The Mad Colonel.
That’s what the Germans nicknamed John Frost who still clung on to a handful of buildings
at Arnhem bridge.
Frost’s men fought desperately with their ammunition running out and the houses collapsing
and burning around them.
Where was XXX Corps?
Where were the tanks?
They were 8 miles to the south fighting against the 10th SS Panzer Division, who were clinging
on to the bridge at Nijmegen.
Both Frost and 10th SS Panzer would fight two mirrored last stands as the outcome of
Operation Market Garden hung in the balance.
Who would fall first?
Intro graphic.
Yesterday was truly a dark and fateful day.
The British forces trying to get to Frost’s men at Arnhem were almost wiped out having
been caught in a crossfire.
The rest of 1st Airborne were pushed off their landing zones as General Urquhart, now back
in charge of the Division, tried to form a coherent defence.
XXX Corps had reached Nijmegen making up for lost time, but were stopped as the 82nd had
failed to take Nijmegen bridge.
The Germans at Nijmegen were now under siege, but held on, despite Allied attempts to break
through.
The 101st had helped build a bailey bridge at Son in the morning but fought to hold it
in the evening against Panther tanks of Panzer Brigade 107.
It was now the 20th of September, a Wednesday.
Day 4 of Operation Market Garden.
The tanks should have reached Arnhem yesterday, but they hadn’t.
XXX Corps was still 8 miles from Arnhem, and Nijmegen bridge was still in German hands.
But if they could break through now, there was a chance of victory, even at this late
stage.
10th SS Panzer Division held onto Nijmegen and the bridge with perhaps 500 men, backed
by assault guns, 88mm guns, mortars and artillery.
When the British set up for an attack, artillery rained down on them and stopped them in their
tracks, just like the day before.
Attempt after attempt was made to smash the German defenders, but Kampfgruppe Henke and
Euling, under the command of Kampfgruppe Reinhold, fought them off.
The stiffness of the German defence in Nijmegen throughout the day didn’t seem to be weakening.
So the Allies decided that only desperate action would save the day.
At 15:00 in the afternoon, Shermans blasted the opposite side of the Waal as Major Cook’s
3rd Battalion paddled in boats across the river.
This was perhaps one of the most heroic and daring acts in World War 2, as American paratroopers
stormed across a river in boats, assaulted a river bank like marines… which they weren’t
trained for… to take the Nijmegen bridge from the other side.
Unbelievably, under a hail of rifle, machine gun and mortar fire, half the boats made it
to the North bank.
As the boats turned back to pick up the next wave of troops, the American paratroopers
overwhelmed the old men and young boys who’d been killing them moments before.
This was a decisive tactical victory for the Allies which unhinged the German defence completely.
The Germans had nothing left.
There were so few units to form a defensive line that the Americans, supported by British
sappers, were able to secure their beachhead and press on towards the northern end of Nijmegen
bridge.
Yes, you don’t hear that often, but the American paratroopers were accompanied by
British sappers… the crossing was a joint effort.
They managed to get to the Northern end of the Nijmegen Bridge, and as they did, four
sherman tanks from the British Grenadier Guards attacked from the south.
The tanks moved across the span of the bridge, killing the Germans in the girders.
Just to point out another myth of this battle, the Germans in the girders were most likely
engineers, not snipers as often described.
They were perhaps trying to rig the bridge to blow, but nobody’s quite sure, but after
the war, Harmel was convinced there weren’t snipers on the bridge.
Either way, it was at this point that SS Colonel Harmel decided to blow the road bridge.
His orders from Field Marshal Model were to keep the Road bridge intact, so Germany could
launch counter.attacks in the future.
This was an unrealistic eventuality since Germany had little offensive capability left,
and Harmel understood that if he blew the bridge now, it would prevent the Allies from
getting to Arnhem.
As the British Sherman tanks crossed the bridge, he ordered the bridge be blown, but by some
miracle, the explosives failed to go off.
Lucky though the British were that the bridge was now in their hands, they were unable to
advance.
The four tanks they had on the other side of the Waal were alone.
The few American paratroopers they had with them weren’t willing or able to advance
with them.
It’s often been said that an American paratrooper became angry at the British tankers for not
advancing with them to Arnhem.
This is fiction.
Another myth of the battle made up after the event.
In fact, the American paratroopers may have even left the tanks at the bridge to go fight
Germans elsewhere.
What is certain, is that the handful of American paratroopers who’d linked up with the tanks
were too few in number to go on and in any event were in no position to take orders from
the British.
Their orders were to hold the other side of the bridge and it was down to the British
to advance.
Unfortunately without infantry support, the British tanks would be unable to advance.
