A Bridge Too Far

  Now that Operation Market-Garden was actually on, Lieutenant Colonel Louis Mendez, battalion commander of the 82nd’s 508th Regiment, had no hesitation in speaking out on one particular subject. With the nighttime experiences of his regiment in Normandy still painfully clear in his mind, Colonel Mendez delivered a scathing warning to the pilots who would carry his battalion into action the next day. “Gentlemen,” Mendez said coldly, “my officers know this map of Holland and the drop zones by heart and we’re ready to go. When I brought my battalion to the briefing prior to Normandy, I had the finest combat-ready force of its size that will ever be known. By the time I gathered them together in Normandy, half were gone. I charge you: put us down in Holland or put us down in hell, but put us all down together in one place.”

  Private First Class John Allen, twenty-four, a three-jump veteran and still recovering from wounds sustained in Normandy, was philosophical about the operation: “They never got me in a night jump,” he solemnly told his buddies, “so now they’ll be able to see me and get off a good shot.” Staff Sergeant Russell O’Neal, with three night combat jumps behind him, was convinced that his “Irish luck was about to run out.” When he heard the 82nd was to jump in daylight, he composed a letter he never sent—“You can hang a gold star in your window tonight, Mother. The Germans have a good chance to hit us before we even land.” To lighten the atmosphere—though in doing so he may have made it worse—Private Philip H. Nadler, of the 504th Regiment, spread a few rumors. The one he liked best was that a large German camp of SS men were bivouacked on one of the 82nd drop zones.

  Nadler had not been overly impressed by the briefing of the platoon. One of the 504th’s objectives was the bridge at Grave. Gathering the men around him, the briefing lieutenant threw back the cover on a sandtable model and said, “Men, this is your destination.” He rested a pointer on the bridge which bore the single word “Grave.” Nadler was the first to comment. “Yeah, we know that, Lieutenant,” he said, “but what country are we droppin’ on?”

  Major Edward Wellems, of the 504th’s 2nd Battalion, thought the name of the bridge was rather ominous, too, despite the fact that the officers who briefed his group suddenly began to change the pronunciation, referring to it as the “gravey bridge.”

  The briefings caused mixed reactions. Nineteen-year-old Corporal Jack Bommer thought that “six or eight weeks would see us home and then they’d send us on to the Pacific.” Private Leo Hart, twenty-one, did not believe they were going at all. He had heard—probably as a result of Private Nadler’s rumor—that there were 4,000 SS troops in the general jump area.

  Major Edwin Bedell, thirty-eight, remembers that one private’s sole concern was the safety of a live hare that he had won in a local village raffle. The private was fearful that his pet, which was so tame that it followed him everywhere, would not survive the jump, and that if it did it might still wind up in a stew pot.

  Near Spanhoe airfield in the Grantham area, Lieutenant “Pat” Glover of the British 1st Airborne Division’s 4th Parachute Brigade worried about Myrtle, a reddish-brown chicken that had been Glover’s special pet since early summer. With parachute wings fastened to an elastic band around her neck, Myrtle “the parachick” had made six training jumps. At first she rode in a small zippered canvas bag attached to Glover’s left shoulder. Later, he released her at fifty feet above the ground. By now Myrtle was an expert, and Glover could free her at three hundred feet. With a frenzied flutter of wings and raucous squawking, Myrtle gracelessly floated down to earth. There, Glover recalls, “this rather gentle pet would wait patiently on the ground for me to land and collect her.” Myrtle the parachick was going to Arnhem. It would be her first combat jump. But Glover did not intend to tempt fate. He planned to keep Myrtle in her bag until he hit the ground in Holland.

  Lance Corporal Sydney Nunn, twenty-three, of the 1st Airlanding Brigade, based in the south near Keevil, was only too glad to get away from his “pet.” He thought the camp was “a nightmare.” Nunn couldn’t wait to get to Arnhem or anyplace else, so long as it was far enough away from the persistent mole who kept burrowing into his mattress.

