Arnhem

by William F Buckingham

  There are two key points to note with regard to Browning’s comments during the meeting at Nijmegen. First, as none of this appears to have been raised while Sosabowski was present at Valburg there was presumably an earlier meeting before he arrived, at which Horrocks confirmed his intention to withdraw the 1st Airborne Division on the night of 25-26 September and authorised Thomas to carry it out. This supports the contention that Sosabowski was only present to lay the groundwork for a subsequent scapegoating, as it is difficult to see any other purpose in his being there, given his treatment. Second, the comments show that while Horrocks may have concealed his precise intentions from Dempsey, he had not confined knowledge of them only to his subordinates at the 43rd Division because of Browning’s presence at the Valburg Conference. This raises the additional suspicion that 2nd Army HQ may have been aware of Horrocks’ intent despite official pronouncements, and that Browning had thus willingly acquiesced to the abandonment of one of his subordinate formations. Writing a decade-and-a-half after the event, Sosabowski laid responsibility for the failure of the effort to relieve the 1st Airborne Division firmly upon Browning, claiming that he argued against Horrocks’ scheme for a larger-scale crossing on 25 September to Dempsey, who in turn passed it on to Montgomery, who then decided to ‘call the whole thing off’.176 Given his Machiavellian tendencies it would be surprising had Browning not been involved to some degree, but this appears to grant him far too much influence, not least because he is unlikely to have wished to maintain a high profile as the operation he had single-mindedly ensured would go ahead to be the capstone of his Airborne career crumbled. More importantly, Sosabowski’s appreciation misses that Montgomery, with admittedly uncharacteristic reticence, does not appear to have been involved in the decision-making process and, as we have seen, authority to continue or end the effort to relieve the 1st Airborne Division was devolved by 2nd Army to Horrocks and Browning. The two British Corps commanders were not equals, however, Browning being officially subordinate. It was thus Horrocks who attended the conferences at Dempsey’s 2nd Army HQ at St. Oedenrode while Browning remained in Nijmegen. It would therefore appear that it was actually Horrocks who ultimately took the decision to initiate Operation BERLIN at the Valburg conference and bring matters to a close.

  In the meantime the die was cast and preparations went ahead through the afternoon and into the early evening of 24 September for that night’s river crossing. Lieutenant-Colonel Gerald Tilley’s 4th Dorsets had been in reserve near 130 Brigade HQ at Homoet, four miles south-west of Driel, since the late afternoon of the previous day.177 130 Brigade HQ issued a Warning Order to the 4th Dorsets at Midday and the Battalion Intelligence Officer reported to 130 Brigade HQ for orders at 14:00. Lieutenant-Colonel Tilley then took his Company commanders forward to Driel to view the prospective crossing from the church tower at 16:00 and may then have attended an O Group at 130 Brigade HQ thirty minutes later, although the Battalion War Diary makes no reference to him so doing.178 He briefed his own officers at 18:00. The Battalion’s task was two-fold: to enlarge the bridgehead on the north bank of the Lower Rhine, and to expedite the passage of supplies to the 1st Airborne Division. The immediate objective was a disused factory approximately 600 yards from the water’s edge and the Battalion was to cross in four waves, A and B Companies followed by C and D, then Battalion HQ followed by S Company bearing the Battalion support weapons and supplies for the Airborne troops; the supply effort was to be augmented by four or six DUKWs once the 4th Dorsets were across, manned by troops from the 7th Royal Hampshires commanded by a Major Rooke.179 However, Middlebrook refers to the amphibious vehicles being manned by twenty men from 181 Airlanding Field Ambulance RAMC’s Seaborne Echelon commanded by the unit Quartermaster Lieutenant John Tiernan and a Lieutenant Tansell RASC from 133 Parachute Field Ambulance. The vehicles were carrying three tons of medical supplies gathered from the Seaborne Echelon of the 1st Airborne Division’s three Field Ambulances by Lieutenant-Colonel Martin Herford commanding 163 Field Ambulance RAMC, whose activities are described in more detail below.180 The assault boats for the crossing, which were still en route up the Airborne Corridor, were to be manned by Sappers from 1 and 2 Platoons, 204 Field Company RE, which had moved up to Valburg from a harbour area near the Nijmegen railway bridge.181 Fire support was to be provided by small-arms and mortars from 130 Brigade’s other two battalions, the 5th Dorsets and 7th Hampshires on the 4th Dorsets’ right and left respectively, Vickers Guns from the Divisional MG Battalion the 8th Middlesex, a Squadron of tanks from the 13th/18th Hussars and all three of the 43rd Division’s Royal Artillery Field Regiments. The crossing was to commence at 22:00.182

