Arnhem

by William F Buckingham

  The SS then sprayed the building with machine-gun fire before despatching infantry to investigate, who entered the Hotel Schoonoord via the rear entrance. Their arrival was witnessed by the 11th Parachute Battalion’s Medical Officer, Captain Stuart Mawson, who was assisting Captain Clifford Simmons in amputating Padre Benson’s right arm with an improvised saw:

  I straightened up and raised my arms above my head, tissue forceps still in my left hand, needle holder in my right, since I was staring wide-eyed at an automatic sub-machine gun levelled straight at my chest. I stood rooted in this attitude, my eyes travelling slowly down the spotted camouflage smock…taking in the hand grenades dangling from the belt, and…the peremptory line of the mouth, the begrimed face and bloodshot, tired-looking, but very alert eyes beneath the coal-scuttle helmet.109

  Colonel Marrable was able to persuade the ranking German officer to leave the staff and non-ambulatory casualties unmolested, but a party of forty lightly wounded from the minor injury treatment centre in the Hotel Schoonoord garage were marched away to captivity; Marrable was assigned his own personal guard whilst inside the hotel and the Germans maintained a large armed presence throughout the hotel until early evening.110 At that point the task of guarding the medical staff and several hundred casualties passed to ‘one lonely Corporal who was left as sole guard of the whole outfit…[who]…established himself on a chair in the hall with a tommy-gun across his knees, with his eyes darting anxiously from side to side as if he were watching a tennis match’.111

  The British medical facilities were occupied at some point between 11:00 and midday, with 1st Airborne Division HQ being informed of the fact at 13:30.112 The latter despatched Lieutenant Colin Macduff-Duncan, a junior liaison officer attached to Division HQ from the 7th KOSB, to confirm the report, which Macduff-Duncan did by taking a Bren Carrier through the German lines to the MDS and back despite heavy German fire.113 He was followed by Colonel Marrable at 14:45, who reported the capture in person to 1st Airlanding Brigade HQ and that the medical staff and doctors were being allowed to go about their business unmolested.114 Whatever the precise timing, the Germans do not appear to have made any effort to advance farther west past the Utrechtseweg–Stationsweg crossroads. Had they done so the entire future course of the battle might have been changed, given that the 1st Airborne Division’s HQ lay only 500 yards further along the Utrechtseweg surrounded by a variety of Divisional and Brigade support and logistics elements; even a limited attack into the area could therefore have fatally fragmented the coalescing British perimeter before it solidified. According to Middlebrook the German advance along the Utrechtseweg was reined in by fear of British 17-Pounder anti-tank guns but this does not really fit with Harzer’s twenty-four-hour closing-up period, although the ferocity of British resistance had doubtless generated a healthy respect among their opponents by this point. Given their apparent reluctance to continue the advance it is more likely that the German troops that occupied the Hotel Schoonoord were not a deliberate probe but elements of Kampfgruppe Harder that had become separated during the 08:00 attack on the Benedendorpsweg, and simply lacked the initiative and/or manpower to press farther west. Whether or not, Harzer’s apparently hands-off approach to sealing off the bulk of the 1st Airborne Division in Oosterbeek pitched his units into the occupied sectors of the British perimeter by largely following the previous day’s lines of advance. In so doing they missed the wide-open western side of the perimeter, and Harzer therefore missed the opportunity to decapitate and scatter the 1st Airborne Division before it could establish a coherent and integrated defence. The omission condemned the Germans to several more days of brutal, costly and arguably avoidable attritional fighting, during which the British came close to establishing a bridgehead across the Lower Rhine. It ranks alongside holding the blocking line along the Amsterdamseweg on the night of 17 September and thereby allowing the 1st Parachute Brigade a clear run to the Arnhem road bridge as one of the major errors in the German handling of the Arnhem portion of MARKET GARDEN.

