Most units received warning and/or more detailed instructions in the late afternoon or early evening. The 1st Parachute Battalion received a warning order at 17:00 and full instructions three hours later for example, the 11th Parachute Battalion a detailed warning at 18:00 and the 1st Airborne Reconnaissance Squadron received orders at 19:30, which were distributed to the Troops at 20:00.28 In fact Lieutenant Galbraith and A Troop were ahead of the loop in this regard, having been ordered by 4th Parachute Brigade HQ to withdraw from their exposed position at the junction of De la Reijweg and Steijnweg at 15:00, to the Utrechtseweg at the junction with the Mariaweg. The move took thirty minutes and on arrival the Reconnaissance Troop was amalgamated with a group of Glider Pilots, possibly from D Squadron, before Lieutenant Galbraith was briefed on the evacuation at 16:00. Sergeant Henry Venes was then despatched at 17:30 to make contact with 156 Parachute Battalion, which had also been withdrawn from the exposed north-eastern sector, in preparation for a collective move down to the Lower Rhine, with Major Powell and his men coming into the A Troop position at 19:00.29 As with so many aspects of their involvement in Operation MARKET the Poles within the Oosterbeek perimeter appear to have been treated largely as an afterthought. At the Valkenburg villa behind C Company 1st Border’s lines Lieutenant Zbigniew Bossowski and his re-roled anti-tank gunners were approached by two unidentified British officers who notified them of the imminent evacuation with a vague description of the route to the Lower Rhine; the ‘only firm instruction was that the Poles would be informed when they could withdraw’.30 Down at the riverside Transvalia Lieutenant Smaczny and his party from the 8th Company were treated in a similarly offhand manner by an unnamed RE Major, possibly Major Winchester from the 9th (Airborne) Field Company, who informed Smaczny that he was to withdraw at 00:30 but only after receiving permission via a runner. The British Major then refused Lieutenant Smaczny’s offer of a Polish guide to expedite matters; this was deemed unnecessary as the RE officer promised to return with the orders in person if necessary. Smaczny viewed this arrangement as a ‘virtual sentence of extermination’ although he refrained from passing on the instructions or his misgivings to his men to safeguard morale.31 Up on the Stationsweg the evacuation order was brought to 2nd Lieutenant Bereda-Fialkowski at a little before 18:00 by Captain Zwolanski in person, accompanied by three unnamed British officers, one of whom was Scottish and wearing a kilt according to 3rd Battalion radio operator Private Jan Szubert; this was probably Major Ogilvie from D Squadron GPR and formerly of the Gordon Highlanders, who was photographed wearing a kilt during the battle.32 Zwolanski informed Bereda-Fialkowski that the 3rd Battalion was to form the rearguard for the north-eastern sector of the perimeter before withdrawing at 22:00, along with instructions on abandoning unnecessary equipment. He then departed for the Hotel Hartenstein with his three companions. Private Szubert recalled one of the British officers pausing at the doorway to look back at the Polish paratroopers before disappearing into the gloom with the farewell, ‘God help you.’33
Major-General Urquhart left Division HQ to walk the withdrawal routes in person, dodging the German bombardment as he did so; he was seen taking shelter, possibly near the Laundry on the south-east sector of the perimeter, by a Sergeant Calladine from the 2nd South Staffords.34 The time between being warned or briefed for the withdrawal and moving off was spent rendering equipment that was to be abandoned unserviceable and making personal preparations: blackening faces for camouflage, wrapping issue Ammunition Boots in strips of blanket or curtains obtained from abandoned houses to muffle the sound of metal studs, and ensuring weapons and personal equipment did not rattle when moving. Artillery and anti-tank gun crews were additionally burdened with the sights and breech blocks from their weapons, which were to be dumped into the Lower Rhine. The Polish paratroopers from the 3rd Battalion on the Stationsweg fastened their Celanese panels to the back of their Denison smocks as a recognition measure.35 For some it was about appearances and entailed shaving. An unnamed Sergeant directed Private Robert Downing from the 10th Parachute Battalion to a used razor and ordered him to have a dry shave on the grounds that ‘We’re crossing the river and by God we’re going back looking like British soldiers.’ Similarly, Lieutenant-Colonel Murray instructed Major Toler to clean up a little, presumably after the 13:00 O Group, because ‘We don’t want the army to think we’re a bunch of tramps’ and provided his own razor and a ‘dab’ of lather; Toler grudgingly complied and recalled that it was ‘amazing how much better I felt, mentally and physically’.36 The men of the 1st Airborne Reconnaissance Squadron HQ also received a morale boost at 20:30 with the issue of rations reportedly from Division HQ equating to half a tin of stew, one bar of chocolate and a small packet of biscuits per man, although the recipients of this largesse had only twenty minutes to enjoy it before moving off.37 Major Winchester handed over command of the 9th Field Company to Captain Stephen George from the 1st Parachute Squadron RE at 19:45 and set out to mark the western withdrawal route with white tape, accompanied by four Sappers; the task also included marking the route from the rendezvous point near the Oosterbeek Old Church to the water’s edge.38 Marking the eastern withdrawal route was tasked to Captain Maurice Priest from G Squadron GPR assisted by Lieutenant Herbert Fuller from B Squadron GPR and a Squadron Sergeant-Major Watt, also presumably from B Squadron.39 According to Staff-Sergeant Victor Miller, Glider Pilots from G Squadron located near the Hotel Hartenstein were detailed to act as guides along the routes at a briefing by the commander of G Squadron’s 24 Flight, Captain Robert Walchli, apart from two volunteers tasked to remain guarding the 200 German prisoners incarcerated in the Hotel Hartenstein’s tennis court ‘until about midnight’; Major-General Urquhart had specifically ordered the guard to be maintained at his commander’s conference that morning, and until 01:30 rather than midnight.40 The final preparation came courtesy of the weather, for by around 18:00 it was raining heavily with high winds, ideal conditions to mask Major-General Urquhart’s collapsing paper bag.
The first units to move appear to have done so up to an hour before the covering artillery barrage from the 43rd Division commenced. The 1st Airborne Divisional Signals left the Hotel Hartenstein at 20:00 after an hour of last-minute burning of documents and rendering equipment unserviceable, the exception being the unit registers and War Diary, which were carried away. The Base radio set and another set linked to 130 Brigade were to continue operating as a disinformation measure after the rest of the unit had withdrawn at the hands of Signalman James Cockrill, who volunteered or was detailed for the duty depending on the account; he was also reportedly wounded, although he later attempted to swim the Lower Rhine. Most of the Signals’ fourteen-strong parties reached the river unscathed and were ferried safely to the south bank despite German mortar fire on the embarkation area.41 Lieutenant Galbraith’s A Troop from the 1st Airborne Reconnaissance Squadron began to move off from the Utrechtseweg‒Mariaweg junction at 20:00, crossing the Utrechtseweg in pairs to rendezvous at 4th Parachute Brigade HQ from where the final leg of the journey down to the Lower Rhine was to begin.42 They were followed fifteen minutes later by Major Powell and 156 Parachute Battalion who appear to have headed straight for the river rather than rendezvousing first at the 4th Brigade HQ. The column, led by the Battalion Intelligence Officer Lieutenant Piers St. Aubyn and QM Lieutenant Thomas Bush, made it over the Utrechtseweg unscathed despite German machine-gun fire, but then became separated in the woods south of the Hotel Hartenstein when ‘one slow thinking fellow…released his hold on the smock of the man ahead’ and did not pass back word of what had happened. The front section of the column reached the embarkation point without mishap while the rear section, which included Major Powell, became aware of its predicament thanks to an ‘irate Corporal Rosenberg’. Major Powell led the party away from an encounter with an enemy machine-gun post and reached the riverbank east of the embarkation point and waded downstream to it, passing a holed and beached assault boat with a dead crew on the way. O
verall a dozen men became casualties during the move.43
