Point of No Return

“The Red Devils and the Polish paratroopers can do anything” – Lt. General “Boy” Browning

By the 18th, while the US airborne divisions were inching towards securing their objectives, the odds were mounting against the British 1st Airborne Division.

Even as Frost and his men tenaciously held on at Arnhem bridge, things were less than stellar in the British sector. Before dawn, a large German battlegroup, Kampfgruppe Tettau (under Lt General Hans von Tettau), which included the 224th Panzer Company (equipped with old but dangerous French Renault tanks) moved against 1st Airlanding Brigade at Renkum on 18 September.

A fierce all-day battle erupted that had consequences for Brigadier Shan Hackett’s 4th Parachute Brigade which began to drop over DZ Y at Ginkel Heath that same afternoon. Heavy German fire began to shoot up at Hackett’s troops as they hung helplessly in mid-air. 

Before the drop, in one C-47, some of the paratroops, possibly from the 10th Para Battalion had been cheerfully talking about winning the battle to come and ending the war by Christmas. (Martin Middlebrook, pg. 226) Now, they were swinging helplessly below their parachutes as German tracer fire raced up at them. 

The landscape below was in maelstrom. Pillars of smoke rose into the sky. The heath was on fire. At least 24 paratroopers were killed or wounded during the drop. 

The Germans withdrew from the Ginkel Heath before the drop ended. (Middlebrook, pg. 237) British Gliders were also landing at LZ X. After A and C Companies of 2nd Battalion (South Staffords) left their gliders, they were rushed towards Arnhem, to try to link up with Frost. At 1515 hrs, the 11th Para Battalion was also sent after the Staffords towards Arnhem. 

Both the Staffords and 11th Para realized what their compatriots had discovered the day before – that it was no ordinary thing to cover the six to eight miles to Arnhem on foot and under fire.

Closer to Arnhem, 1st and 3rd Para, already suffering from heavy casualties (about 200 men had been killed in action (KIA), or were wounded in action (WIA) or had become prisoners of war (POWs)). Nevertheless, the battalions were again trying to reach Frost at the Arnhem bridge in the face of fierce resistance from Kampfgruppe Spindler. 

As 3rd Para closed to within 2,000 metres of the bridge, confused street fighting erupted – and that put an end to 3rd Para’s efforts to reach Frost on that day.

As night began to fall, the rest of the Hackett’s 4th Parachute Brigade left Ginkel Heath and moved along the railway towards the high ground north of Arnhem which was their objective. They reached the southeast corner of LZ S before darkness fell.

The rest of the British 1st Airborne, which had been holding the landing grounds at Ginkel, Renkum, and Wolfheze abandoned these places and took up position to the east, around the Hartenstein Hotel in Oosterbeek and extending down towards the Lower Rhine at Heveadorp. 

The Hartenstein Hotel became the headquarters of the British 1st Airborne.

Tanks come for the British

By Tuesday morning, the 1st Airborne was in three main parts. Frost and his men were still firmly sealed in at the bridge, and desperately short of ammunition.  “Approximately four [British] battalions were trying to batter their way in towards us, with the enemy besetting them from all sides,” Frost wrote later. (Frost, loc. 3563, 76%)

By now, Dutch excitement at the prospect of liberation had waned as rumors spread that the British were in trouble. (Ryan, pg. 343) At Velp, over three miles to the east, Audrey Hepburn and her family had taken to the cellar of the Villa Beukenhof. The sounds of the battle at the bridge intruded into the basement. Even though the van Heemstras could not see the fighting, they knew that things were going badly. 

Meanwhile, a stream of German reinforcements drove towards Velp and Arnhem. By the evening of 18th, members of the Dutch resistance were ashen to see German tanks and fresh troops moving through Velp, towards Arnhem. True horror was coming for the British at the bridge. Henri Knap, the head of the Arnhem underground’s intelligence, telephoned the Hartenstein Hotel to warn the British.

We know now that the German armor included seven Sturmgeschütz (StuG) IIIs and three Sturmhaubitze (StuH) 42 assault tanks of the 280th Sturmgeshutz Brigade.

