Bridge Too Far (65 page)

“the situation in this sector is showing great improvement.”

Within hours the optimism of Brereton and Browning had faded.  Friday’s

futile efforts to reach Urquhart seemed to have been the turning point

for the Corps commander.  According to his staff, “he was disgusted

with General Thomas and the 43rd Wessex Division.”  He felt they had

not moved fast enough.  Thomas, he told them, had been “too anxious to

tidy things up as he went along.”  Additionally, Browning’s authority

extended only so far: the moment British ground troops entered the

Nijmegen area, administrative control passed over to General Horrocks,

the XXX Corps commander; decisions would be made by Horrocks

and by his chief, the British Second Army’s General Miles C. Dempsey.

There was little that Browning could do.

Sitting with the somewhat revived Mackenzie, Browning now learned for the first time the details of Urquhart’s appalling predicament.  Mackenzie, sparing nothing, recounted everything that had happened.  Brigadier Walch remembers Mackenzie telling Browning that “the division is in a very tight perimeter and low in everything—food, ammunition and medical supplies.”  While the situation was acute, Mackenzie said, “if there is a chance of the Second Army getting to us, we can hold—but not for long.”  Walch recollects Mackenzie’s grim summation.  “There isn’t much left,” he said.  Browning listened in silence.  Then he assured Mackenzie that he had not given up hope.  Plans were now afoot to get men and supplies into the bridgehead during Saturday night.  But, Brigadier Walch says, “I do remember Browning telling Charles that there did not seem to be much chance of getting a good party across.”

As Mackenzie set out for Driel once more, he was struck by the ambivalence of the thinking at Corps headquarters—and by the dilemma that created for him.  Obviously the fate of the British 1/ Airborne still hung in the balance.  No one had as yet made any definite decisions.  But what should he tell Urquhart?  “After seeing the situation on both sides of the river,” he says, “I was convinced a crossing from the south would not be successful and I could tell him that.  Or, I could report, as I was told, that everyone was doing his best, that there would be a crossing and we should hold on.  Which was better?  Tell him that in my opinion there wasn’t a chance in hell of anyone getting over?  Or that help was on the way?”  Mackenzie decided on the latter, for he felt it would help Urquhart “to keep people going if I put it that way.”

Like Browning, the Allied high command was only now learning the true

facts of the 1/ Airborne’s plight.  In off-the-record briefings at

Eisenhower’s, at Brereton’s and at Montgomery’s headquarters, war

correspondents were told that the “situation is serious, but every

measure is being taken to relieve Urquhart.”  That minor note of

concern represented a radical change in

attitude.  Since its inception, Market-Garden had been painted in public reports as an overwhelming success.  On Thursday, September 21, under a headline announcing that a “tank paradise lies ahead,” one British newspaper’s lead story stated: “Hitler’s northern flank is crumbling.  Field Marshal Montgomery, with the brilliant aid of the First Airborne Army, has paved the way into the Ruhr—and to the end of the war.”  Even the staid London Times on Friday had such headlines as “On the Road to Arnhem; Tanks Across the Rhine”; only the subhead hinted of possible trouble ahead: “Coming Fight for Arnhem; Airborne Forces’ Hard Time.”  Correspondents could hardly be blamed.  Lack of communications, overenthusiasm on the part of Allied commanders and strict censorship prevented accurate reporting.  Then, overnight, the picture changed.  On Saturday, the twenty-third, the Times’s headline read: “2nd Army Meets Tough Opposition; Airborne Forces’ Grim Fight,” and the London Daily Express was calling Arnhem a “Patch of Hell.”  * * Some of the war’s finest reporting came out of Arnhem.  The ten-man press team attached to the 1/ Airborne Division included Major Roy Oliver, a public information officer; censors Flight Lieutenant Billy Williams and Captain Peter Brett; army photographers Sergeants Lewis and Walker; and correspondents Alan Wood, London Daily Express; Stanley Maxted and Guy Byam, BBC; Jack Smythe, Reuter’s, and Marek Swiecicki, a Polish correspondent attached to Sosabowski’s brigade.  Although limited by sparse communications to bulletins of only a few hundred words per day, these men, in the finest tradition of war reporting, portrayed the agonies of Urquhart’s men.  I have been unable to locate a single corrcspondent of the original team.  Presumably, all are dead.