Just a few hundred yards up the Utrechtseweg the second Division HQ increment departed the Hotel Hartenstein at 20:30, consisting of the HQ Royal Engineers and No. 1 Wing GPR HQ. HQ RE appears to have reached the Lower Rhine without incident apart from CRE Lieutenant-Colonel Myers and an unnamed Other Rank being slightly wounded, presumably by enemy mortar fire. The HQ personnel were reportedly safely across the river by 21:15 with just one wounded casualty. Myers remained behind to supervise the crossing.44 He had been joined at 20:40 by Captain Michael Green, the HQ RE Adjutant who had swum the Lower Rhine on Wednesday 20 September with a situation report for 30 Corps and reached the Nijmegen bridgehead after a ten-mile trek through German-held territory; Green had made several unsuccessful attempts to rejoin his comrades in Oosterbeek in the ensuing days and after finally reaching the north bank remained to assist Lieutenant-Colonel Myers.45 After a quiet start masked by the rain the No. 1 Wing column came under machine-gun and mortar fire at 21:20 and was then broken up; the Glider Pilots finally reached the embarkation point at 22:05.46
The 1st Airborne Reconnaissance Squadron HQ left its positions at the junction of the Utrechtseweg and Oranjeweg near the Hotel Hartenstein at 20:50 divided into four groups led by acting Squadron commander Captain David Allsop, Squadron Adjutant Captain James Costeloe, Squadron QM Lieutenant Tom Collier and Liaison Officer Lieutenant Alexander Lickorish; Captain Allsop was the last man to leave the position. The groups were supposed to withdraw in turn at three-minute intervals on receiving word from the preceding group, although Lieutenant Lickorish’s group did not and only discovered its neighbour had departed when Corporal ‘Tommy’ Trinder from the Squadron Intelligence Section investigated the ongoing delay on his own initiative. The route crossed the Utrechtseweg and passed through the pitch-black woods to the south of the Hotel Hartenstein, with the Reconnaissance Troopers hanging onto the man in front’s Denison smock, sometimes perilously close to unsuspecting German positions. Trooper Stanley Collishaw saw Germans playing cards through a carelessly lighted window in a nearby house while Squadron Medical Officer Captain Douglas Swinscow recalled quietly passing ‘a little tent with a light burning inside it – a German tent’. Captain Costeloe’s group was less fortunate, being ‘slightly dispersed’ by close-range machine-gun fire after bumping a German outpost, and Squadron QM Sergeant George Holderness was shot dead by a German he mistakenly approached while gathering in the stragglers.47
The survivors from D Troop were also on the move despite being unaware of the withdrawal order, after spending the day surrounded by Germans in the wrecked shop on the Steijnweg. Waiting until after dark, at 20:00 Sergeants Bentnall and Pyper emerged first after instructing the other four Troopers to follow in pairs if things remained quiet, but only the two Sergeants made it back into the Airborne perimeter where they linked up with friendly troops, possibly Glider Pilots, at 20:30. Learning of the evacuation they joined a party making its way to the river and crossed to the south bank in the early hours of 26 September; Sergeants Bentnall and Pyper may have been the only members of the forty-strong D Troop to reach safety.48
***
On the south bank of the Lower Rhine the 23rd Field Company RCE’s immediate preparations involved installing a vehicle bridge over a roadside ditch to access the riverside orchard selected as the Company’s unloading point, and a three-ton truck carrying the necessary stores and equipment along with a Section from the Company’s 2nd Platoon commanded by Lieutenant Robert Tate and including Corporal George Robinson and Sapper Donald Sommerville was despatched at 18:45. The orchard and single-track road upon which Lieutenant Tate was obliged to unload the truck were in full view of the Germans atop the Westerbouwing Heights on the north bank but overall the shelling was routine and did not significantly interfere with the work, although the Sappers were occasionally obliged to take cover in the water-filled ditch. The bridge was complete at around 20:00.49 In the meantime the remainder of the 23rd Field Company RCE had sent out guides to man the road junctions on the route and had been joined by the contingent from the 20th Field Company RCE, which left its own location at 18:30.50 The two Companies’ vehicles were combined into a twenty-four-vehicle column, of which seven vehicles ‒ a single scout car, three Jeeps and three trucks carrying personnel ‒ belonged to the 23rd Field Company.51 It is unclear from the official records how the remaining seventeen vehicles temporarily co-opted from the 551st General Transport Company RASC, which carried a total of twenty-two storm boats, were divided between the two Canadian Field Companies, but one source