Arnhem

by William F Buckingham

  Echoing the 1st Parachute Battalion account, the 1st Airlanding Light Regiment reported two self-propelled guns firing into 1 Battery’s positions throughout the day and demolishing most of the Airborne-held houses in the immediate vicinity. By this point the Germans were so close that the Regiment’s pack howitzers could only engage over open sights in most instances, ammunition for the guns had become ‘very scarce’ and all the Regiment’s motor transport had been rendered unserviceable; as the Regimental War Diary rather understatedly put it, the ‘situation at the end of the day was becoming critical’.128 The breakthrough north of the Oosterbeek Old Church on the line of the Weverstraat was presumably carried out by Kampfgruppe Möller, and had the potential to fragment if not simply destroy the integrity of the 1st Airborne Division’s increasingly tenuous perimeter. The fact that it did not and that the hard-pressed Airborne remnants comprising LONSDALE Force were able to keep back Kampfgruppe Harder’s drive along the riverside Benedendorpsweg suggests that the two SS Kampfgruppen were suffering from the same problems with tank-infantry co-operation that were plaguing Kampfgruppe von Tettau on the west side of the Airborne perimeter. By Sunday 24 September the 1st Airborne Division had been on the ground in Holland for eight days with minimal resupply, and its constituent units were reaching the end of their logistical tether. 1st Airborne Division HQ acknowledged that a ‘Shortness of serviceable weapons, particularly P.I.A.Ts. for dealing with tanks and SP guns, [was] becoming a very serious handicap’ and ammunition supplies were running down to exhaustion; as we have seen the 1st Border had fewer than 3,000 rounds of .303 ammunition for example, and some units were having to employ captured German weapons and ammunition as a stop gap.129 Food supplies had also run out in some instances The 1st Airlanding Light Regiment War Diary noted that ‘rations were conspicuous by their absence’, while the 2nd South Staffords reported that the men were ‘by this time getting very exhausted from lack of sleep and food’.130 This was not universal however. Glider Pilot Staff-Sergeant Sergeant Victor Miller from G Squadron still had access to tinned ration pack sausages and tea for Sunday breakfast for himself and a companion in the grounds of the Hotel Hartenstein, and studiously ignored the gaze of hungry German prisoners incarcerated in the nearby hotel tennis court as he prepared the meal.131 Elsewhere in the hotel grounds a Sergeant Dear, possibly from the Army Catering Corps, ‘did sterling work by producing food and cooking it in a hole they had made, at all hours of the day’ for the HQ Royal Artillery contingent, assisted by Lieutenant-Colonel Loder-Symonds’ batman, a Gunner Templeman.132

  The source of Sergeant Dear’s food is unclear but in some instances unit feeding was augmented or totally drawn from Dutch civilian provisions located in the houses within the Oosterbeek perimeter. Sergeant Henry Venes from the 1st Airborne Reconnaissance Squadron, acknowledged as one of A Troop’s most proficient foragers, came upon a cache of tea, porridge, salt and sugar, which he immediately carried to a house where 156 Parachute Battalion maintained a cooking fire and proceeded to make a thick porridge cake and brew the tea. Unfortunately, he accidentally added the salt to the latter, leading an outraged Trooper James Bruce to spit out the brew and indignantly declare that ‘if the Gerries don’t do us in, that bastard [Venes] will!’133 The freebooting Pathfinders from the 21st Independent Company were especially successful in their collective foraging activities as noted by the unit War Diary:

  By this time no rations were available and water was very scarce...[but]…most of the houses occupied by the Company or nearby had some tinned food stored in the cellars. Also most houses had tame rabbits. H.Q. were fortunate to find a bath half full of water. Raids for food and water were made by night…It was therefore possible to have two meals of a sort each day and sufficient water was found for one brew of tea. Wine was the only other liquid and a fair supply was discovered.134

  The 7th KOSB were equally successful in this regard, primarily due to the larger scale efforts of Sergeant Russell Tilley from E Squadron, The Glider Pilot Regiment, who chose to remain with the Battalion after landing rather than rallying to his own unit and appointed himself to a number of roles during the course of the battle, including assisting in the Battalion RAP and acting as Lieutenant-Colonel Payton-Reid’s bodyguard. He also organised a central kitchen that provided a daily hot meal for every man in the Battalion, using foodstuffs ferreted out from abandoned houses and vegetables gathered from gardens; this, ‘together with his infectious optimism, was a great help to general morale’. Sergeant Tilley was subsequently awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal.135