So where were the British infantry?
XXX Corps has often been accused of being too slow after the capture of Nijmegen bridge.
But the reality was that the British infantry and tanks were still fighting against the
Germans who held on at Nijmegen.
They couldn’t just leave a good portion of 10th SS Panzer Division there sitting in
their rear, they had to fight on.
Some of the German defenders, seeing the successful amphibious assault, decided to flee across
the railway bridge, with around 250 dying on the bridge itself.
The Germans lost control of the Nijmegen railway bridge but fighting continued in the city.
Artillery fire rained down on the British, preventing them from overwhelming the last
pockets of resistance.
Holding on for a few more hours, the Germans finally realised their position was hopeless.
Some once again tried to flee across the bridges, now in enemy hands.
Others, such as the survivors of Kampfgruppe Euling, who’d held onto Hunner park, managed
to slip under the Nijmegen road bridge and escape to the east.
The British wouldn’t clear the last elements of resistance from Nijmegen until the early
hours of the next day.
It wasn’t until Nijmegen was secure that the British infantry and the rest of XXX Corps
could have continued their advance to Arnhem.
So why was it that at the time, and after the war, XXX Corps was accused of being so
slow?
Why were they accused of drinking tea on the Northern end of Nijmegen Bridge whilst their
comrades at Arnhem were left to bleed?
We’ll come back to that question in the last episode of this series, but I’d love
to hear your opinions in the comments below.
As the fighting came to ahead in Nijmegen, things further to the south weren’t easy
either.
As the morning mist cleared at Son, the Americans guarding the bailey bridge that had been built
on the previous night could be forgiven for thinking they’d done their part.
The day before, they’d stopped a German counter-attack which had nearly got to the
bridge, and could be satisfied that they’d completely secured the line.
They were wrong.
Panzer Brigade 107 achieved complete surprise by attacking the exact same way they’d done
the day before.
You see, the Germans never attacked in the same place twice.
It just wasn’t done.
In theory, if you attacked the same place twice, the enemy will be prepared.
That was why the Germans never did it, but that’s exactly why they did it this day,
to throw the Americans off guard.
And they did.
It wasn’t long before they dominated the bailey bridge with fire once more.
However, in the nick of time, 10 British tanks appeared and managed to destroy four more
German tanks and turn the tide of the battle in their favour.
Unable to take the bridge, Panzer Brigade 107 withdrew.
It had once again been close to cutting the Allied corridor, but this wasn’t the only
attack on the corridor this day.
406th Division which had attacked out of the Reichswald forest near Groesbeek two days
ago was finally reinforced.
Fallschirmjaeger, German paratroopers, perhaps a few hundred strong, joined the already weak
406th Division and now formed three Kampfgruppen.
Kampfgruppe Becker with perhaps 800 men would strike Groesbeek on the Northern end of the
battlefield and aim to take the Maas-Waal canal.
Kampfgruppe Greschick with maybe 500 men, attacked Groesbeek’s center.
And Kampfgruppe Hermann was positioned in the south and would hope to strike through
Mook and cut off the bridges on the Maas-Waal canal.
Starting in the morning, by 11:00 the battle raged for the Groesbeek Heights.
Beek, Wyler, and Mook fell quickly, and Kampfgruppe Greschick’s unit managed to take some of
the outskirts of Groesbeek itself.
But an American counterattack in the afternoon, supported by British tanks forced the Germans
back from Mook and Groesbeek, and the attack in the north was halted.
This was the first serious attack on the Groesbeek Heights so far.
It was four days after the Operation had begun, and well after XXX Corps had arrived, but
at least the 82nd had four days to prepare themselves for the fight.
It was only now, at the extreme north of the battlefield, that Urquhart came to the conclusion
that he had to abandon the idea of relieving Frost at the Bridge.
To use his own words…
[...with the weak force now left, I could no more hope to reach Frost than reach Berlin.]
Later in the same day he finally made contact with Frost over the radio.
Urquhart told him he wasn’t certain [if it was a case of me coming for them or they
coming for us.]
And so with the British 1st Airborne Division abandoning all hope of getting the Frost’s
beleaguered troops at Arnhem bridge, they instead had to look to their own defence.
The previous days action had seen their attacking force in Arnhem decimated by the Germans.
1st Parachute Brigade no longer existed and the remnants of several Battalions fell back
into Oosterbeek.
The landing zones were overrun and supplies were dropping to the Germans rather than to
themselves, and German tanks were pressing upon their lines.
Urquhart decided the remaining units should fall back to positions immediately around
Oosterbeek.
He had to form a defense quickly before the remainder of the Division was wiped out.