  The 4th Dorsets involvement in the upcoming river crossing was not greeted with enthusiasm. Lieutenant-Colonel Tilley began his briefing to his assembled officers with the comforting words, ‘Gentlemen, we’ve bought it this time.’ The commander of C Company, Major Philip Roper, recalled thinking it unlikely that he and his men would be returning from the operation, although he attempted to safeguard morale when briefing his own men by stressing that the crossing was ‘an important job to help the airborne people’.183 Be that as it may, the Battalion moved off for its assembly area, orchards several hundred yards from the water’s edge near the Heveadorp ferry terminal, at 19:30 in darkness and under cold, drizzling rain and intermittent German mortar and artillery fire. Taking cover from the fire in the darkness broke up the Dorsets’ column into a number of small parties that had to be reorganised in Driel before continuing the move up to the assembly area.184 The infantrymen were preceded by Sappers from 204 Field Company RE, all three Platoons of which had moved up to a harbour area near Valburg at 16:00; 1 and 2 Platoons then moved up to the crossing point in readiness to man the assault boats at 19:15, leaving 3 Platoon on stand-by to assist if required.185

  While 130 Brigade and the 43rd Division were making their preparations, an officer from one of 30 Corps’ attached units was also making a small-scale crossing of the Lower Rhine on his own account. Lieutenant-Colonel Martin Herford’s 163 Field Ambulance had been slated to cross the Lower Rhine with the Poles on the night of 23-24 September with a quantity of medical supplies, but it hadn’t happened through lack of boats. Concerned at the increasing severity of the medical situation in the Oosterbeek perimeter, Herford sought and obtained permission from Major-General Thomas to take a quantity of medical supplies across the Lower Rhine and crossed the river at 14:30 in a single assault boat loaded with the supplies and adorned with a Red Cross flag. He was accompanied by Captain Percy Louis from 133 Parachute Ambulance’s sea tail and four unnamed medical orderlies. The party landed on the north bank near Heelsum, three miles downstream from the Heveadorp ferry site; it is unclear whether this distance was deliberate or due to the current. On landing Lieutenant-Colonel Herford set out alone with the Red Cross flag and made contact with the local German forces, who allowed Captain Louis, the medical orderlies and two stray Polish paratroopers to return to the south bank; it is unclear if the Germans appropriated the medical supplies or despatched them back across the river too. The subsequent fate of the Other Ranks is unknown but Captain Louis was killed at some point later that day, possibly during the night’s river crossing. Herford remained with the Germans who would not agree to allow further deliveries of medical supplies across the river but did permit him to contact the senior German medical officer in the Arnhem area. The upshot of this contact was the establishment of a hospital in a Dutch Army barracks near Apeldoorn, seventeen miles north of Arnhem, where the 250 surviving members of the 1st Airborne Division’s medical staff treated 1,700 British Airborne casualties. Herford served as deputy commander of the hospital under the 1st Airborne’s ADMS, Colonel Graeme Warrack, and was subsequently awarded the Distinguished Service Order for his conduct.186