  ***

  On the opposite side of the Lower Rhine, Sunday 24 September saw partial resolution of the stalemate north of the Nijmegen bridges. The Guards Armoured Division continued to hold the east side of the Waal bridgehead but was reinforced by Brigadier Fergus Knox’s 69 Infantry Brigade, seconded from the 50th (Northumberland) Division, which moved up on the Guards’ left flank and launched a three-battalion attack intended to secure Bemmel in the afternoon. The 5th East Yorks were held up on the right of the attack frontage between De Pas and Ressen but the Brigade’s other two units, the 6th and 7th The Green Howards, secured Ressen and Merm in the south-eastern outskirts of Elst in the face of light opposition, and after dark established contact with the 7th Battalion Somerset Light Infantry from 214 Infantry Brigade on the railway line just south of the town.136 The Somersets had spent the day fighting through the western half of Elst in the face of similarly light opposition alongside the 1st Worcesters, although the latter faced more determined resistance; as the 43rd Division semi-official history noted: ‘The enemy consisted of Waffen SS. Every house seemed to contain a German with an automatic.’137 The day’s fighting cost the 1st Worcesters ten dead including at least one Company commander, Major Mowbray Souper.138 Both of 214 Infantry Brigade’s Battalions were on the Arnhem‒Nijmegen railway line by nightfall, and the link-up with 69 Infantry Brigade effectively pinched 129 Infantry Brigade out of the British line, although the 4th and 5th Battalions The Wiltshire Regiment reportedly remained in contact with the enemy on the Brigade’s frontage south of Elst.139

  As we have seen in the late evening of 23 September British 2nd Army ‘delegated authority to Commanders 30 Corps and 1 Br Airborne Corps to withdraw 1 Airborne Div if and when considered advisable’.140 The reason for the delegation was presumably because Dempsey thought Horrocks and Browning were better placed to expedite matters, which was also the reason for Horrocks’ subsequent summons to 2nd Army HQ at St. Oedenrode in the morning of 24 September. This would also explain why Horrocks first travelled north from his HQ in Nijmegen to Driel to see the situation on the Lower Rhine for himself. He was joined en route or on arrival by Major-General Thomas, Lieutenant-Colonel George Taylor, commander of the 5th DCLI, and Lieutenant-Colonel Edmund Myers, the 1st Airborne Division’s Commander Royal Engineers; Myers was tasked to assist the 43rd Division’s river crossing effort, and appears to have remained on the south bank of the Lower Rhine when Lieutenant-Colonel Mackenzie returned to Oosterbeek shortly before midnight on 23 September.141 The party viewed the crossing site from the battered church tower in Driel, accompanied by Major-General Sosabowski who had been woken from a well-deserved sleep by the unannounced arrival of the 30 Corps’ commander and his party. Horrocks’ intentions on receiving his newly delegated authority vary according to the source. According to his own account and the official record, Horrocks intended to continue the effort to reinforce and ultimately relieve the 1st Airborne Division. To that end Major-General Thomas was ordered to carry out another assault crossing of the Lower Rhine that night involving a minimum of one and preferably two battalions from his Division, along with supplies and the remainder of the Polish Brigade if time permitted; Thomas was also to reconnoitre west along the Lower Rhine to locate another crossing site to permit the 43rd Division to carry out another assault crossing in order to outflank the German forces besieging the Oosterbeek perimeter.142

  This intent was lar
gely in line with the situation report from British 2nd Army HQ received by 1st Airborne Division HQ at 05:53 that morning.143 However, the 43rd Division semi-official account presents a rather different picture of Horrocks intent and the subsequent orders he issued, which is worth citing in full:

  Lieut.-General Horrocks faced the facts. The position held by the Airborne Division had no military value. It was merely a nebulous area in the wooded hills with very little control over the river bank, which ran dead straight for over half a mile. The enemy held the high ground overlooking the river and the approaches to it. It would therefore be impossible to bring bridging lorries down to it in daylight. Even if a bridge were built it would still be under small-arms fire from the opposite bank both above and below the bridging site. He [Horrocks] therefore instructed 43 Division to carry out the evacuation.144

  The final decision was to be taken at a conference at 43rd Division HQ at Valburg later that morning. Although it offered cold comfort to the Airborne soldiers clinging to the Oosterbeek enclave it is difficult to dispute the dispassionate logic of the appreciation despite it arguably overplaying the difficulties of continuing the effort to support the 1st Airborne Division; the complaints regarding the difficulties in forcing a bridge across the Lower Rhine could be applied as a counter to attempting any assault river crossing, including the 43rd Division’s crossing of the River Seine near Vernon on 25 August, for example. It was also thoroughly in keeping with the general lack of urgency and application displayed by 30 Corps collectively from the start of Operation GARDEN.