  For the men of the British 1st Airborne Division, now standing by in bases stretching from the Midlands south to Dorsetshire, the prevailing mood was one of relief that, at last, they were going into action. Besides, briefing officers stressed the fact that Market-Garden could shorten the war. For the British, fighting since 1939, the news was heady. Sergeant Ron Kent, of the 21st Independent Parachute Company, heard that “the success of the operation might even give us Berlin” and that ground opposition in Arnhem “would consist mainly of Hitler Youth and old men on bicycles.” Sergeant Walter Inglis, of the 1st Parachute Brigade, was equally confident. The attack, he thought, would be “a piece of cake.” All the Red Devils had to do was “hang on to the Arnhem bridge for forty-eight hours until XXX Corps tanks arrived; then the war would be practically over.” Inglis expected to be back home in England in a week. Lance Corporal Gordon Spicer, of the 1st Parachute Brigade, offhandedly considered the operation “a fairly simple affair with a few backstage Germans recoiling in horror at our approach”; while Lance Bombardier Percy Parkes, of the 1st Airlanding Brigade, felt, after his briefing, that “all we would encounter at Arnhem was a mixed bag of Jerry cooks and clerks.” The presence of tanks, Parkes says, was “mentioned only in passing, and we were told our air cover would be so strong that it would darken the sky above us.” Confidence was such that Medic Geoffrey Stanners expected only “a couple of hernia battalions” and Signalman Victor Read was “looking forward to seeing German WAAF’s who,” he thought, “would be the only Germans defending Arnhem.”

  Some men who could legitimately remain behind were eager to go. Sergeant Alfred Roullier, of the 1st Airlanding Brigade’s Artillery, was one of these. The thirty-one-year-old trooper discovered that he was not slated for the Arnhem operation. Although Roullier had been trained as an artilleryman, he was currently the acting mess sergeant at his battalion headquarters. Because of his culinary expertise, it appeared that he might spend the remainder of the war in the job. Twice, Alf Roullier had appealed to Sergeant Major John Siely to be included in the attack, but each time he was turned down. For the third time Alf pressed his case. “I know this operation can shorten the war,” he told Siely. “I’ve got a wife and two children, but if this attack will get me home quicker and guarantee them a better future, then I want to go.” Siely pulled a few strings. Alf Roullier’s name was added to the list of those who would go to Arnhem—where, within the next week, the assistant mess sergeant would become something of a legend.

  In the prevailing high mood before the onset of Market-Garden, there were undercurrents of doubt among some officers and enlisted men. They were troubled for a variety of reasons, although most took care to hide their feelings. Corporal Daniel Morgans, of the 1st Parachute Brigade, considered “Market a snorter of an operation.” Still, “to drop six or seven miles from the objective and then to fight through a city to get there, was really asking for trouble.” Regimental Sergeant Major J. C. Lord, with a lifetime in the army behind him, thought so, too. “The plan was a bit dicey,” he felt. Nor did Lord give much credence to the talk of an understrength, worn-out enemy. He knew that “the German is no fool and a mighty warrior.” Still, J. C. Lord, whose demeanor could intimidate even the veterans in his charge (almost in awe, some called him “Jesus Christ” behind his back), did not reveal his uneasiness, because “it would have been catastrophic to morale.”

  Captain Eric Mackay, whose engineers were, among other tasks, to race to the main road bridge in Arnhem and remove expected German charges, was suspicious of the entire operation. He thought the division “might just as well be dropped a hundred miles away from the objective as eight.” The advantage of surprise and “a quick lightning stroke” would surely be lost. Mackay quietly ordered his men to double the amount of ammunition and grenades each would carry and personally briefed everyone in the troop
on escape techniques.*

  Major Anthony Deane-Drummond, twenty-seven, second in command of 1st Airborne Division Signals, was particularly concerned about his communications. Apart from the main command units, he was worried about the smaller “22” sets that would be used between Urquhart and the various brigades during the Arnhem attack. The “22’s” could best transmit and receive within a diameter of three to five miles. With drop zones seven to eight miles from the objective, performance was expected to be erratic. Worse, the sets must also contact General Browning’s Airborne Corps headquarters, planned for Nijmegen, from the drop zones approximately fifteen miles to the south. Adding to the problem was the terrain. Between the main road bridge at Arnhem and the landing areas was the town itself, plus heavily wooded sections and suburban developments. On the other hand, an independent fact-gathering liaison unit, called “Phantom”—organized to collect and pass on intelligence estimates and immediate reports to each commander in the field, in this case General Browning of Airborne Corps—was not worried about the range of its own “22’s.” Twenty-five-year-old Lieutenant Neville Hay, in charge of the Phantom team’s highly trained specialists, was even a “little disdainful of the Royal Corps of Signals,” whom his group was inclined to treat “as poor cousins.” By using a special kind of antenna, Hay and his operators had been able to transmit at distances of over one hundred miles on a “22.”