These were followed a day later (on the 19th) by 14 Tiger I tanks of schwere Panzer Kompanie (heavy tank company) Hummel. Some 28 Tiger IIs from two companies of the 506th Schwere Panzer Abteilung (heavy tank battalion) arrived in the Arnhem sector on 23/24 September. (Zwarts, pgs. 5-6; 26, 56, & Wolfgang Schneider, Tigers in Combat I (Stackpole, 2004), pg. 272)

The British officer who took Knap’s call asked the resistance man to hold on. When he came back on the line in a few minutes, he thanked Knap but his tone was skeptical. “The captain is doubtful about the report,” the officer said. “After all, he’s heard a lot of fairy tales.” (Ryan, pg. 343)

Once again, British distrust of the Dutch resistance would undermine their command of the situation. 

The tanks hit Frost’s perimeter first, from the morning of the 19th. The fighting was bitter. SS Squad leader Ringsdorf again summed it up:

This was a harder battle than any I had fought in Russia. It was constant, close range, hand-to-hand fighting. The English were everywhere. The streets for the most part were narrow, sometimes not more than 15 feet wide, and we fired at each other from only yards away. We fought to gain inches, cleaning out one room after the other. It was absolute hell! (Kershaw, pg. 126)

Despite the brutality of the fighting, there were unexpected moments of decency. The SS often allowed wounded British to be evacuated from buildings, and they also respected the Red Cross flag, allowing British wounded through the battlelines to St. Elisabeth’s hospital which had become the primary aid center in the Arnhem area. 

When the Germans occupied the hospital on 18 September, they allowed British surgical teams and even the Dutch civilian staff to carry on working, treating wounded from both sides. (Margry, Part IV, Ch 3, Loc. 8419, 59%, image caption)

That is not to say that SS could not be brutal. In one incident, the SS stopped a jeep with wounded under a Red Cross flag. When one of the medics tried to explain that the wounded were being transported to a casualty station, the SS lit him up with a flamethrower and walked away. (Ryan, pg. 493)

At Oosterbeek, the ter Horst family had graciously turned their large family home into a regimental aid center. The family matriarch and housewife, Kate, was the mother of five children. She helped doctors to care for the British wounded and comforted the dead and dying with readings of psalms from an English-language bible.

A German tank began to shell the house. Enraged, a 1st Airborne medical orderly, Bombardier E C Bolden, grabbed a red cross flag and rushed out. 

“What the hell are you doing?” Bolden screamed at the German tank commander. “ This house is clearly marked with a Red Cross flag. Get the hell away from here!”

Astonishingly, the German tank commander apologized and backed off. (Ryan, pg. 493) While these incidents are anecdotal, it is almost impossible to reconcile such acts of decency by the Germans (especially the SS) with their barbarous actions in Soviet Russia.

Defiant to the End

That Frost and his command were able to hold the bridge for so long was partly due to their unconventional, almost egalitarian command structure built on mutual respect between all ranks.

Captured Germans were astonished to see rank-and-file British paratroopers being “close and informal with their officers”²⁵ – Something unseen in the German army, much less the traditionalist British army, with its classist divide. 

Frost’s fighting spirit and that of his men never appeared to waver, even as they were pummeled in their perimeter. Even late into their ordeal, on the 19th, when the Germans sent a captive British airborne engineer to convince Frost to surrender, his fierce determination to win was manifest when the engineer revealed that the Germans were actually “disheartened” at their own heavy losses.

In a flash, Frost realized that if “only more ammunition” arrived they would “soon have” their “SS opponent in the bag.” (Frost, loc. 3587, 76%)

But no ammunition reached the airborne. By the afternoon 19th, Urqhuart had realized that he had no way to help Frost. (Hilary St. George Saunders, The Red Beret (Battery Press, 1985), pg. 248)

Major General Sosabowski’s Polish 1st Independent Parachute Brigade had been due to drop on the south bank of the bridge on the 19th, but bad weather in England had postponed the drop. Had the Poles dropped on time, they may have well saved the situation.

As night fell, the entire town of Arnhem appeared to be on fire, including the two large churches.