  Matters proceeded in a similar vein at Driel where Major-General Sosabowski briefed his commanders at 17:00, informing them that the crossing was scheduled to commence at 22:00.187 The 2nd Bat
talion and Brigade HQ would cross at the original site while Major Tonn’s 1st Battalion and accompanying portion of the 3rd Battalion commanded by Captain Sobocinski would cross further west at the Heveadorp ferry site behind the 4th Dorsets. At this point Major Tonn and the 1st Battalion contingent, between 551 and 565 men, were at Valburg having boarded a convoy of thirty-three trucks at Malden just after 15:30 for the journey up the Airborne Corridor.188 There the trucks left the Poles, apart from four vehicles retained to carry the parachute containers in which the paratroopers' heavy weapons, ammunition and signals equipment were still packed. After failing to contact Polish Brigade HQ by radio Major Tonn led his contingent in a road march over the five miles or so to Driel, the paratroopers carrying the remainder of their equipment because the rutted road rendered the Airborne handcarts useless. They arrived at Driel at 19:30 where Lance Sergeant Cadet Boguslaw Horodeczny was waiting to lead them to Sosabowski’s HQ. The Brigade commander listened to Tonn’s report on his adventures after being recalled from the Polish drop on 21 September before briefing the newcomer on his part in the British portion of that night’s crossing efforts.189 It unclear what time Major Tonn led his men across to the concentration area for the Heveadorp crossing, although it was reportedly after a short rest, but the 2nd Battalion and Brigade HQ moved off for their well-worn crossing site at 21:00. They appear to have been preceded by the Brigade’s Engineer Company, now commanded by Lieutenant Wieslaw Szczgiel after Captain Budziszewski had been wounded. They had laid out the path to the water with white tape and readied the three collapsible wood and canvas assault boats that had survived the previous night’s crossing.190

  Now, with the keyed-up troops waiting in the darkness things again went awry, with the assault boats once more failing to arrive as arranged. According to the 43rd Division semi-official account the craft were carried aboard five trucks. Two of these apparently ran off the embanked road and became stuck in the roadside ditches while two more took a wrong turn at a junction in Valburg and drove into German lines in Elst. Another account refers to the captured vehicles belonging to a Canadian unit, although there is no mention of the incident or indeed any involvement with that night’s crossing in the 20th and 23rd Field Company RCE War Diaries. The single vehicle that reached its destination reportedly arrived with boats but no paddles and ended up with the Polish Brigade, although again, there is no mention of this in the Polish Brigade War Diary or other Polish accounts.191 At 21:45 Brigadier Walton therefore postponed the crossing for three hours until 01:00 and instructed the Polish Brigade to return the vessels left over from the previous night’s crossing to the 43rd Division, although Sosabowski refers to the order coming from Major-General Thomas via Lieutenant-Colonel Stevens in person.192 The 43rd Division's semi-official account took another snide and unsupported swipe at Sosabowski and his men, asserting that ‘The Poles were unco-operative’ although there is no evidence to suggest that this was actually the case.193 According to Sosabowski, the order to hand back the three assault boats was delivered as a request by Stevens after he had passed on the postponement order: ‘Are you willing, sir, to give up the boats held by you and hand them over to the Dorsets, so that the main assault can be put in?’ Sosabowski agreed, albeit reluctantly as he thought there was a good chance of getting his 2nd Battalion and Brigade HQ across to the Oosterbeek perimeter.194 For his part Lieutenant Szczgiel recalled the unannounced arrival of an unknown British captain at the Polish crossing site baldly stating ‘You are to give up the boats,’ which he promptly did after radioing Captain Budziszewski at Brigade HQ to ensure it was permissible to ‘give up the toys’; the British officer was a Captain Dawes from the 5th Dorsets, who shuttled the craft across to the Heveadorp crossing site aboard vehicles of some description, possibly Universal Carriers.195 The Polish crossing was cancelled at 22:45, and the weary Polish paratroopers again wended their way back to their positions in and around Driel. Lieutenant Szczgiel led his men back to their slit trenches dug around the cattle barn that served as the Engineer Company HQ, where he settled himself into a convenient trough set in the concrete floor and quickly fell asleep.196

  Major Tonn and the 1st Battalion were still tasked to follow the 4th Dorsets across at the Heveadorp ferry site, however, and British infantrymen and Polish paratroopers alike continued to wait amongst the dripping apple trees in their orchard assembly areas as the clock ticked on past midnight and carried Operation MARKET GARDEN into its ninth day.197