  Even with Hay’s success and although various forms of communications* would be used in the event of emergency, Deane-Drummond was uneasy. He mentioned to his superior, Lieutenant Colonel Tom Stephenson, that “the likelihood of the sets working satisfactorily in the initial phases of the operation is very doubtful.” Stephenson agreed. Still, it would hardly matter. In the surprise assault, troops were expected to close up on the Arnhem bridge very quickly. Therefore, it was believed that units would not be out of touch with headquarters for more than one or two hours, by which time, Deane-Drummond heard, “things would have sorted themselves out and Urquhart’s command post would be with the 1st Parachute Brigade on the bridge itself.” Although not entirely reassured, Deane-Drummond recalled that, “like almost everyone else, I was swept along with the prevailing attitude: ‘Don’t be negative; and for God’s sake, don’t rock the boat; let’s get on with the attack.’”

  Now the final word depended not on men but on the weather. From Supreme Command headquarters down, senior officers anxiously awaited meteorological reports. Given less than seven days to meet Montgomery’s deadline, Market-Garden was as ready as it would ever be, but a minimum forecast of three full days of fair weather was needed. In the early evening of September 16, the weather experts issued their findings: apart from some early morning fog, the weather for the next three days would be fair, with little cloud and virtually no winds. At First Allied Airborne Army headquarters Lieutenant General Brereton quickly made his decision. The coded teleprinter message that went out to his commanders at 7:45 P.M. read, “CONFIRM MARKET SUNDAY 17TH. ACKNOWLEDGE.” In his diary, Brereton recorded, “At last we are going into action.” He thought he would sleep well this night for, as he told his staff, “Now that I’ve made the decision, I’ve quit worrying.”

  In crowded hangars, cities of tents and Nissen huts, the waiting men were given the news. On a large mirror over the fireplace in the sergeants’ mess of the British 1st Airborne Division Signals near Grantham, someone chalked up “14 hours to go … no cancellation.” Sergeant Horace “Hocker” Spivey noted that, as each hour passed, the number was rechalked. To Spivey, tired of being briefed for operations that never came off, the ever-diminishing number on the mirror was the best proof yet that this time “we were definitely going.”

  On all their bases the men of the First Allied Airborne Army made last-minute preparations. They had been fully briefed, their weapons had been checked and their currency exchanged for Dutch guilders, and there was little now for the isolated troopers to do but wait. Some spent the time writing letters, “celebrating” their departure the following morning, packing personal belongings, sleeping or participating in marathon card games ranging from blackjack and poker to bridge. Twenty-year-old Sergeant Francis Moncur, of the 1st Parachute Brigade’s 2nd Battalion, played blackjack hour after hour. To his surprise, he won steadily. Looking at the ever-growing pile of guilders before him, Moncur felt like a millionaire. He expected to have a “whale of a time in Arnhem after the battle,” which, in his opinion, would “last only forty-eight hours.” That would be long enough for the sergeant to settle a score with the Germans. Seventy-two hours earlier, Moncur’s brother, a seventeen-year-old R.A.F. flight sergeant, had been killed in an attempt to jump from his disabled bomber at 200 feet. His parachute had failed to open completely.

  South of Grantham at a base in Cottesmore, Sergeant “Joe” Sunley of the 4th Parachute Brigade was on security patrol, making sure that “no paratroopers had slipped off base into the village.” Returning to the airdrome, Sunley saw Sergeant “Ginger” Green, a physical-training instructor and a “gentle giant of a man,” tossing a deflated football up in the air. Green deftly caught the ball and threw it to Sunley. “What the hell are you doing with this?” Sunley asked. Ginger explained that he was taking the deflated ball to Arnhem, “so we can have a little game on the drop zone after we’re finished.”