Yet hopes remained high.  On this Saturday, the seventh day of Market-Garden, the weather over England cleared and Allied planes took to the air again.  * The last of the great fleet of gliders, grounded in the Grantham area since Tuesday, set out finally for Gavin’s 82nd with 3,385 troops—his long-awaited 325th Glider Infantry Regiment—and Taylor’s hard-pressed 101/ Division was brought up to full strength by nearly 3,000 more men.  But * Inexplicably, some official and semiofficial British accounts contend that bad weather prevented aerial activity on Saturday, September 23.  Meteorological, Corps and Allied Air Force after-action reports all record Saturday’s weather as fair, with more missions flown than on any day since Tuesday, the nineteenth.  In the semiofficial Struggle for Europe, Chester Wilmot erred in stating that on Saturday “aerial resupply had been thwarted by bad weather.”  The phrase altered his chronology of the battle thereafter.  Other accounts, using Wilmot as a guide, have compounded the inaccuracies.

Sosabowski, under heavy attack at Driel, could not be reinforced with the remainder of his brigade.  Browning was forced to direct the rest of the Poles to drop zones in the 82nd’s area.  Because of weather Brereton’s three-day air plan to deliver some 35,000 men in the greatest airborne operation ever conceived had taken more than double the planned time.

Once again, although resupply missions were successful elsewhere, Urquhart’s men, in their rapidly diminishing pocket about Oosterbeek, watched cargo fall into enemy hands.  Unable to locate the Hartenstein drop zone, and flying through savage antiaircraft fire, the supply planes were in constant trouble; 6 of the 123 planes were shot down and 63 damaged.  In a message to Browning, Urquhart reported:

231605 … Resupply by air; very small quantity picked up.  Snipers now severely curtailing movement and therefore collection.  Also roads so blocked by falling trees, branches and houses that movement in jeeps virtually impossible.  Jeeps in any case practically out of action.

Close-in fighter support was inadequate, too.  In the Arnhem area the weather had been bad throughout the morning, clearing only by midday.  As a result only a few flights of R.a.f. Spitfires and Typhoons attacked targets about the perimeter.  Urquhart was baffled.  “In view of our complete aerial superiority,” he later recollected, “I was bitterly disappointed by the lack of fighter support.”  But to his men, who had not seen a fighter since D Day, the previous Sunday, the attacks were heartening.  By now, too, most of them had learned that British troops had finally reached the southern bank of the Rhine at Driel.  Relief, they believed, was close at hand.

In spite of all the setbacks, now that General Thomas’ troops were

moving up the side roads to Driel, General Horrocks believed that

Urquhart’s worsening situation could be alleviated.  Brilliant,

imaginative and determined, Horrocks was opposed to throwing away all

that had been gained.  Yet he must find some way to move troops and

supplies into the bridgehead.  “I am certain,” he later put it, “that

these were about the blackest

moments in my life.”  He was so distressed at “the picture of the airborne troops fighting their desperate battle on the other side of the river” that he could not sleep; and the severing of the corridor north of Veghel, cut since Friday afternoon, threatened the life of the entire operation.

Now every hour was vital.  Like Horrocks, General Thomas was determined to get men across the river.  His 43rd Wessex was going all-out in a two-phase operation: attacking to seize Elst and driving toward Driel.  Although by now no one had any illusions that the Arnhem bridge could be captured—from aerial reconnaissance photos it was clear the enemy held it in strength—Thomas’ right flank, terminating at Elst, had to be protected if any operations were to be conducted across the Rhine from Driel.  And Horrocks had hopes that, in addition to the Poles, some British infantry might cross into the bridgehead on Saturday night.

His optimism was premature.  On the low-lying secondary roads west of the main Nijmegen-Arnhem highway a giant bottleneck developed as Thomas’ two brigades, each totaling about 3,000 men—one brigade attacking northeast toward Elst, the other driving north for Driel—attempted to move through the same crossroads.  Enemy shelling added to the crowding and confusion.  Thus, it was dark by the time the bulk of Thomas’ 130th Brigade began to reach Driel—too late to join the Poles in an organized attempt to cross the river.

Shortly after midnight, Sosabowski’s men, heavily supported by artillery, began crossing, this time in sixteen boats left from the 82nd’s assault across the Waal.  They came under intense fire and suffered heavy losses.  Only 250 Poles made it to the northern bank, and of these only 200 reached the Hartenstein perimeter.

