The precise number of Airborne personnel the 23rd Field Company lifted from the north bank of the Lower Rhine is unclear as the record sheets were destroyed by the rain, but the unit War Diary estimated 2,400 to 2,500 while the British Official History written in 1968 cites a figure of 2,587, which ties in with Middlebrook’s total from the individual unit returns.166 It also ties in with the reception arrangements in Nijmegen for the evacuees by the 1st Airborne Division’s Seaborne Echelon, which initially allowed for accommodation of 2,000 men in two buildings but had to expand into a third in the early morning of 26 September.167 Be that as it may, the official figure of 2,398, which appears to have originated with Urquhart’s 1958 account of the battle, is regularly cited elsewhere including the semi-official 10th Parachute Battalion account published in 1965, and more recently by Fairley and Middlebrook. The figure breaks down to 2,163 personnel from the 1st Airborne Division and attached units, 160 Poles and seventy-five men from the 4th Dorsets.168 The total also included a number of RAF personnel shot down in the resupply flights, a Dutch Jew named Isaäc de Vries who acted as a guide for a group from LONSDALE Force, and an unnamed elderly German prisoner who insisted on remaining with his captors from the 21st Independent Company.169 Whatever the precise figure, the expertise, application and sheer courage of the British and Canadian Sappers had achieved what ought to have been impossible in the circumstances.
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Once across the river the evacuees from the 1st Airborne Division first faced the trek to the transit area at Driel through the rain and continuing German mortar and shellfire, although in some instances this barely registered in the relief of being in relative safety. As the 7th KOSB War Diary put it, ‘Once on the other side it seemed one had reached a haven, and, despite mud and fatigue, all trudged the four miles to DRIEL with light hearts if somewhat heavy footsteps.’170 More immediate liquid refreshment also appears to have been available en route; although it does not figure in other accounts. Lieutenant Stevenson from the Reconnaissance Squadron clearly recalled a Salvation Army mobile canteen van operated by a ‘grey haired woman’ dispensing hot tea on the road between the disembarkation point and Driel.171 The route to the transit area was poorly marked, although the problem was swiftly rectified after the first evacuees began to arrive from 22:30 and guides were provided and a sentry posted to help succeeding parties.172 Not everyone appears to have reported to the transit area after crossing the river. Captain David Allsop and Sergeant Patrick Quinn from the Reconnaissance Squadron, accompanied by a Dutch NCO attached to the Squadron met en route, visited what was likely the 130 Field Ambulance CCP west of Driel as Captain Allsop had been wounded in the thigh during the crossing. The trio then headed for Nijmegen and ended up being provided with porridge and a straw bed by a Dutch farmer before hitching a ride into Nijmegen the following day, where Captain Allsop was taken in by 10 Casualty Clearing Station.173 Similarly, the 2nd South Staffords Diary makes no reference to the transit area at Driel, just to a ‘weary 9 miles to cover’ in the rain before reaching Nijmegen and linking up with the Division seaborne tail.174
The initial trek to the transit area had its lighter moments. Trooper Stanley Collishaw from the Reconnaissance Squadron teamed up with a fellow boat passenger after struggling together across the riverside dykes and the pair passed the journey being ‘very free with the expletives’. On entering the barn at the transit area where hot food was being served, Collishaw discovered his companion was a Major and apologised for his foul language, to which the officer replied ‘Don’t talk bloody rubbish, we’re all the same here…I was at Dunkirk, but this lot’s a fucking sight worse!’175 According to the 43rd Division’s semi-official account the transit area was organised and manned by Major G. R. Hartwell and D Company 5th Dorsets, although Major Richards RAMC from the 1st Airborne’s seaborne echelon also appears to have been involved. The facilities were somewhat restricted, with illumination in the barn being provided by the headlights of a Jeep, but the effort was well received by the wet, tired and hungry Airborne soldiers.176 The 1st Parachute Battalion reported being given ‘a rum ration and [a] great welcome from the 43rd Division’. The 7th KOSB noted that ‘tea, rum and blankets were dished out, under excellent arrangements made by 30 Corps, and all were most acceptable.’177 Lieutenant Henry Brown from the 4th Parachute Squadron RE recalled ‘a well lit interior where I was struck by the warmth of the air, the smell of unwashed exhausted bodies, soaked uniforms and food!’ He remembered a mug of piping hot tea with a shot of rum and a modest ration of stew, the portion size being dictated by medical concerns of the possible negative effect of large amounts of food on shrunken stomachs.178 However, satisfaction may have waned later as the transit area ran out of blankets and food at 05:00, and not everyone was especially enamoured of Driel; for some unknown reason Lieutenant Stevenson from the Reconnaissance Squadron dubbed the town ‘the most miserable place on God’s earth’.179
