railway spur running north to Deelen airfield without fatalities, although three of the four RASC despatchers were injured by unsecured supply panniers; all aboard were captured apart from Christie and his co-pilot. The fourth Dakota to be hit was piloted by Flight-Lieutenant David Lord, also from No. 271 Squadron, ten minutes or more south of Arnhem, the flak setting the starboard engine ablaze and damaging the fuselage. Lord maintained heading by formating on Wing-Commander Basil Coventry’s Dakota from No. 512 Squadron, so closely that the latter’s radio operator, Flying-Officer Stanley Lee, feared they would collide. Lord maintained station while Coventry overflew DZ V without delivering his load, possibly having figured out that the DZ was in German hands, and remained in place as the anti-aircraft fire grew more intense and Coventry wheeled round for a second run, this time onto LZ S. Both machines succeeded in dropping their loads before disaster overtook Lord’s Dakota, as described by Flying-Officer Lee: ‘Then a white aircrew parachute came from it, and at the same time the wing broke and the Dakota seemed to fold around the starboard engine, with the two wing tips almost meeting. The wing dropped off, and the rest of the aircraft half-rolled on to its back and dived into the ground. There were no more parachutes.’98 The wreckage landed near Reijers-Camp Farm with all crew still aboard except the navigator, Flight-Lieutenant Harry King, who was thrown clear when the aircraft broke up; he linked up with men from the 10th Parachute Battalion after landing. Flight-Lieutenant Lord was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross but the supplies delivered at such cost likely fell into German hands, as LZ S had been abandoned the previous night as part of the 1st Airborne Division’s move east to its Phase II locations.99
No. 38 Group fared even worse, losing six Stirlings during the run in or shortly afterwards. Two pilots were killed at the controls of their aircraft, Wing-Commander Peter Davis, commanding No. 299 Squadron and Squadron-Leader John Gillard from No. 190 Squadron; the former’s aircraft was destroyed when anti-aircraft fire ignited containers full of petrol loaded in the bomb-bay.100 Another Stirling piloted by Flying-Officer Geoffrey Liggins, also of No. 299 Squadron, was hit in a port engine and tried to put down on the Lower Rhine but came to rest behind a dyke near Driel on the south bank. The crew were pulled from the burning wreck by Albert, Cora and Reit Baltussen and three members of a Red Cross team from Driel with great difficulty as all the crewmen were injured, the bomb aimer and wireless operator especially badly: the former had suffered two broken arms and a mangled foot and the latter had a broken back. The ambulatory airmen were swiftly concealed before German troops arrived to investigate, some in a nearby brickworks and others in a handy culvert, while the two seriously injured men were transferred to the town hospital by horse and cart where they were cared for by the town’s female physician, a Dr. Van de Burg.101 A seventh Stirling crash-landed in Holland, and an eighth and two Dakotas made emergency landings in Belgium. In all, nine Stirlings and four Dakotas were shot down and of the 100 men aboard them fifty-two were killed or subsequently died of wounds, thirty-nine were captured, six parachuted into the coalescing Airborne perimeter at Oosterbeek, and three evaded capture to reach friendly territory. Of the 152 aircraft that returned to base, ninety-seven had sustained flak damage. Some of the lost personnel had been travelling as sight-seeing passengers including a staff officer from No. 38 Group HQ, Squadron-Leader Cecil Wingfield, and the only Royal Navy sailor to die at Arnhem, Air Mechanic Leonard Hooker, who was on leave and flying with a friend from No. 196 Squadron.102
To add insult to terrible injury the vast bulk of the supplies delivered at such cost were lost because DZ V was in German hands, as were the drop and landing zones used for the first and second lifts. Urquhart’s warning and request for a change of venue, transmitted in the morning, had not been acted upon and attempts to attract the attention of the supply aircraft using ‘yellow smoke, yellow triangles and every conceivable means’ were unsuccessful, not least because the aircrew had been briefed to treat such distractions as enemy ruses and ignore them.103 The matter was complicated by the fact that 9 SS Panzer Division HQ had obtained a copy of the British ground marking instructions from a captured officer. These were swiftly translated by