Throughout the day, Urquhart tried to salvage what was left of the original Market Garden
plan.
If he could no longer get to Arnhem Bridge, he would hold Oosterbeek and hopefully keep
a crossing point open for XXX Corps.
It was a desperate plan, but it might just work.
The casualty list for 1st Airborne was staggering.
It was no longer a division but a few stragglers and small groups falling back to Oosterbeek.
But if they could hold on to Oosterbeek, and the Heveadorp Ferry, a bailey bridge could
be set up across the Rhine and victory could still be clawed from the jaws of defeat.
With that in mind, he told Corps HQ to change the Polish drop zone to Driel, near to the
southern end of the ferry.
If the Polish held the southern end of the river, and the rest of 1st Airborne held the
northern end, there was a chance XXX Corps could still cross the Rhine.
It was a desperate plan, but a plan it was.
To the East, Kampfgruppe Spindler crossed the railway lines and reached the east of
Oosterbeek.
To the west, von Tettau’s Kampfgruppe pushed the British back from their drop zones and
took Wolfheze.
4th Brigade of the British paras did manage to stall the attacks for a time, mauling part
of Krafft’s attack, and even counter attacked, despite their orders saying to retreat.
Hackett fought alongside his men, brandishing a German gun, trying desperately to get him
men back towards Oosterbeek.
During the confused fighting in the woods, there was no real front line as such, just
groups of units moving around, ambushing and sniping at each other.
Towards the evening, Hackett’s remnants fell back to Oosterbeek and recognisable lines
were finally formed.
Both sides took sizable losses in the day’s fighting, and this is perhaps the reason why
von Tettau decided not to deliver a coup de grace and destroy the British pocket completely
now as they retreated, which some historians think may have been possible.
Either way, by the evening of the 20th, the British pocket was formed at Oosterbeek, and
the fluid movement of the past few days ended.
The siege had begun.
This was 1st Airborne’s disposition at the end of the Day, 20th September 1944.
10th and 156 Battalions, who had fought their way back into Oosterbeek from the West during
the day were now guarding the Eastern side of Oosterbeek that evening.
This was because 1st, 3rd and 11th Battalions were so badly mauled, they were merely scraps
of the units they once were.
Lieutenant-Colonel Thompson took command of this force, which was nicknamed the Thompson
Force.
But Thompson was later wounded and from the 21st onwards (tomorrow), Major Lonsdale took
command of this battlegroup, which for the sake of simplicity we will now refer to as
the Lonsdale Force.
21st Independent Parachute Company, together with the 7th Battalion King’s Own Scottish
Borderers, held the Northern end of Oosterbeek around Hotel Dreyeroord, a building soon nicknamed
as the White House.
9th Airborne Field Company and 1st Border held the Western side of Oosterbeek.
Inside this ring were Glider pilots who fought alongside the troops, the Royal Artillery,
which was located towards the southern end of the pocket, and Divisional Headquarters
which was located at the Hartenstein Hotel.
Little more than three thousand six hundred men remained of 1st Airborne Division, and
supplies of all kinds were running low.
But Urquhart had successfully created a defence around Oosterbeek, even though it wasn’t
a complete ring and was more groups of soldiers dug in at strong points.
Frost’s position was now perilous.
Movement was almost impossible and the few buildings they had left on the western side
of the Arnhem bridge ramp were surrounded.
Truces allowed the defenders to evacuate their wounded, which included their leader, Frost
himself.
They’d run out of everything, food, water and ammunition.
In fact, the Germans were also low on ammunition, with many of them resorting to using captured
British rifles and Sten guns, as their own logistics struggled to keep up.
The shortcomings of German supply were alleviated by the Allied resupply drops which, as we
mentioned, were falling into German hands.
The Germans blasted the British houses at the Bridge at point blank range.
They had Tiger tanks at hand, including the latest shipment of Konigstiger, or King Tiger
tanks.
The lightly armed paratroopers had no effective countermeasures against these heavy German
tanks.
Luckily, rubble prevented German vehicles from maneuvering with ease.
But this only slowed the inevitable.
There were only a few buildings left now, and many of them were on fire.
So at 19:10, the British and Americans took the Nijmegen bridge.
But it would take all night to clear Nijmegen so that they could continue their northern
attack.
As this day comes to an end, we see the end of two sieges.
Arnhem bridge, and Nijmegen.
Elements of 2 Para continued to hold, just, but they had no influence now over the bridge
itself.
For both sides it was now a race to engage each other in the area between Nijmegen and
Arnhem.
An area known as The Island.
We’ll find out how that race goes tomorrow.
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