The original plan had been to shuttle the evacuees from the transit area to Nijmegen by motor transport, which was the case for some units. The 1st Parachute Battalion reported being transported in DUKWs for example, No. 1 Wing GPR reported being moved in ‘Ducks’ and Jeeps and the 1st Border was carried in trucks, but there was insufficient transport to maintain a constant shuttle, possibly because vehicles had been diverted to move casualties away from the riverside RAP and the CCP in Driel. As a result some units were carried part of the way, like the 7th KOSB, and others had to march the entire distance to Nijmegen, which appears to have been the case with the 2nd South Staffords.180 In some instances a darker edge emerged as the Airborne evacuees passed elements of the Guards Armoured Division on the road. Captain Roland Langton of the 2nd Irish Guards recalled taking an involuntary step back and feeling ‘almost embarrassed to speak’ as the filthy, battle-worn survivors trudged past him; another unnamed Guardsman was asked ‘Where the hell have you been, mate?’ and a quiet response that the Guards had been fighting for five months drew ‘Oh? Did you have a nice drive up?’ from another Airborne soldier.181 On the other hand the men of the Reconnaissance Squadron again injected some humour into the situation. Lieutenant Douglas Galbraith and Sergeant Henry Venes commandeered a wicker supply hamper in an effort to avoid the rain as it was large enough to go over both of them if they moved one behind the other, with vision possible to the front through the weave; the pair thus set off for Nijmegen ‘looking for all the world like a wickerwork pantomime horse’.182 The transit area remained open until 08:30 after which the nearby CCP, which was reportedly almost clear of casualties by this point, assumed responsibility for processing and despatching any additional evacuees to the reception centre in Nijmegen until it too was closed later in the morning.183
The first Airborne evacuees began to arrive at the larger reception centre building in Nijmegen at 23:30, while the Airlanding Brigade staff at the smaller Pagoda building reported receiving their first customers at 03:00. The time difference was presumably due to the larger venue being filled first before the overspill was directed to the Pagoda.184 The 7th KOSB War Diary well summed up the prevailing mood among the Airborne evacuees as a whole: ‘At NIJMEGEN the survivors of the Bn were welcomed by our own “Seaborne Tail”, under Major RD SELLON, who had made most detailed preparations for their comfort and well-being. All were soon refreshed, fed and sent to bed to enjoy their first real sleep for 10 days.’185 Similarly, the 21st Independent Company semi-official account reported the reception centre provided the evacuees with a ‘sumptuous meal’ with no queuing along with plentiful supplies of brandy and cigarettes: ‘Whoever prepared the reception of the battle’s survivors was indeed thoughtful…Every man through whose hands the battle-weary passed showed a consideration and understanding of what their guests had endured.’186 There were also some happy reunions and unusual sights. When Major Cain from the 2nd South Staffords entered one of the reception centre buildings he was greeted by Brigadier Hicks with ‘Well there’s one officer, at least, who’s shaved’
to which Cain replied ‘I was well brought up Sir.’ Lieutenant Peter Scott-Malden from Division HQ arrived at the centre ‘clad in several yards of flannel secured by a belt’; after a large bowl of Irish stew and two tumblers of Cointreau he slept for twelve hours straight.187 In the event the two commandeered buildings proved insufficient to hold all the evacuees and a nearby police barracks was also pressed into service, manned and administered by the 1st Airlanding Light Regiment’s seaborne tail commanded by Captain A. J. A. Hanhart.188 The evacuees were not totally out of the line of fire, for in the morning a bomb from a German aircraft landed in the courtyard of the Pagoda building, injuring an unknown number of men and setting fire to three Airlanding Brigade vehicles parked there, which were all written off.189
The highest ranking member of the 1st Airborne Division to avoid both the transit area and the reception centre was its commander. Having survived the crossing and his snapped braces and accompanied by his ADC Captain Graham Roberts, Major-General Urquhart spoke briefly with Lieutenant Colonel Henniker on the road leading away from the winter dyke.190 The pair then made their way over the five miles or so to 130 Brigade HQ at Homoet where Urquhart unsuccessfully attempted to procure transport before moving on for another three miles to the 43rd Division’s forward HQ in Valburg, where Captain Roberts’ unkempt appearance ‘was not received with any warmth’.191 Urquhart’s fixation on obtaining transport was not connected to checking on the progress of the evacuation or the welfare of his men as might have been assumed. In fact, he does not appear to have visited the reception centre in Nijmegen at all on the day of the evacuation or thereafter and limited his activities in this regard to holding a Commanders Conference at 14:30, which appears to have largely endorsed the work already done by the Divisional seaborne echelon. He did find time for an ‘extravagant’ dinner party held in his honour at 1st Airborne Corps HQ that evening, however.192 Urquhart did visit the transit area later on the