Arnhem

by William F Buckingham

  To the north of LONSDALE Force Major Wilson and his 160 men from the 21st Independent Company moved up to the perimeter from their rest position near 4th Parachute Brigade HQ at 05:00. No. 1 Platoon took up position on the west side of the Stationsweg north of the junction with the Utrechtseweg opposite the overspill MDS in the Hotel Vreewijk. The buildings entered included No. 8 belonging to a Mr and Mrs Kremer, who had a twelve-year-old daughter, Ans, and an eleven-year-old son, Sander. Mrs Kremer prevailed upon a group of her liberators to pose for a photograph with her house guestbook; the group included Sergeants Norman Binnick and Benjamin Swallow, a Corporal Jeffries, Corporal Hans Rosenfeld, Lance-Corporal James Cameron and Privates Frank McCausland and H. Mitchell from 1 Platoon and Captain Stanley Cairns from D Squadron GPR, with another unidentified Glider Pilot.59 No. 3 Platoon occupied houses to the south along the Pietersbergseweg opposite the main MDS location in the Hotel Schoonoord, and No. 2 Platoon along the northern stretch of the adjacent Paasbergweg, with Major Wilson establishing his HQ in a house at the junction between them.60 The Pathfinders’ right flank was held by 250 (Airborne) Light Composite Company RASC’s two parachute platoons commanded by Captain John Cranmer-Byng, which had been seconded to Hackett by HQ RASC at 03:00, presumably because the paucity of supplies rendered their primary role superfluous. The remainder of the RASC Company relocated to 1st Airlanding Brigade HQ to act as a reserve for Cranmer-Byng’s detachment.61 The left flank was held by 156 Parachute Battalion reinforced with fifteen Glider Pilots from D Squadron totalling around a hundred men, ensconced in the substantial houses along the west side of the Stationsweg, and to their left the 1st Airborne Reconnaissance Squadron occupied the very north-eastern tip of the perimeter.62 With the exception of the constant German mortar and artillery fire the latter appears to have had a relatively restful Friday.

  Major Wilson and the Independent Company were also left largely unmolested apart from mortar fire, possibly because Hauptsturmführer Möller’s men were unsure of their exact positions, and the Pathfinders spent the relative respite digging trenches in the gardens and preparing the buildings for defence by bolting doors and window shutters, smashing the glass from front windows and removing roof tiles to create loop holes for observation and sniping.63 Brigadier Hackett spent the morning moving between his units although his recollections are somewhat at odds with at least some of those he visited. According to Hackett’s account in the 4th Parachute Brigade War Diary ‘…attacks on 10 Bn and 156 were almost constant during this day 22 Sep and use of SP guns got bolder during the day’; the 156 Parachute Battalion’s War Diary however referred to the day being ‘…fairly quiet with steady sniping and mortaring and occasional attacks from an SP gun’. Be that as it may, Hackett also found the positions occupied by Captain Cranmer-Byng ‘rather far back’ for his liking and he therefore ordered the RASC contingent to move further forward, presumably to the east side of the Pietersbergseweg.64 The source is unclear but at some point early in the morning Hackett learned that Captain Barron and the survivors of the 10th Parachute Battalion were occupying buildings east of the MDS location on the Stationsweg‒Utrechtseweg crossroads, although it is unclear whether they were located north or south of the Utrechtseweg. Hackett therefore ordered contact with the 10th Parachute Battalion to be restored along with links to 156 Parachute Battalion, and also appears to have instructed Major Wilson to push his section of the line eastward across the Stationsweg and Pietersbergseweg to make link up with the 10th Battalion party. Wilson does not appear to have been overly impressed with this idea, given that he made no effort to implement Hackett’s orders until the late afternoon. At 16:00 Nos. 2 and 3 Platoons despatched patrols eastward across the Pietersbergseweg but their progress was blocked by intense machine-gun fire from German strongpoints located around 400 yards from the British perimeter. One of the first casualties was Bren gunner Private James Fiely from No. 2 Platoon who ‘went down with his head blown off by a Spandau’ on turning a corner, according to his assistant gunner Private Thomas Scullion. Two more Pathfinders were wounded in the exchange, after which both patrols returned to their starting positions.65 The 10th Battalion party was successfully relieved by the Pathfinder’s No. 3 Platoon in the early hours of Saturday 23 September on Hackett’s explicit orders, and in spite of Major Wilson’s objections that the position was too isolated.66