By the 20th, German tanks were 30 yards from British positions at the bridge and were systematically shelling each building. At about 8 am, Frost’s radiomen were finally able to raise a British unit outside their perimeter – the 1st Airlanding Light Artillery Regiment via its Type 19 radio.

Major Freddie Gough was able to talk to Urquhart who relayed that the rest of the 1st Airborne, was under heavy attack, and was in “poor shape.” They had no way to reach the bridge, Urquhart told Gough.

Frost had under 100 troops in fighting form, carrying on with what little ammunition was available, killing Germans in droves. Among his fighting men was a single American, Lieutenant Harvey Allan Todd, a former high school teacher and football coach from Illinois.

Todd was part of a Jedburgh Team, one of 99 such Allied special operations teams created during the war to help organize and arm the resistance movements in Europe, arrange supply drops, procure intelligence, and provide a liaison between the Allies and the Resistance. (Office of Strategic Services: Jedburghs, US Army, https://www.soc.mil/OSS/jedburghs.html)

Part of a joint US-British-French program²⁶, most Jedburgh teams comprised three personnel and Todd’s team (codenamed “Claude”) was no different. 

The team landed with Lathbury’s 1st Parachute Brigade at Renkum Heath on 17 September.

Soon after, its wireless operator, US Technical Sergeant Carl Scott, became separated from the rest of the team and never saw them again. This left Todd with only his team leader, a Dutch Captain named Jacobus “Jaap” Groenewoud, for company. But a German sniper killed Groenewoud at Arnhem on the 19th. 

As the remaining member of his unit, Todd became a one-man killing machine within Frost’s command. 

In his post-war debrief, backed up by British reports, Todd spoke of using a Bren light machine gun to take out a German 20 mm flak position 130 yards away on the 18th, of killing half a dozen Germans using a sniper rifle over the next 48 hours, of silencing a German rooftop machinegun post on the 20th, of having been blown out of his position by tank fire later that day, of fighting fires and rescuing wounded Airborne at the brigade HQ that night, and of having destroyed a second German machine gun post on the 21st with a grenade. In all, Todd claimed to have single-handedly killed 16 German soldiers. He was awarded the US Distinguished Service Cross.²⁷ (See Will Irwin, Abundance of Valor (Ballantine Books, 2010))

And what happened to this Rambo-like individual after the war? Todd became an insurance agent in his native Illinois.

Later that same day, Frost was badly wounded in the legs by a mortar bomb, and Major Freddie Gough of the 1st Airlanding Reconnaissance Squadron took command of the perimeter. Unbeknownst to both of them, salvation could be had from England, if Browning wished. 

Major General Edmund Hakewill-Smith, commander of the British 52nd Airlanding Division had offered to land one of his brigades by glider on the southside of Arnhem bridge. Landing a large number of gliders on the southside polder would have resulted in casualties among the troops within. Nevertheless, the arrival of an airlanding brigade on the southern side of Arnhem bridge would have saved Frost’s command and won the operation for the Allies.

Browning responded: “Thanks for your message, but offer not – repeat not – required as situation better than you think. We want lifts as already planned including Poles.” (Middlebrook, pg. 413)

By the start of the 21st, the bridge defenders were almost out of ammunition. Finally, the Germans intercepted a radio message sent out on the air from someone within the bridge perimeter: “Out of ammunition. God Save the King.” (Ryan, pg. 430)

All able-bodied survivors at the bridge perimeter were ordered to split up and try to escape the German cordon. But German SS troops moved swiftly into the broken perimeter and began to round up the paratroopers. Frost was among the captives.

The paratroopers all knew of the SS penchant for cruelty and braced for the worst. To his surprise, Frost was taken aback by how “polite” the SS were and how “complimentary [they were] about the battle we had fought.” It was clear that Germans were relieved that the battle for the bridge was over.

“But the bitterness I felt was unassuaged,” Frost wrote later. “No living enemy had beaten us. The battalion was unbeaten yet, but we could not have much chance with no ammunition, no rest and with no positions from which to fight.” (Frost, loc. 3662, 78%)

Gough was also a prisoner. A German major sent for him, gave him the Hitler salute, and said: “I fought at Stalingrad and it is obvious that you British have a great deal of experience in street fighting.”