morning of 26 September at the beginning of a round of ‘courtesy calls’ to ‘those who had been closest to us in the battle’, which included Lieutenant-General Horrocks, Major-General Thomas and the 64th Medium Regiment RA whose commander, a Lieutenant-Colonel Hunt, was absent from his HQ, although the time of the visit is unclear and as we have seen the transit area closed at 08:30.193 For his part Major-General Browning did visit the reception centre in Nijmegen to attend a parade at 17:00 on 27 September, although interestingly only six of the thirty-seven Airborne War Diaries examined refer to the fact. All this lay in the future however, and by his own admission Urquhart’s motivation in seeking transport was quite straightforward; it was because he was ‘keen to get back as soon as possible to report to General Browning’.194
The transport problem solved itself with the arrival of Browning’s ADC Major Harry Cator at 43rd Division HQ, who whisked Urquhart and Roberts off in a Jeep through the pouring rain to Nijmegen and the comfortable Senior Officer’s Mess at the Advanced Airborne Corps HQ where Browning was quartered. On arrival Urquhart was shown into a room in the Senior Officer’s Mess while Cator departed to fetch Browning, who appeared after twenty minutes fully dressed in his usual immaculate Guards attire ‘as if he had just come off parade’. Urquhart then reported his failure: ‘The Division is nearly out now. I’m sorry we haven’t been able to do what we set out to do.’ Quite how Urquhart knew about the progress of the evacuation having left the crossing point somewhat peremptorily and while it was still underway is unclear. Browning magnanimously responded by saying ‘You did all you could. Now you had better get some rest,’ before offering Urquhart a drink and presumably disappearing back to his bed.195 In the circumstances Urquhart would have been more than justified in rounding on Browning and acquainting him with a few home truths; certainly as commander of a Division extricating itself from encirclement he ought to have had more pressing concerns than racing through the night to report like an errant schoolboy. Instead he simply classified the encounter as a ‘totally inadequate meeting’, although he appears to have kept this opinion to himself for over a decade-and-a-half while reportedly becoming increasingly amazed at the memory of it as time went on.196 At the time, however, Urquhart simply allowed himself to be shown to a comfortable bedroom in an adjoining house where an orderly brought him tea and dry battledress from Major Cator to replace his own soaked attire, and he lay down on a bed ‘that was too comfortable…[where]…Sleep did not come easily’.197 There is something deeply unedifying about the spectacle of Browning sleeping comfortably between clean sheets while the survivors of the 1st Airborne Division were struggling and in some instances dying to extricate themselves from a situation largely of his making just a few short miles to the north, although the spectacle of their Division commander availing himself of similar facilities is only marginally less unedifying, if at all. The First World War stereotype of red-tabbed donkeys urging lions to the slaughter from the comfort of opulent chateaux was rather less prevalent than popular perception assumes, but the spirit of that behaviour was certainly alive and well and on clear display in Nijmegen on the night of 25-26 September 1944.
Back at the crossing point the work of ferrying the Airborne evacuees across the Lower Rhine became increasingly hazardous with the onset of dawn; despite this Major Tucker ordered Sergeant George King to take out the last boat at the 23rd Field Company’s crossing point but perhaps fortunately Sergeant King was unable to coax the vessel’s Evinrude motor into life.198 As it became apparent that the effort would have to be terminated, at least one and possibly two of the last storm boats across were loaded with lifebelts, which were dumped on the north bank before the evacuees boarded, for any who wished to swim for it.199 The growing light not only made it easier for the Germans to see and fire upon the storm boats, but also concealed the muzzle-flash of their weapons that had been used to target counter-fire to suppress or knock them out during the night. At 04:00 the 43rd Division artillery began a pre-planned firing of smoke ammunition onto the north bank and the Sappers also ignited smoke pots in an effort to conceal the storm boats, but the benefit was limited as a morning breeze rapidly dissipated the smoke.200 It did cause some alarm among the Germans however, who initially assumed they were under gas attack.201 As the light level increased Lieutenant-Colonel Henniker decided that the risk to the boat crews was too much and therefore ‘called a halt to the operation’ after speaking to Lieutenant-General Thomas via field telephone.202 The precise time of the halt is unclear. Henniker does not cite a time in his account, the 20th Field Company RCE War Diary unhelpfully reports that ‘the show was called off at first light’, the 23rd Field Company cites a time of 04:15 and the 260 Field Company 06:00.203 Whatever the time of the cessation order, the Sapper units at the eastern crossing point began to move their equipment away from the riverside launching site for loading and transport back to the concentration area in Valburg, although this was not quite the end of the story.