  Hackett was also concerned with protecting the MDS at the Hotels Schoonoord and Vreewijk and thus called in to see Lieutenant-Colonel Marrable at the former during the morning of Friday 22 September. At some point later in the day a StuG drew up outside the Hotel Schoonoord and a German officer informed Marrable that the German forces would open fire on the MDS if it were not evacuated forthwith. On hearing of this Hackett relayed the ultimatum to Urquhart, apparently in person; Urquhart reportedly decided that it ‘appeared unjustified to evacuate’ the MDS at that time.67 Harsh as it sounds, Urquhart’s response was merely acknowledging the simple fact was that there was no suitable alternative location within the 1st Airborne Division perimeter, and almost certainly insufficient manpower or vehicles to carry out the task even if there had been. Hackett relayed Urquhart’s decision to Marrable, likely in the aftermath of the 21st Independent Company’s abortive attack at 16:00. His arrival at the Hotel Schoonoord, which came amid premature celebrations over mistaken Dutch Underground reports that Allied tanks had entered Arnhem, was witnessed by Captain Stuart Mawson: ‘The excitement was still at its height when, almost unnoticed, a small man, with a grey, dusty face, in full, begrimed battle order, and a Sten gun slung over his shoulder, came in through the front door straight in to the hall.’ Hackett took Marrable aside into an unoccupied operating room and according to Marrable’s subsequent briefing to his own officers, tersely informed him that no Allied tanks were anywhere near Arnhem, any approaching tanks would therefore be German and that the MDS was about to be caught up in an inch-by-inch fight to maintain a foothold north of the Lower Rhine. He also appears to have recommended that all arms in the hotel be collected and placed under guard in an adjacent garage order to comply with the Geneva Convention. This may just have been an initiative by Marrable to deal with the increasing stockpile of weapons being brought into the MDS by or with casualties.68

  With the remains of his Division compressed into the Oosterbeek perimeter, Major-General Urquhart occupied himself with attempting to marshal reinforcements from Sosabowski’s Brigade and ensuring that the higher command echelons were aware of the urgency of the situation in Oosterbeek. He despatched his Operations Officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Mackenzie, across the Lower Rhine to impress this on Browning and Horrocks in person, and to survey the south bank of the river for crossing points suitable for use by DUKWs and other transport; the Division CRE Lieutenant-Colonel Edmund Myers was to accompany Mackenzie. The framing of Mackenzie’s mission shows Urquhart was not convinced that his superiors had properly grasped the gravity of the 1st Airborne’s situation, doubtless prompted by the exchange of signals with 1st Airborne Corps HQ earlier that morning. This is clear from his parting comment to Mackenzie: ‘Above all, do try and make them realize over there what a fix we’re in.’69 The despatch of such senior officers via an extremely risky daylight crossing of the Lower Rhine reinforced the point. The two officers left the Hotel Hartenstein at 12:10 and crossed the river using one of a handful of serviceable inflatable rubber dinghies, dubbed reconnaissance boats, which Myers had fortuitously hidden near the Oosterbeek Old Church; according to one source they were escorted to the departure point by an unnamed ‘large sergeant-major’ armed with a Bren gun.70 The crossing, with Mackenzie paddling, was uneventful apart from some inaccurate German machine-gun fire and complete by around 13:00. Mackenzie then had to identify himself to an apparently hesitant reception committee consisting of one of Sosabowski’s officers and an unidentified British liaison officer, presumably Lieutenant-Colonel George Stevens, by walking towards them waving a handkerchief.71 The four men then travelled to Sosab
owski’s HQ in Driel on commandeered bicycles, arriving at some point before 13:50, given that the Poles radioed news of their arrival at that time.72 Lieutenant-Colonel Mackenzie was slightly put out by the Poles’ preoccupation with their fight around Driel rather than attending to their guests and their mission. Sosabowski’s chief of staff, Major Ryszard Malaszkiewicz, was shocked ‘by the sight of the British officers. Their uniforms were filthy, and their faces were haggard and unshaven. Even more shocking was the fact that divisional staff officers, rather than junior officers had crossed the river as messengers. All of this underlined the straits in which the 1st Airborne Division found itself.’73 Mackenzie lost no time emphasising the 1st Airborne’s desperate need for reinforcement to Sosabowski while discussing arrangements for ferrying the Poles across the river that night; Sosabowski responded with a few questions regarding the means before summoning the commander of his Engineer Company, Captain Piotr Budziszewski, to discuss the technical details with Myers. Mackenzie then approached Captain Wrottesley seeking a lift to Nijmegen and on learning this was impossible because the Germans had cut the road, used an armoured car radio to contact 30 Corps HQ and, via onward transmission, Browning’s Forward Corps HQ. Transmitting in clear, presumably for effect, Mackenzie explained the 1st Airborne’s desperate need of ammunition, rations and medical supplies in front of an increasingly stunned Wrottesley, and rounded things off by bluntly stating that the Division would be unable to hold out for more than twenty-four hours without resupply and reinforcement.74 The message appears to have been received in person by Lieutenant-General Horrocks, who assured Mackenzie that ‘Everything will be done to get the essentials through.’75