  20

  D Plus 8

  00:01 to 18:00 Monday 25 September 1944

  Precisely when the single truckload of paddleless assault boats and the vessels retrieved from the Polish Brigade arrived at the Heveadorp ferry site is unclear, but Lieutenant-Colonel Tilley and the first wave of the 4th Dorsets began the task of manhandling their craft through the rain-dripping apple trees and across the soggy polder to the water’s edge before the rescheduled start time an hour after midnight; each vessel was crewed by two Sappers from 204 Field Company RE and their infantry passengers were divided into boat parties of ten men with ammunition and supplies for four days.1 The first wave was preceded by a twenty-minute bombardment from the 43rd Division’s three RA Field Regiments thickened with fire from the infantry and tank units deployed along the riverbank to the east and west of the departure point. This was a tactic dubbed ‘the Pepperpot’ invented by Major-General Thomas, which involved every weapon in the Division from rifles to anti-tank guns firing at known or suspected enemy locations. It was intended to inflict casualties at best and psychological damage at worst, the latter being confirmed by prisoner interrogation. The Pepperpot became a set 43rd Division drill administered and controlled by Lieutenant-Colonel Mervyn Crawford, commander of the 8th Middlesex, the Division Machine Gun Battalion.2 The artillery barrage perhaps set fire to two factory buildings in the woods near Heveadorp village, which unfortunately illuminated the crossing area, although the Germans may have simply set fire to the buildings themselves to provide illumination once the barrage indicated the landing area, in the same way they had ignited the main at the Oosterbeek municipal gasworks the previous night. The barrage alerted the Germans to the imminent crossing and provoked an immediate mortar counter-barrage backed by the ubiquitous automatic weapons firing on fixed lines targeting the lines of approach on the water and likely embarkation points on the south bank.

  The ‘1st Flight’ of craft across the river departed the south bank on schedule at 01:00, carrying Lieutenant-Colonel Tilley’s tactical Battalion HQ and men from A and B Companies commanded by Majors James Grafton and Michael Whittle respectively. Each Company was also accompanied by a two-man Forward Observer team drawn from 112 Field Regiment RA with Captain Thomas Rose and his signaller accompanying Major Grafton’s HQ; the identity of the teams accompanying the other Companies is unclear.3 Some of the vessels were hit by German small-arms and mortar fire that caused a number of casualties but most landed unscathed despite the German fire, although they had become split up during the crossing and came ashore in scattered pockets and farther downstream than planned owing to the fierce current; according to the 1st Airborne Division HQ War Diary the Dorsets made landfall 1,000 yards west of the Oosterbeek perimeter.4 While a combination of the scattering, darkness and enemy fire prevented the incoming units from assembling, their place of arrival proved fortuitous as it brought them ashore behind the concentration of German troops manning the west side of the Oosterbeek perimeter. The troops manning the positions overlooking the river were actually Kriegsmarine personnel from Korvettenkapitän Theodor Zaubzer’s 10 Schiffsstammabteilung and those in the immediate vicinity of the landing initially withdrew onto the wooded Westerbouwing Heights after lobbing grenades at the interlopers.5

  At some point the Sappers also began ferrying men from C and D Companies and one source refers to men from all five of the 4th Dorset’s Companies being present on the north bank. However, the small number of assault boats involved, the short duration of the crossing effort an
d the fact that only approximately 300 men were lifted across during that period strongly suggests that whatever Companies were represented on the north bank, they were far from present in their entirety.6 The commander of D Company, Major Tony Crocker, was wounded in the leg by German automatic fire at the embarkation point, so seriously that the limb had to be amputated subsequently. Command of his Company then appears to have devolved upon Captain Ronald Hall, who made three unsuccessful attempts to cross the river: the first two assault boats were obliged to return to the south bank after being holed by mortar fragments and small-arms fire and the third was carried off by the current and cast up some distance downstream, again on the south bank.7 The crossing also included a small party from the 1st Border made up of Battalion commander Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Haddon, his batman, a Lance-Corporal Nolan, the Battalion Intelligence Officer Lieutenant Ronald Hope-Jones, and Private Kelly. The Horsa carrying Haddon and part of his HQ group had been obliged to abort from the first lift over the UK following a series of instrument malfunctions and his attempt to fly in with the second lift the following day ended when his Horsa force landed near Bourg Leopold after it and its Dakota tug were damaged by flak. Haddon and his party spent the next week moving up the Airborne Corridor in an effort to rejoin their Battalion on their own initiative and arrived at the south bank of the Lower Rhine at some point on Saturday 23 September.8 The 1st Border party was accompanied by Major Patrick Anson, the commander of A Company, 10th Parachute Battalion whose transport had reportedly been shot down during the second lift’s run-in to DZ Y on Ginkel Heath, who was also seeking to rejoin his unit.9