the Division intelligence officer, Hauptsturmführer Gerhard Schleffler, and put to good use. According to one estimate 369 of the 390 tons of supplies delivered on 19 September fell into German hands, and British supplies became an important element in supplying the German units engaging the 1st Airborne Division for the remainder of the battle.104 A Luftwaffe NCO involved in the ground fighting referred to his comrades undertaking ‘discovery tours’ in search of stray British containers, the contents of which placed them on ‘“separate rations” and [they] were no longer required to rely on their field kitchens. The best and finest tinned food that you only dared dream of ‒ cigarettes and chocolate to go with it of course ‒ all these treasures fell from the sky.’105 Watching the misdrop was perhaps most agonising for Lieutenant Cecil Speller and his men from the 21st Independent Parachute Company’s No. 2 Platoon, who were tasked to set up the EUREKA homing beacon and markers on the inaccessible DZ V, although the Company’s unofficial history refers to the Pathfinders assisting RASC crews in recovering some supplies.106 The latter were presumably from 250 (Airborne) Light Composite Company RASC and the commander of the latter’s 2 Platoon, Captain Desmond Kavanagh, also mounted a motorised attempt to reach the German-held DZ employing four Jeeps and trailers and around twenty-four men from
his Platoon. The plan was for a high-speed run out from Oosterbeek across the Oosterbeek Hoog railway crossing, but the lead vehicle was hit by a large-calibre round from the south end of the Dreijenseweg shortly after crossing the tracks. The following Jeeps were travelling too fast to avoid the resultant wreckage and the entire convoy became entangled in the ensuing pile-up. Five men were killed in collisions or in the firefight that followed including Captain Kavanagh, who was last seen covering his men’s withdrawal with a Bren gun.107
The parachute element of the third MARKET lift, consisting of Major-General Stanislaw Sosabowski’s 1st Polish Independent Parachute Brigade, was therefore fortunate not to be delivered to its scheduled drop zone just south of the Arnhem road bridge as planned. Brigade HQ, the 2nd Battalion and part of the 3rd Battalion were to be carried by the US 314th Troop Carrier Group from its base at Saltby in Leicestershire, while the 315th Troop Carrier Group lifted the 1st Battalion and the balance of the 3rd from Spanhoe, twenty miles to the south in Northamptonshire.108 The Poles embarked on the hour’s drive from their billets around Stamford and Peterborough at 06:00 in anticipation of a 08:00 departure, given that the aircrew briefing was scheduled for 05:00.109 The airfields were wrapped in fog however, and take-off was postponed until 10:00, leaving the keyed-up paratroopers kicking their heels around the C-47s. The Poles were a matter of some curiosity to the US personnel, as the commander of the 310th Troop Carrier Squadron noted: ‘I didn’t have much personal contact with the Polish paratroopers. They impressed me as being mad as hell at the Germans…they had a personal grudge, and were eager to get on with what they had to do. They didn’t speak my language, and I didn’t speak theirs.’110 The Poles’ discontent was heightened by knowledge of the concurrent Warsaw Rising, which had begun on 1 August. The language barrier fed the resultant frustration when take-off was postponed again until 15:00; while the fog had lifted and conditions looked clear from the ground, the cloud base was too low for the C-47s to form up safely after take-off. Frustration then boiled over in at least one instance when the drop was finally cancelled until 10:00 the next day: ‘They scrubbed the flight for the Poles on September 19th, and the Polish paratroopers were very, very upset. One of them pulled a knife on Captain Sitarz and went after him. It happened very fast, and the two were pulled apart. I guess he went after Sitarz because he represented some kind of authority. He was not making an idle gesture. There was blood in his eye.’111 Disgruntled and deflated, the Poles were trucked back to their billets at 17:00, leaving Brigade Quartermaster Lieutenant Stefan Kaczmarek with the unenviable task of obeying an angry Sosabowski and persuading his British counterparts to despatch compo rations to the various Brigade locations. It was, Kaczmarek recalled later, ‘one of the most difficult moments that I experienced in the war’, although he was gratified to find the rations waiting when the paratroopers reached their billets.112
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