“No,” Gough told the German. “This was our first effort. We’ll be much better next time.” (Ryan, pg. 430)

Sosabowski’s Choice

Sosabowski and two-thirds of the Polish Para brigade (1,002 men) finally landed on 21 September, on a new drop zone further west of the bridge and south of the Lower Rhine, near the village of Driel. 

Their orders included using a small ferry at Heveadorp to cross over to Oosterbeek. But the ferry was at the bottom of the Rhine; destroyed by its boatman who feared its use by the Germans. Sosabowski was furious. (Middlebrook, pg. 406)

Soon, Sosabowski’s force was under siege from German tanks and infantry which had crossed south from the Pannerden Ferry and the now-open Arnhem bridge. Fortunately, units of the British 43rd (Wessex) Infantry Division linked up with the Poles at Driel on 22 September.²⁸

The Wessex’s relief force included DUKW amphibious trucks carrying ammunition, supplies and stores. (21st Army Group, pg. 62) The Poles received a few small boats and at least one dinghy with which to traverse the Lower Rhine. 

But efforts to cross the river on the 22nd and early in the morning of the 24th were met with German illumination flares and heavy fire from the northern bank.²⁹ (ibid., pgs. 63-64) Nevertheless, some 205 Poles managed to reach the 1st Airborne, where they took up position with Shan Hackett’s 4th Parachute Brigade. (Sosabowski, pg. 251; 21st Army Group, pg. 67)

Crossing the Lower Rhine to the 1st Airborne Division

Date	Men crossed	From Unit	Time of crossing
22/23 September	52	Polish 3rd Battalion	10 pm to 4 am
24 September	153	Polish 3rd Bn, Anti-Tank Battery, Brigade HQ	3-5 am
25 September	350	4th Dorsets, personnel from 112th Field Regiment, 22 personnel from 181 Airlanding Field Ambulance; Lt. Col. Tommy Haddon (Co, 1st Border), Haddon’s intel officer, plus two other men; Major Pat Anson (10th Para);	1.30-2.15 am

The British wanted more of the Poles over. On the 24th, the commander of the 43rd Wessex, Major General Ivor Thomas (a dour, unpopular commander nicknamed “Butcher” by his own men) started out giving orders to Sosabowski, telling him that the Poles’ 1st Battalion would cross the river that night with the 4th Battalion (Dorsets).

Sosabowski was annoyed that nobody had consulted him about this before. Thomas’ language also defied basic military courtesy. “Excuse me, General,” Sosabowski told Thomas. “But one of my battalions selected by me will go there.” (Sosabowski, pg. 254)

This annoyed Thomas. Sosabowski then compounded the matter by urging Thomas to land the entirety of the 43rd Division and all of the Polish Brigade further west from German defensive concentration to establish a strong riverhead. Thomas took the advice badly. Horrocks had to defuse the situation lest it erupt into a full blown argument.

Sosabowski then ameliorated his relationship with Browning that same day with further acts of forthrightness. During an informal meeting, Browning suggested to Sosabowski that the “river crossing may not succeed as there is no adequate equipment.”

Sosabowski was “thunderstruck.” In a moment of anger, he criticized the British generalship for initiating operations across river country without the foresight that boats may be needed. When Sosaboswki suggested that every minute of delay meant more deaths within the 1st Airborne, Browning looked wounded and ended the meeting. (Sosabowski, pgs. 255-256; Middlebrook, pg. 416)

This would have ramifications later. The British should have taken Sosabowski’s words as one of genuine concern over perceived flaws in operational plans that could be addressed and resolved. Instead, they appeared to take it as personnel criticism.

The lack of boats for the Poles meant that only the 4th Dorsets could cross the river that night, along with some artillery and medical personnel, plus some 1st Airborne parachute and glider officers whose aircraft had failed to reach the Arnhem area. They landed among the Germans and a battle erupted – as Sosabowski had previously warned it might. 