The despatch of the final storm boat from the orchard at around 03:00 effectively put Lieutenant Kennedy out of a job, and with Major Tucker’s permission he scoured the shoreline for a craft with which to assist in the evacuation. He was refused permission to use an abandoned assault boat as Major Tucker rightly considered the current too strong for it to be effective, but he then came upon an abandoned storm boat with a failed motor that had been carried downstream from the launch point by the current. Kennedy managed to coax the motor back into life and prevailed upon Major Tucker to provide a crew in the shape of a Lance-Corporal H. D. Gillis and Sapper David McCready before starting across the river at some point between 04:30 and 05:00. On arrival on the north bank Kennedy and his crew came face to face with a new and unexpected hazard as the discipline of the Airborne soldiers awaiting the boats began to break down; after jumping ashore Lieutenant Kennedy found himself being ‘pushed backwards by an uncontrollable mass of men’. His immediate reaction was to draw his Browning pistol before simultaneously realising that he could not in all conscience shoot any of the mob, and that they cou
ld not see the gesture in any case.204 The incident was witnessed by 2nd Lieutenant Szczesny Relidzinski from the Polish Brigade Signals Company, who also saw a British officer attempting to reason with the mob by shouting ‘Soldiers, you are British, behave like gentlemen’; the officer may have been Major Anthony Vinycomb, commander of 260 Field Company who had crossed to the north bank to help organise the crossing.205 Whoever he was, the shouted entreaty was ignored, the mob swept forward onto the storm boat and Lieutenant Kennedy ‘went down with the ship – in four feet of cold water’. The resultant pause to bale out the water, while no easy task on the slippery and steeply sloping bank, allowed Lieutenant Kennedy to impose a measure of order and the vessel was loaded without further incident, although it had to be rowed across to the south bank using rifle butts as the dousing had put the motor out of commission again; as a result the craft came to rest downstream in the 260 Field Company area.206 On the way in, Kennedy’s crew spotted an assault boat and another storm boat abandoned in an adjacent bay in the groynes and when the storm boat’s engine was started the three Sappers agreed to make another trip with the functioning storm boat towing the other two craft in sequence. This time the ‘paratroopers were organized in line’, the loading went quickly and efficiently and three full boatloads of evacuees were brought across safely.207
By this point the light had grown to the extent that the storm boats were clearly visible on the water but, knowing there were still a large number of Airborne soldiers waiting to be lifted from the north bank, Lieutenant Kennedy and Sapper McCready determined to make another trip while Lance-Corporal Gillis declined to take part in what he not unreasonably considered to be a ‘suicide mission’. Dispensing with the assault boat Lieutenant Kennedy towed the engineless storm boat back to the north bank in the face of increasingly heavy and accurate German machine-gun and mortar fire, plucking Lieutenant Relidzinski from his attempt to paddle across the river en route. This time Kennedy was ready for the indiscipline that had sunk him earlier; according to Private John Ranger from D Company 1st Border he fired a shot from his pistol and shouted ‘If you try to rush the boats, I will use this on you’ before announcing ‘Sorry this is our last run, we will not be returning.’208 In relatively good order twenty-five evacuees packed themselves into Sapper McCready’s engineless craft while an even more astounding thirty-six were crammed into Lieutenant Kennedy’s. The latter was so overloaded that Kennedy was unable to operate the Evinrude motor’s rope-starter until some passengers leaned out over the side to give him room and predictably, the motor then refused to start. Increasingly agitated at the delay the men aboard McCready’s vessel cut the rope linking the two storm boats despite Kennedy’s warnings not to do so, while a heavily outnumbered McCready looked on. The slow-moving vessel attracted a storm of German fire as it crawled painfully slowly across the river, and only nine of the twenty-five men aboard survived to make landfall on the south bank; a further four were killed scrambling up to or over the summer dyke and Sapper McCready was wounded.209 Back on the north bank Lieutenant Kennedy finally got his motor to start: ‘The blunt bow of the storm boat was so close to the water that I didn’t dare use much power for fear of…driving her under…A single projectile hit the man who was jammed under my right elbow, with a sound like the blow of a club. He jerked once and never moved again. The bow of the boat hit the beach and 10 seconds later the dead paratrooper and I were alone.’210 For their courage and dedication during the long night of the evacuation across the Lower Rhine Lieutenant Kennedy was awarded the Military Cross and Sapper McCready the Military Medal.211
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