  The variance between accounts strongly suggests that Horrocks had already reached a conclusion as to what the situation required but chose to mirror the 2nd Army’s position until he had seen the situation first-hand, at which point he exercised his newly delegated authority to bring matters to a close. Horrocks was also likely hedging his bets a little because openly calling a halt to the relief effort would effectively make him responsible for the failure of MARKET GARDEN; this would explain his initially paying lip service to the original 2nd Army position and making a token show of continuing the effort to push across the Lower Rhine. It also suggests that Horrocks may have misled his superior Dempsey about his intentions. The decision to cease the reinforcement effort and withdraw the remnants of the 1st Airborne Division across the Lower Rhine was taken at a conference at the 43rd Division HQ at Valburg at around midday on 24 September, where Horrocks authorised Thomas to contact Urquhart and make arrangements to commence the withdrawal at a mutually agreed time. However, according to Dempsey’s personal diary, when Horrocks attended the subsequent meeting at British 2nd Army HQ at St. Oedenrode later that day, he was still considering pushing a brigade from the 43rd Division across the Lower Rhine, and the final decision on continuing or giving up the foothold on the north bank of the Lower Rhine would not be taken until the following night of 25-26 September.145 This narrative appears in the British Official History, and was passed up the British chain of command at the time; hence Montgomery informed CIGS Field-Marshal Sir Alan Brooke that ‘if we suffer heavy casualties tonight in trying to get across [the Lower Rhine]…I shall probably give it up and withdraw 1 AB.’146 An alternative explanation could be that Thomas simply lied about the timing and tone of his orders from Horrocks and initiated his own solution without authorisation, possibly with the connivance of Urquhart. This is not a very likely scenario however, not least because the evacuation plan, codenamed Operation BERLIN, was reportedly a joint effort between Thomas and the British 2nd Army’s Chief of Staff, Major-General Harold Pyman. Given his character Thomas was an unlikely candidate to indulge in such maverick, unilateral behaviour. The crux of the matter is not whether the 1st Airborne Division would be withdrawn across the Lower Rhine, as all command levels south of the river had accepted or were moving toward accepting the fact as inevitable, the major variable being the degree of public acknowledgement. The crux is whether Horrocks deliberately misled his superiors regarding the timing of the withdrawal. The evidence suggests that he did for the reasons cited above, and that his superiors did not subsequently press the matter either. With obfuscation to this degree at the time it is scarcely surprising that the debate as to why MARKET GARDEN failed and who was responsible rumbles on after nearly seventy-five years; the pity of Horrocks’ deception is that it was to involve the needless sacrifice of the remainder of the Polish Parachute Brigade and a battalion from 130 Infantry Brigade to buttress against and deflect the blame.

  Horrocks’ visit to the 43rd Division area appears to have had a secondary purpose. This was the creation of a scapegoat for the failure of MARKET GARDEN, and the chosen candidate was Major-General Stanislaw Sosabowski. The British GARDEN commanders appear to have either arrived north of the River Waal with a definite dislike of Sosabowski, or developed one shortly thereafter. This is apparent in the 43rd Division’s semi-official history: ‘It must be recorded that General Sosabowski’s attitude was the reverse of co-operative’ with regard to the river crossing on the night of 23-24 September, for example.147 However, it is difficult to see the basis for this dislike given that Sosabowski’s only direct contact with the 43rd Division had been with Lieutenant-Colonel George Taylor when the 5th DCLI arrived in Driel in the evening of 22 September, and then with 130 Infantry Brigade HQ via his Chief of Staff, Major Ryszard Malaszkiewicz, the following day. The Polish commander’s behaviour at the Valburg Conference on 24 September was also criticised, with claims that Horrocks was obliged formally to rein in the Polish officer’s truculent behaviour.148 As we shall see, the Polish version of events at Valburg is somewhat at variance with this but that aside, it is unclear on what this hostility was based. There was no direct contact between Sosabowski and Major-General Thomas or Lieutenant-General Horrocks prior to their arrival in Driel in the late morning of 24 September just an hour or two before the Valburg conference, and given the geographic location of their various commands it is difficult to see how they had any contact prior to MARKET GARDEN. The exception to this lack of contact, however, was Browning, for whom the Polish commander had been a long-standing and persistent irritant from November 1941 through his involvement in Polish attempts to prevent Browning absorbing the Polish Parachute Brigade into his Airborne fiefdom.149 More recently, Sosabowski had stood in the way of Browning’s determination that the Airborne invasion of Holland go ahead at all costs by vociferously and repeatedly questioning the wisdom of Operation COMET, to the point of requesting that his orders be confirmed in writing, and then raising similar objections to MARKET. It would seem that that the high-level British enmity toward Sosabowski was based upon Browning briefing Horrocks and Thomas against the Polish commander. It may also be significant that Browning was the only British commander of equal or superior rank Sosabowski had contact with before the Valburg Conference, via Captain Watson from Browning’s Forward Corps HQ, who visited Driel in the morning of 23 September.