The Dorset battalion fragmented into small groups and most them could not even locate the 1st Airborne lines. (21st Army Group, pg. 70) The Germans captured about 200 of the 315 Dorsets who had made the crossing and at least 13 died at some point. (Middlebrook, pg. 422)  

The 1st Airborne was now fighting for its life. Frost and his bridge defenders had been bulwarks, keeping major SS and Heer (Army) combat units at bay from the rest of the division. After they were destroyed, German armor, artillery and infantry were free to converge upon Urquhart at Oosterbeek.

XXX Corps’ British 64th Medium Artillery Regiment at Nijmegen, guided by observers within the “Red Devil’s” perimeter, repeatedly broke up German tank attacks. (Ryan, pg. 439) However, the dysfunction of the RAF tactical forces was manifest at this late hour when even their air power was unable to adequately help Urquhart.

The 1st Airborne had received virtually no tactical air support at all. (Allied Airborne Operations in Holland, pg. 23) 

“The lack of close air support was a surprise to us,” Urquhart said. “In the first two or three days before the flak started to build up, low-flying rocket aircraft would have been invaluable…. rooftop attacks by Allied fighters on tanks in the streets would have made a lot of difference.” (Urquhart, pgs. 216, 260, 283-284) It is incredible that Urquhart was not informed about the dubious air support arrangements made before the operation began.

Only from 22 September (D+5) did the 2nd TAF finally make some effort to support the “Red Devils” with its Hawker Typhoon fighter-bombers.

A big, brutish-looking aircraft armed with four 20 mm cannons and capable of carrying and launching eight 3-inch rockets, the Typhoon was a formidable aerial threat to the Germans. The Typhoons began pummeling the area outside the 1st Airborne perimeter, and on 22 September, even levelled a factory that the Germans were using for sniping and observing the “Red Devil’s” perimeter. (Allied Airborne Operations in Holland, pg. 14)

Members of the 1st Airlanding Recce Squadron saw Typhoons for the first time during Market on the afternoon of 24 September. The aircraft roved low over the landscape, menacing seemingly omniscient entities, hunting for targets. Rockets sparked to life from their underwing hardpoints and roared towards a target. A massive cloud of smoke heralded destruction.³⁰

Sometimes, the 2nd TAF sorties were ineffective as the Germans learned to hide and hold their fire when the Typhoons were overhead, according to the war diary of the 1st Airlanding Recce Squadron.

“Germans pretend that they are not there at all, and that they love us,” the diarist noted dryly.

Out with a Whimper

By the 25th Montgomery had decided to end the operation. Commanders, like Sosabowski and others, were in favor of keeping the offensive going, because the Arnhem bridge was still intact.

However, 21st Army Group HQ had decided that the Oosterbeek area was “not suitable for development as a Corps bridgehead owing to difficulties of expansion and the impossibility of building and maintaining a bridge in this area.” (21st Army Group Report, pg. 106)

Nevertheless, another bridgehead could have been established further west over the Lower Rhine. But it was not to be. Montgomery had run out of time. He had no way to send the 1st Airborne sufficient supplies and ammunition to stay in the fight, and he could not yet launch a concerted amphibious assault across the river to relieve them. The only option was to evacuate the 1st Airborne as quickly as possible. (Montgomery, pg. 146)

He ordered the retreat. The remnants of the 1st Airborne from Oosterbeek and the survivors were to start crossing south, over the lower Rhine that night. The evacuation was supported by two British engineering
units, the 553rd and 260th Field Companies (Royal Engineers), and two Canadian units, (the
20th and 23rd Field Companies, Royal Canadian Engineers).³¹

Operation Market-Garden was over, and all the Allies had to show for it was a mass of casualties and a bridgehead at Nijmegen leading nowhere. In October, the Allies bombed and destroyed the Arnhem bridge to prevent the Germans from using it to deploy more armor onto the south bank.

Out of the 8,969 1st Airborne Division troops who landed eight days before, less than 1,600 returned, including Urquhart and the airlanding brigade commander, Pip Hicks. About 200-300 of those left behind would later escape, including both parachute brigade commanders, Lathbury and “Shan” Hackett, but the rest were dead or in German hands. 

On the 26th, the British wounded at the St. Elisabeth Hospital in Arnhem heard marching troops approaching, their voices full of English song. For a moment, they thought that XXX Corps had finally reached them.