  With the way south still blocked by the Germans, Mackenzie was unable to proceed to Nijmegen as planned. He was thus obliged to spend the remainder of the day kicking his heels in Driel while Lieutenant-Colonel Myers assisted Captain Budziszewski and the Polish Brigade’s Engineer Company in surveying the riverbank and ‘trying to acquire boats and improvise rafts’ for the coming night’s river crossing.76 Nor was the Driel perimeter an especially secure location, for the German attacks from the direction of Elst continued through the day. At 14:00 a German attack supported by half-tracks closed to within 250 yards of the Polish 6th Company’s positions before being driven back by the Polish cross-fire, although one of the 2nd Household Cavalry’s Daimler Armoured Cars was obliged to withdraw in turn by the volume of German return fire when it ventured forth to assist the paratroopers. After a brief truce to collect their wounded the SS renewed the assault, this time with the assistance of what was reported as a tank but which may have been one of SS Panzer Aufklärungs Abteilung 10’s French Panzerspähwagen P204 (f) armoured cars. Whatever it was, the Polish paratroopers responded by firing their PIAT anti-tank launchers at high elevation to maximise the weapon’s range, a desperate ploy that succeeded, as a lucky near miss prompted the mystery vehicle to withdraw back into the orchard from which it had emerged. By 18:00 Kampfgruppe Brinkmann appears to have had enough and withdrew toward Elst under cover of an hour-long barrage from mortars, artillery and nebelwerfer rocket launchers, at least some of the rocket launchers located on the north bank of the Lower Rhine.77 The day’s fighting on the Driel perimeter cost the Poles seven dead, including 2nd Lieutenant Tice, Lieutenant Stanislaw Slesicki and Sergeant Antoni Salwuk.78

  Major-General Sosabowski was continuing to make arrangements for the coming night’s crossing of the Lower Rhine. Captain Budziszewski estimated it would be possible to pass up to 200 men across the river during the hours of darkness, using the three aircraft emergency rubber dinghies recovered from the landing area and at least three more inflatable reconnaissance boats provided by the 9th Field Company RE. Equipment was to be moved on rafts fabricated from barn and house doors by a party under Sergeant Wojciech Juhas; it is unclear what became of the British attempt to fabricate rafts from Jeep trailers. Enemy action aside, the most serious threat to these flimsy craft was the Lower Rhine’s rapid current, which the Polish engineers measured to be flowing at a rate of almost one and a half metres per second. Sosabowski informed Urquhart of the arrangements via a radio-telephone exchange at 15:50, presumably via the link established between the Polish HQ and the Hartenstein that morning.79 He also decided to put his badly depleted 3rd Battalion across first, with Lieutenant Smaczny’s forty-nine-strong 8th Company in the lead. Smaczny, who had barely finished digging a slit trench after his patrol to Heteren, was therefore summoned to Sosabowski’s farmhouse HQ where he was briefed on the location of the crossing and ordered to move up to the riverbank at dusk to keep watch for British-manned craft. Somewhat unsettlingly, Sosabowski ended the briefing by staring intently at Smaczny for several seconds before shaking his hand.80 Smaczny and his men moved up to the dyke overlooking the crossing point at some point after 21:00.81