  The open window of opportunity on the east side of the perimeter closed over the course of the afternoon of 20 September. After reporting to Urquhart at the Hotel Hartenstein at 13:10, Lieutenant-Colonel Smyth and his sixty survivors from the 10th Parachute Battalion were directed to occupy buildings overlooking the Utrechtseweg–Stationsweg crossroads. The precise time of the move is unclear as the 10th Battalion party may have been allowed to rest for a while at the Hartenstein, and QM Lieutenant Joseph Glover may also have been despatched to reconnoitre the new location beforehand.115 On arrival the paratroopers occupied three buildings, commanded by Colonel Smyth, Major Peter Warr, who had been elevated to Battalion second-in-command, and Lieutenant Peter Saunders from D Company’s 18 Platoon. Major Warr captured a Panzer IV tank soon after arrival after disposing of its dismounted crew with his Sten gun; the vehicle was reportedly parked as a trophy outside Colonel Smyth’s building.116 QM Lieutenant Glover was almost co-opted into collecting supply containers whilst at the Hotel Hartenstein, but was ordered up to the crossroads in the nick of time by HQ Company commander Major Ashworth and travelled forward with Major Francis Lindley from Support Company with two Bren Carriers loaded with Vickers guns and ammunition, along with Colour-Sergeant Wainright, Sergeant Bentley and Privates Charlton and Wainright. A third Bren Carrier carrying Corporal Burton withdrew after coming under heavy fire, temporarily separating the Corporal from his section. On arrival Glover joined Lieutenant Saunders but was then assigned a fourth house with a Sergeant Hughes and seven men.117

  Major Ashworth had organised a Bren Carrier and three Jeeps with trailers loaded with supplies intended for the 10th Parachute Battalion but the convoy took a wrong turn soon after leaving the grounds of the Hartenstein and ended up in German-held territory. As Private McEwan travelling on the last trailer recalled, the enemy held their fire until the convoy stopped to take stock:

  At that moment the Germans really hit us…The bren-carrier was hit immediately…I saw Major Ashworth stand up as if to get out, but a burst of fire hit him and he just toppled over. The leading jeep driver…whipped his jeep and trailer right round…and managed to get away. The next driver and ours received bursts…Some of the lads jumped into the front gardens, but the Germans were in the houses and they started throwing grenades onto the lads from the windows…those of us who were left had no alternative but to make a withdrawal as best we could, which we did in pairs and managed to get back into the perimeter.118

  On returning to the Hotel Hartenstein McEwan appears to have been co-opted into another resupply effort by Major Warr, using another Bren Carrier but that too was knocked out on the second run out to the Battalion position.119 Matters appear to have quietened down with the onset of darkness, although a constant watch had to be maintained to prevent German infiltrators closing up to lob hand-grenades through the ground-floor windows of the 10th Battalion houses, and around midnight there was an exchange of fire after a Corporal Wyllie challenged a German car of some type that attempted to pass down the side of the Battalion HQ building, only to find itself blocked in by Major Warr’s trophy Panzer IV. Corporal Burton, by this time reunited with his Section and about to hand over the guard, was wounded in the knee, Major Lindley was hit in the leg by grenade fragments after moving into the open to investigate, and Corporal Wyllie escaped with two bullet holes in his maroon beret; it is unclear whether the German car and its occupants escaped.120 Major Powell and his fifty survivors from 156 Parachute Battalion were also despatched at 18:30 to occupy houses on the Stationsweg at the junction with the Dennenkampweg, with the Reconnaissance Squadron’s A and D Troops occupying strong points on the left adjacent to the 7th KOSB, and Glider Pilots from D Squadron on the right. The paratroopers were in place by 19:30, with the Battalion’s two composite platoons occupying the north-east and south-west corners of the junction, after which the night passed ‘without any incidents’.121

  The other significant events at the 1st Airborne Divi
sion’s main location on Wednesday 20 September involved reinforcement and resupply. In the English East Midlands the paratroopers of Sosabowski’s 1st Polish Independent Parachute Brigade had arrived at Saltby and Spanhoe at 08:45 to learn that their drop zone had been relocated and that their 10:00 take-off had been postponed for three hours owing to fog and drizzle across southern England. The wait in the wet grass alongside the USAAF C-47s was all the more frustrating because the cloud ceiling seemed sufficiently high for take-off to the paratroopers, who could also hear and catch occasional glimpses of aircraft in the murk. The waiting was mirrored in Holland by Captain Ludwik Zwolanski and the Polish Brigade’s liaison group attached to the 1st Airborne Division HQ. The group had left in the pre-dawn darkness heading for the Heveadorp ferry, accompanied by a radio operator and War Correspondent Swiecicki. The party paused near the Oosterbeek Old Church and talked to Captain Alfons Mackowiak, the Polish Brigade’s artillery liaison officer, who had been acting as an observer for the Airlanding Light Regiment before taking shelter in an artillery battery command post. This was probably the one belonging to the Light Regiment’s 3 Battery, located in a house cellar near the Oosterbeek Old Church. The German bombardment resumed at that time, 07:00. The Poles were informed of the three-hour postponement whilst ensconced in the cellar and remained there until after the building above the cellar was badly damaged by a nebelwerfer rocket at 11:00; on emerging to return to the Hotel Hartenstein Captain Zwolanski’s party discovered that their radio operator had been badly wounded and his radio damaged beyond repair.122