suggests that the 20th Field Company had seven trucks, five loaded tactically with a storm boat and engine apiece, one loaded with three storm boats and the seventh carrying the other Evinrude motors. The remaining ten trucks carried the 23rd Field Company’s equipment, five loaded tactically with a boat and engine apiece, three trucks carrying three storm boats each and two trucks loaded with outboard motors.52 All the boat-carrying vehicles also appear to have carried personnel from their respective Companies, some of whom actually travelled in the vessels. The column was arranged with 23rd Field Company’s boats at the front followed by the 20th Field Company’s boats, with the 23rd Field Company Jeeps and scout car between the two increments and the three personnel trucks bringing up the rear.53
The Canadian column moved off from Valburg at 19:15 leaving Captain Donald McIntyre and Lieutenant Charley Aspler in charge of the 23rd Field Company personnel and the dozen vehicles not selected for the operation, to the chagrin of the two officers.54 The journey proceeded smoothly despite German illumination with flares and shelling that cost the Canadians a single casualty when a piece of spent shrapnel struck a Sapper Black on the elbow with sufficient force to temporarily paralyse the limb. Things went awry when the 23rd Field Company branched off for the eastern crossing point, as the three personnel trucks at the rear of the column missed the turning and carried on in the wake of the 20th Field Company; Major Tucker was initially unable to despatch a vehicle to recall them: the three Jeeps had already crossed Lieutenant Tate’s bridge into the orchard, the bridge was blocked by a truck that had partially slipped off the roadway and the single-track road behind it was blocked by the other nine boat carriers. The wayward vehicles were later located and led back by Lieutenant John Cronyn.55 The 20th Field Company column reached the western Heveadorp crossing point at some point after 20:10 where it linked up with 553rd Field Company RE with its assault boats. While the vessels were being unloaded in another convenient orchard the 20th Field Company’s commander, Major A. W. Jones, went forward with a Sapper to mark the route to the water’s edge with white tape, using a compass for guidance in the darkness.56 The route to the Heveadorp crossing point involved crossing a twenty-foot-high winter dyke with forty-five-degree earthen banks, topped by a single track road bounded on each side by a metal-posted wire fence, a summer dyke half that height close to the water and an additional two flood banks located between the dykes. Not only did the heavy rain and repeated passage turn the slopes of these obstacles into a quagmire, they were also under enemy fire, as recalled by one of the 20th Field Company’s Platoon commanders, Lieutenant W. W. Gemmell: ‘You couldn’t just walk across that dyke. Jerry had, I’d say, about six or seven M.G.’s on the northern bank; you had to spot the tracers and duck over when they went past.’57 Despite being fully exposed to illumination from German flares and machine-gun fire the two fences were dealt with by Sapper Harry Decker Thicke, who cut the wire strands and then removed at least one of the metal posts with a shovel before assisting with carrying the first storm boat down to the water; he was subsequently awarded the Military Medal.58 By 21:30 the Canadian storm boats and RE assault boats were located behind the lower summer dyke closest to the water’s edge, ready to launch at 21:30 as scheduled.
Back at the eastern crossing site things continued to go badly for the 23rd Field Company. The first truck across the bridge into the orchard unloading point misjudged the turn
, put a wheel off the road and became stuck in the soft ground. According to Sapper Donald Somerville there was ‘a tank nearby, so we asked if they would fire a few rounds from the machine gun to kill the noise of the truck engine, as it tried to back up.’59 The vehicle remained stuck fast, however and, mindful of the time pressure and the danger of the column remaining stationary on the open road, Lieutenants Russell Kennedy and James Martin took the decision to tip it off the road, thereby allowing the rest of the column to gain the shelter of the orchard while Lieutenant Cronyn took off in pursuit of the errant personnel trucks in a Jeep.60 In order to allow the trucks to keep up on the return journey Lieutenant Cronyn made the error of illuminating the small station keeping light on his Jeep’s rear axle:
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