  At Manston, Kent, Staff Sergeant George Baylis of the Glider Pilot Regiment was also looking forward to some recreation. He had heard that the Dutch liked to dance; so George carefully packed his dancing pumps. Signalman Stanley G. Copley of the 1st Parachute Brigade Signals bought extra film for his camera. As little opposition was expected he thought it was “a perfect chance to get some pictures of the Dutch countryside and towns.”

  One man was taking presents that he had bought in London a few days earlier. When the Netherlands was overrun, thirty-two-year-old Lieutenant Commander Arnoldus Wolters of the Dutch navy had escaped in his minesweeper and sailed to England. Since that time, he had been attached to the Netherlands government in exile, holding a variety of desk jobs dealing with information and intelligence. A few days earlier, Wolters had been asked to go to Holland as part of the military government and civil affairs team attached to General Urquhart’s headquarters. It was proposed that Wolters become military commissioner of the Netherlands territories to be liberated by the airborne forces. “It was a startling suggestion—going from a desk chair to a glider,” he recalled. He was attached to a unit under Colonel Hilary Barlow, second in command of the 1st Airlanding Brigade, who was designated to become the town commandant in Arnhem after its capture. Wolters would be his assistant. Now, excited about the prospect of returning to Holland, Wolters “was struck by the optimism, and I believed everything I was told. I really did not expect the operation to be very difficult. It seemed that the war was virtually over and the attack dead easy. I expected to land on Sunday and be home on Tuesday with my wife and child at Hilversum.” For his wife, Maria, Wolters had bought a watch, and for his daughter, whom he had last seen as a baby four years before, he had a two-foot Teddy bear. He hoped nobody would mind if he took it in the glider.

  Lieutenant Colonel John Frost, thirty-one, who was to lead the battalion assigned to capture the Arnhem bridge, packed his copper fox-hunting horn with the rest of his battle gear. It had been presented to him by the members of the Royal Exodus Hunt, of which he was Master in 1939-40. During training, Frost had used the horn to rally his men. He would do so on this operation. Frost had no qualms about a daylight jump. From the information given at briefings, “we were made to feel that the Germans were weak and demoralized and German troops in the area were of a decidedly low category and badly equipped.” Frost did have misgivings about the drop zones. He had been told that the “polder on the southern side of the bridge was unsuitable for parachutists and gliders.” Why then, he wondered, were the Poles to drop on the southern side of the bridge “if it was so unsuitable?”

  Though he was anxious to get into action, Frost “hated t
o leave for Holland.” Secretly, he hoped for a last-minute cancellation or postponement. He had enjoyed the area of Stoke Rochford in Lincolnshire and wished for “perhaps another day or two just doing all the pleasant things I had done in the past.” But with these thoughts were others, “telling me that we had been here long enough and it was time to get away.” Frost slept soundly on September 16. Although he wasn’t naïve enough to think the battle of Arnhem would be “much of a lark,” he did tell his batman, Wicks, to pack his gun, cartridges, golf clubs and dinner jacket in the staff car that would follow.

  On the mirror above the fireplace in the sergeants’ mess, now empty, there was one last notation, scrawled before men became too busy to bother. It read: “2 hours to go … no cancellation.”

  *British Major General Hubert Essame (retired) in his excellent book The Battle for Germany (p. 13), writes: “In misappreciation of the actual situation at the end of August and the first half of September, Allied intelligence staffs sank to a level only reached by Brigadier John Charteris, Haig’s Chief Intelligence Officer at the time of the Passchendaele Battles in 1917.” At that time the wartime Prime Minister David Lloyd George alleged that Charteris “selected only those figures and facts which suited his fancy and then issued hopeful reports accordingly.” At various times during the 1917 Flanders campaign Charteris reported the enemy as “cracking,” “mangled,” “with few reserves,” and even “on the run.” In the dreadful battles that ensued around Passchendaele between July 31 and November 12, casualties, according to the official British history, totaled a staggering 244,897.

  *In his history of The 43rd Wessex Division at War (p. 115), Essame writes: “Sartorial disciplinarians of the future” might remember “that when the morale of the British Army was as high as at any time in its history, officers wore the clothing they found most suitable to the conditions under which they had to live and fight.”