  More substantial reinforcement was heading for the Polish lodgement at Driel. As we have seen, the 2nd Household Cavalry’s task was to scout ahead of a planned attack out of the Nijmegen bridgehead by the 43rd Division. It is unclear if Sosabowski was aware of this, although he may have been informed by Captain Wrottesley, but the 1st Airborne Division was informed of developments over the course of Friday morning via a series of radio signals. The source of the first, received at 03:20, is unknown but warned that the 43rd Division would be coming up on the frequency used by 1st Airborne Corps HQ at Moor Park and provided the required call signs.82 As we have seen, this was followed by two messages on that frequency received at 06:17 and 07:40 that informed Urquhart that the 43rd Division would be taking over from Guards Armoured Division at first light, aiming at the Oosterbeek ferry, and that the 1st Airborne Division was to be ready to ‘withdraw to or cross the ferry’ if necessary.83 A third message, received at 11:20, came from British 2nd Army HQ via the PHANTOM net and informed Urquhart that the 43rd Division had been ordered to launch a two-pronged attack at 10:00 employing 129 and 214 Infantry Brigades, and that a patrol from the 2nd Household Cavalry had made contact with the Poles at Driel.84 It was this signal that appears to have prompted Urquhart to despatch Lieutenant-Colonels Mackenzie and Myers across the Lower Rhine tasked to impress the gravity of the 1st Airborne Division’s situation upon 30 Corps.

  ***

  The 43rd Division had been moving up the Airborne Corridor in the wake of the Guards Armoured Division since the early morning of Wednesday 20 September, after being ordered up to Nijmegen by 30 Corps HQ as per the original GARDEN plan. The Division’s lead formation, 130 Infantry Brigade, crossed Joe’s Bridge across the Meuse-Escaut Canal near Neerpelt at 14:45, passed through Eindhoven between 16:35 and 17:25 before halting for the night just south of Grave at 23:00, in part because the Division column had become ‘very spread out’. A fifty-mile road march that terminated eight miles short of Nijmegen and south of the River Maas had thus taken 130 Brigade around nine hours, and the Division’s other formations took similar amounts of time to road march relatively short distances. 214 Infantry Brigade took the six hours between 18:00 and 23:59 to cover the twenty-five miles between Hechtel and Eindhoven for example, while 129 Infantry Brigade did not even reach Joe’s Bridge until 01:35 on Thursday 21 September, after which it took just under fifteen hours to cover the thirty-two miles to Veghel, arriving at 15:55.85 This tardiness does not appear to have been due to enemy action, for although German activity did interfere with traffic in the Corridor from first light to between 10:00 and 11:00 on 20 September, this was cleared before the 43rd Division’s units were on the move, and Guards Armoured Division HQ reported that overall traffic was not delayed by enemy action during that day. In part the delay arose from some of the 43rd Division’s leading elements being sequestered by 30 Corps. The 43rd Reconnaissance Regiment was commandeered for around thirty hours for flank protection duty before reaching Eindhoven for example, while on arrival at Nijmegen 130 Infantry Brigade had two battalions detached to assist the Guards Armoured Division in clearing the city.86

  Nonethele
ss, Major-General Thomas’ formation ought to have been able to cover the ground between Neerpelt and Nijmegen faster than it did. The 30 Corps’ injunction forbidding movement on the main axis of advance during the hours of darkness had been lifted on 19 September and the 43rd Division was also given special priority on the route, with a heavy anti-aircraft unit destined for Eindhoven and the 1st Airborne Division’s seaborne tail being frozen in place to allow the Division to pass.87 The reason for the unhurried rate of progress may therefore have lain with the 43rd Division’s commander himself. Commissioned into the Royal Artillery in 1912, Major-General Gwilym Ivor Thomas was awarded the Military Cross and Bar and the Distinguished Service Order whilst serving on the Western Front during the First World War. After attending both the Army and Royal Navy Staff Colleges in the interwar period, he served at the War Office as Deputy Director for Recruiting and Organisation and then Director of Organisation before assuming command of the 43rd Division in March 1942. Thomas was selected for the command on his reputation as a ‘pusher’, presumably based on his posts at the War Office and brief artillery appointments at brigade, division, and corps level between 1939 and 1942, a view supported by the 43rd Division’s assault crossing of the River Seine on the night of 25-26 August 1944. However, an eyewitness who accompanied 30 Corps in the advance across Europe observed Thomas at work and described him as by nature ‘cautious and methodical and his troops followed his example’,88 the very characteristics that appear to have held back the Division’s progress to Nijmegen. In addition, Thomas was also reportedly difficult to work with on account of his cold and acerbic character, a trait that was to become increasingly apparent beginning with his peremptory and unrealistic instruction to the 1st Airborne Division to be prepared to withdraw over the Heveadorp ferry in the early morning of Friday 22 September.89 In this specific instance the methodical approach of the 43rd Division unnecessarily added another twenty-four-hour delay to the Division’s pre-planned assumption of the lead in the advance to Arnhem, and provided yet another example of the overall lack of urgency that had been the leitmotif of MARKET GARDEN from the outset.