On this grim day Horrocks and Thomas received just one piece of good news: at 4 P.m. the corridor north of Veghel was reopened and traffic began flowing again.  In the engineering columns were more assault craft, and the stubborn Horrocks was hopeful that they could be rushed forward in time to pour infantry across the river on Sunday night.

But could the division hang on another twenty-four hours?  Urquhart’s plight was rapidly growing worse.  In his situation report to Browning on Saturday night, Urquhart had said:

232015: Many attacks during day by small parties infantry, SP guns, tanks including flame thrower tanks.  Each attack accompanied by very heavy mortaring and shelling within Div perimeter.  After many alarms and excursions the latter remains substantially unchanged, although very thinly held.  Physical contact not yet made with those on south bank of river.  Resupply a flop, small quantities of ammo only gathered in.  Still no food and all ranks extremely dirty owing to shortage of water.  Morale still adequate, but continued heavy mortaring and shelling is having obvious effects.  We shall hold but at the same time hope for a brighter 24 hours ahead.

The afternoon’s giant Allied glider lift had caught Field Marshal Walter Model by surprise.  At this late date in the battle he had not anticipated any further Allied airborne landings.  These new reinforcements, coming just as his counteroffensive was gaining momentum, could change the tide of battle—and even more might be on the way.  For the first time since the beginning of the Allied attack he began to have doubts about the outcome.

Driving to Doetinchem he conferred with General Bittrich, demanding, as

the II SS Panzer Corps commander remembers, “a quick finish to the

British at Oosterbeek.”  Model needed every man and tank.  Too great a

force was being tied down in a battle that “should have been brought to

an end days before.”  Model was “very excited,” Bittrich says, “and

kept repeating, “When will things finally be over here?”’”

Bittrich insisted that “we are fighting as we have never fought before.”  At Elst, Major Hans Peter Knaust was staving off British tank and infantry columns trying to proceed up the main highway to Arnhem.

But Knaust could not hold at Elst and also attack west against the

Poles and British at Driel.  The moment his heavy

Tigers moved onto the polder they bogged down.  The assault toward Driel was a task for infantry and lighter vehicles, Bittrich explained.  “Model was never interested in excuses,” Bittrich says, “but he understood me.  Still, he gave me only twenty-four hours to finish the British off.”

Bittrich drove to Elst to see Knaust.  The major was worried.  All day the forces against him had appeared to be growing stronger.  While he knew British tanks could not leave the main highway, the possibility of attacks from the west concerned him.  “A British breakthrough must be halted at all costs,” Bittrich warned.  “Can you hold for another twenty-four hours, while we clean up Oosterbeek?”  Knaust assured Bittrich that he could.  Leaving Knaust, the Panzer Corps commander immediately ordered Colonel Harzer of the Hohenstaufen Division to “intensify all attacks against the airborne tomorrow.  I want the whole affair ended.”

Harzer’s problems were also difficult.  Although Oosterbeek was completely encircled, its narrow streets were proving almost impossible for maneuvering tanks—especially for the 60-ton Tigers, “which tore up the road foundations, making them look like plowed fields, and ripped off the pavement when they turned.”  Additionally, Harzer told Bittrich, “everytime we compress the airborne pocket and shrink it even tighter, the British seem to fight harder.”  Bittrich advised that “strong attacks should be thrown from east and west at the base of the perimeter to cut the British off from the Rhine.”

The Frundsberg Division commander, General Harmel, charged with holding

and driving back the Allied forces in the Nijmegen-Arnhem area, heard

from Bittrich, too.  The assembling of his whole division delayed by

the wreckage on the Arnhem bridge, Harmel had not been able to form a

blocking front on both sides of the elevated “island” highway.  The

British attack at Oosterbeek had split his forces.  Only part of his

division had been in position on the western side when the British

attacked.  Now, what remained of his men and equipment was east of the

highway.  Elst would be held, Harmel assured Bittrich.  The British

could not advance up the main road.  But he was power-

so to halt the drive to Driel.  “I cannot prevent them going up or coming back,” he told Bittrich.  The II SS Panzer Corps leader was firm.  The next twenty-four hours would be critical, he warned Harmel.  “The British will try everything to reinforce their bridgehead and also drive for Arnhem.”  Harzer’s attacks against the Oosterbeek perimeter would succeed—provided that Harmel held.  As Bittrich put it, “We’ll get the nail.  You must amputate the finger.”