  Back at Saltby and Spanhoe, take-off was postponed for another hour at 13:00 but shortly afterward the paratroopers were ordered to board their C-47s, which started engines at 13:40 and began manoeuvring around the taxi ways and onto the runway ready for take-off. At 13:55 take-off was cancelled and the transports began moving back to their dispersal locations. The drop was postponed for another twenty-four hours because of the fog and drizzle across southern England; the cloud ceiling over the English Channel was only 9,000 feet.123 The frustration of the keyed-up Poles at being pulled back at virtually the last minute can be well imagined and was abundantly clear to their US hosts, as observed by a pilot from the 34th Troop Carrier Squadron at Spanhoe: ‘When it was canceled [sic] a second time, they were really pissed. They wanted to fight, they wanted to get over there and fight. Some of them thought that we didn’t want to take them or something.’124 The crew of at least one C-47 was advised to remain in their cockpit until the paratroopers had disembarked and dispersed by their crew chief. The tension simply became too much for one member of the Polish Brigade’s Engineer Company, who committed suicide with his Sten gun after disembarking; his comrades were trucked back to their billets around Stamford and Peterborough at 17:00.125 On the up side Brigade Quartermaster Lieutenant Kaczmarek had less problems organising rations for the disgruntled Brigade, and the delay allowed the Brigade Staff to develop their hurriedly cobbled together operational plan properly; to that end Sosabowski despatched Lieutenant-Colonel Stevens to gather all available information on the 1st Airborne Division’s situation.126

  Captain Zwolanski and his liaison party had sallied forth again from the Hotel Hartenstein for the Heveadorp ferry, this time travelling by Jeep. After calling in at 1st Airlanding Brigade HQ where they collected a guide and, curiously, a haversack full of apples the party travelled to the positions occupied by the 1st Border’s B Company. There they settled down to wait in slit trenches overlooking the Heveadorp ferry, which was still held at this point by Captain Heggie’s detachment from the 9th Field Company RE. There they remained until after 17:00 when word was relayed via 1st Border HQ that the drop had been postponed for a further twenty-four hours and the disappointed Poles retraced their journey back to the Hotel Hartenstein yet again. The postponement was perhaps fortunate for while the ferry remained intact until the late evening, War Correspondent Swiecki noted the Germans were regularly sweeping the crossing with fire that had reduced the timber ferry dock to a splintered wreck.127

  While the Polish paratroopers were whiling away their time at Saltby, Spanhoe and Oosterbeek, aircraft from RAF Nos. 38 and 46 Groups were carrying out the 1st Airborne Division’s latest supply drop. According to Middlebrook, Urquhart’s request for a new supply drop point had been received and approved, presumably via contact with Airborne Corps Rear HQ at Moor Park at 01:20 or 07:20 that morning, although thirty-three aircraft were still directed to deliver their loads to LZ Z, which now lay over two miles outside the western edge of the 1st Airborne Division’s perimeter.128 As all three Stirling bases put up approximately thirty-three aircraft it is unclear which was so assigned, although Middlebrook may have been referring the No. 48 Squadron, which put up sixteen Dakotas briefed to deliver their loads onto DZ V; their RAF Down Ampney running mates from No. 271 Squadron may have been similarly tasked.129 Whichever, the new supply drop zone was centred on the Utrechtseweg‒Stationsweg crossroads just 200 yards west of the Hotel Hartenstein and was to be marked with orange smoke, although there does not appear to have been any centralised marking effort. Worse, by the time the first drop commenced the drop point was at least nominally in the hands of the SS troops holding the Division MDS at the Hotel Schoonoord. For reasons that are equally unclear but presumably connected to the weather, the supply drop was to be delivered in two increments, the first provided by No. 38 Group. Seventeen Short Stirlings from No. 295 Squadron and a further sixteen from No. 570 Squadron began to take off from RAF Harwell at 11:30; two more machines aborted due to mechanical defects. They were joined twenty minutes later by another thirty-three Stirlings from Nos. 196 and 299 Squadrons, seventeen from the former and sixteen from the latter, flying from RAF Keevil, again with two aborts due to mechanical failure.130 The remaining sixty-three aircraft had an uneventful flight across the Channel apart from one machine from No. 196 Squadron, which either ditched or crash-landed among friendly forces in the Airborne corridor, depending on the account.131

  As on the previous day, the problems began as the formation approached Oosterbeek at just before 14:00 and came within range of FlaK Brigade Svoboda’s guns, as noted by RAF Warrant Officer Joseph Corless flying in a Stirling from No. 299 Squadron:

  We got a very hot reception with all kinds of rubbish coming up at us…We managed to drop the containers, but one of the hampers jammed in the hatch and the wireless operator and flight engineer were jumping up and down on it in an effort to free it when we were hit in both elevators, rear turret and fuselage…we were by now in a very unhealthy nose-up attitude, with both the pilot and myself doing our utmost to raise the air speed, which was fast approaching stalling speed. We managed to achieve this, got rid of the hamper and limped home feeling that it had been our lucky day.132

  The aircrew’s task was complicated further by the unclear ground marking to mark the drop point and the Germans may have compounded matters by aping the Airborne troops’ efforts. The result was pointed out by Warrant Officer Bernard Harvey flying in another machine from the same Squadron: ‘We were briefed to drop on orange [smoke] candles but we found orange candles all over the place. So we just pitched the stuff where we thought best as long as it was on the far side of the Rhine. That was the best we could do.’133 Not everyone succumbed to the hit and hope approach, however. Pilot-Officer Karl Ketcheson, the Canadian bomb-aimer in a third No. 299 Squadron Stirling, refused to release his load on the first pass because he could not properly distinguish the drop point; he was killed on the second run by the only German round to strike the aircraft.134

  In all, the four squadrons in the first supply flight lost seven aircraft shot down, five of them from No. 196 Squadron.135 The remaining two aircraft came from Nos. 295 and 299 Squadrons, the former flown by NZRAF Pilot-Officer Neil Couper, who force-landed after being hit by flak over the drop zone. Couper was killed but the remainder of his crew survived, with one crewman and two despatchers being captured and the remaining four crewmen making their way to fri
endly territory.136 An eighth Stirling from No. 570 Squadron sustained damage to two engines and came down prematurely at RAF Benson in Oxfordshire, landing safely despite two flat tyres.137 A substantial proportion of the materiel delivered at such cost fell into enemy hands; as the 1st Airborne Division War Diary noted the drop had ‘limited success owing to small perimeter, despite efforts by every available man to collect’.138 The thirty surviving machines from RAF Harwell were back on the ground by 16:00 followed by their twenty-four compatriots from RAF Keevil thirty minutes later.139

  The second and larger supply flight involved thirty-three Stirlings from No. 38 Group and sixty-three Dakotas from No. 46 Group, which began taking off while the first flight was still over Oosterbeek. Thirty-two aircraft from the latter’s No. 48 Squadron and sixteen from No. 271 Squadron commenced take-off from RAF Down Ampney at 14:15, followed twenty-five minutes later by thirty-one Dakotas from Nos. 512 and 575 Squadrons flying from RAF Broadwell; the third increment of seventeen Stirlings each from No. 190 and No. 620 Squadrons began taking off from RAF Fairford at 14:45, although one machine may have aborted.140 The flight again appears to have been uneventful until the run-in to Oosterbeek for the drop, which commenced at around 17:00. The Stirling contingent lost five machines shot down, three from No. 190 Squadron and two from No. 620 Squadron with the entire crew of eight aircrew and two despatchers from one of the former being killed, along with two Dakotas from No. 512 Squadron. Identifying the drop zone again proved problematic, as recalled by Warrant Officer Arthur Batten aboard one of No. 190 Squadron’s Stirlings: ‘Things had changed dramatically and recognition from an aircraft was practically impossible. You could see men waving and sheets being laid out but you had lost them in smoke or woods by the time you came round again to drop.’141 In spite of this and the anti-aircraft fire the aircrew stuck courageously to the task: the Stirlings of Nos. 190 and 620 Squadrons delivering a total of 696 containers and 116 panniers between them, for example.142 Ironically the units tasked to deliver their loads onto the German-held DZ V fared better than those that pressed on into Oosterbeek or LZ Z, with No. 271 Squadron losing no aircraft while No. 48 Squadron suffered just one damaged; Dakota KG423 lost its starboard engine to flak but its pilot, Flying-Officer Martin Mackay, maintained control and returned to Down Ampney on one engine. The 256 panniers delivered by No. 48 Squadron went straight into the German logistics effort.143 Despite this 1st Airborne Division HQ noted that the second drop was more successful, as did the Division RASC element tasked to gather and distribute the supplies, although the latter also noted that the ‘number of rations collected [was] sufficient only for one third rations to be issued’.144 Of the machines that delivered them, No. 48 Squadron’s sixteen aircraft were the first to reach home along with the sixteen from No. 271 Squadron, landing at Down Ampney by 19:15; the twenty-eight surviving Stirlings landed at Fairford fifteen minutes later, beating Nos. 512 and 575 Squadrons twenty-eight Dakotas to RAF Broadwell by three minutes.145