  The scapegoating of Sosabowski began amicably enough. Horrocks arrived unannounced at Sosabowski’s HQ in Driel at 10:00, to find the Polish commander snatching some sleep after his third sleepless night trying to get his Brigade across the Lower Rhine.150 According to Sosabowski, Horrocks entered the room whilst he was still rising and greeted him with a warm handshake and the news that the Polish Brigade’s 1st Battalion was in the process of being ferried to Driel from the 82nd Airborne Division’s area, where it had been dropped the previous day. For his part the Polish commander was pleased to see his first high-ranking British officer since arriving in Holland three days earlier; he and his staff ‘all took a very good view of his coming into the front line’. In response to a request for ‘full details of the situation’ Sosabowski gave the 30 Corps commander and his party a detailed appreciation that encompassed both sides of the Lower Rhine as well as showing him the site of the Poles’ attempted crossings and another possible site that might be of use if employed immediately, all presumably done from Driel church tower.151 Horrocks reportedly reciprocated by in
forming Sosabowski that his Brigade was to make another crossing that night alongside an effort from the 43rd Division, and stressing that it was vital that supplies be pushed across to the beleaguered Oosterbeek perimeter; the only alternative to this would be to withdraw the 1st Airborne Division across the Lower Rhine.152 The 30 Corps’ commander then requested that Sosabowski attend the conference at the 43rd Division HQ at Valburg later that morning, where the full details of the night’s operation would be revealed before taking his leave ‘smiling and waving at my troops’.153 Sosabowski followed at 11:30, travelling in a Jeep recently acquired by the Brigade’s British Liaison Officer, Lieutenant-Colonel George Stevens. Stevens accompanied Sosabowski along with his adjutant and interpreter, Lieutenant Jerzy Dyrda, who was somewhat perturbed to discover that the vehicle was to be driven by Sergeant Wojciech Juhas from the Engineer Company who ‘had long had a reputation as a crazy driver’. Despite the latter racing along the narrow farm roads at over fifty miles per hour and coming under German machine-gun fire at one point, the party reached Valburg safely, although Dyrda and Stevens had been obliged to cling on for dear life to avoid being pitched from the rear of the wildly careering Jeep.154

  What happened next again varies according to the source. Sosabowski’s account, which claims that he arrived at Valburg shortly before Horrocks, is neutral up to the point where Horrocks announced the details of that night’s river crossing, which involved the Polish Brigade continuing at their existing crossing point and also providing a battalion to cross at the Heveadorp ferry site in the wake of the 4th Dorsets. The problem was not with the Polish redeployment per se but the way it was announced. Thomas, although equal in rank to the Polish commander, bluntly informed Sosabowski that his 1st Battalion was to accompany the Dorsets, to which the Pole replied ‘Excuse me General, but one of my Battalions selected by me will go there [original emphasis].’ The potential flashpoint was reportedly headed off by ‘some soothing words from Horrocks’ although thereafter Thomas refused to speak to Sosabowski, issuing instructions via Lieutenant-Colonel Stevens even though he was standing right next to the Polish commander, and he left the conference without shaking hands or acknowledging Sosabowski’s existence.155 As we have seen, the 43rd Division’s semi-official history paints a rather different picture, beginning with the blunt declaration that ‘General Sosabowski’s attitude at the conference cannot honestly be described as cordial.’ There is no reference to any exchange between the Polish commander and Thomas, but the former’s response on hearing the plan for the night’s crossing was reportedly to declare ‘I am General Sosabowski, I command the Polish Para Brigade. I do as I like.’ Horrocks’ reply was hardly conciliatory: ‘You are under my command. You will do as I bloody well tell you.’ Sosabowski responded, ‘All right. I command the Polish Para Brigade and I do as you bloody well say,’ after which the conference ‘continued on more formal lines’.156