When they hastened to the windows, they found it was some 500 British airborne from the Oosterbeek perimeter, weaponless, some lurching forward with the support of sticks, their uniforms caked a “filthy brown color,” their eyes red and bloodshot, with armed Germans walking alongside, leading them to captivity. (Urquhart, pgs. 265-266) 

As the captive airborne went by in song, Urquhart wrote that Dutch civilians watched on with admiration, and that even the Germans were in awe. “There were many who witnessed this strange sight who say that the men looked unbeatable and that it was more like a victory march,” Urquhart said. (Ibid.) 

Perhaps that was wishful thinking on this part. 

Articles in the British press began to appear on the operation, portraying the failed operation as a victory, and with no mention of the Americans at all (except for a brief mention in the Daily Telegram on 22 December). American paras soon realized that it was Montgomery’s interest to portray the loss as a victory. (Gavin, pg. 186-187) Adding to their annoyance was that the US press also failed to mention the contributions of the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions.

Browning was one of those who was trying to rewrite reality. In a letter to his wife, the novelist Daphne du Maurier, he wrote: “Roy Urquhart’s party has done magnificently but have been very badly knocked about. They have covered themselves in glory and without them we couldn’t have done what we have done.” (Richard Mead, General ‘Boy’ (Pen & Sword, 2010), Ch 20, Ref. 26.22, 51%)

What had “we” done anyway?

In reality, the goose-stepping, right-arm raising, servile cogs of the Third Reich, in their fast-moving ad hoc formations were the true victors of the campaign.

As the 9th SS commander, Harzer said after the war, Nazi Germany had prevailed using troops that were mostly unsuited to combat, either by virtue of being untrained or being ill-equipped. (David Bennett, A Magnificent Disaster (Casemate, 2008), Ch 14, 76%)

Even Montgomery conceded that battle was lost because the Germans “managed to effect a surprisingly rapid concentration of forces.” (Montgomery, pg. 149) 

The German victory meant that Montgomery could not even silence the V-weapon sites which were shelling London and Antwerp, and it put paid to the optimism that the war could be ended by Christmas 1944.

Allied Casualties, 17 to 25 September 1944

Unit	Total Strength	Fatal Casualties	POWs & Evaders*	Wounded	Missing	Total Losses	Evacuated safe from Arnhem
British 1st Airborne Div	8,969	1,174	5,903	A		7,077	1,892
British Glider Pilots	1,262	219	511	A		730	532
Polish 1st Para Brigade	1,689	92	111	A		203	1,486
US 82nd Airborne Div	B: 11,994	215	Unknown	790	427	1,432	N/A
US 101st Airborne Div	11,237	315	Unknown	1,248	547	2,110	N/A
HQ Br I Airborne Corps & Signals	195	4	Unknown	0	8	12	N/A
US Glider Pilots	Unknown	28		26	58	112	N/A
British No 38 Group	Unknown	6		23	184	213	Unknown
British No 46 Group	Unknown	8		11	62	81	Unknown
US IX TCC	Unknown	16		204	82	302	Unknown
Known Totals	35,346	2,077	6,525	2,302	1,368	12,272	3,910

German Pyrrhic Victory

The German victory while decisive, was pyrrhic.

The Allies suffered at least 12,272 casualties during the operation, including 2,077 killed. German losses are less certain. Allied after-action reports, however, provide strong estimates.

In the Arnhem sector, Urquhart estimated that his division caused 7,000 German casualties. (Urquhart, pg. 261-262). According to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, Bittrich’s SS II Panzer Korps alone suffered between 1,300 to 1,725 killed-/missing-in-action and 2,000 wounded-in-action casualties, as of 27 September.³²

Some of the German missing-in-action (MIA) cases would have been taken prisoner by the British. In all, the British 1st Airborne held about 2,220 German POWs. However, following the collapse of the 1st Airborne perimeter, the Germans reclaimed most of its captive men (and at least one servicewoman) from British custody.

In the 82nd Airborne sector, the “All Americans” eliminated at least 2,763 Germans from the battlefield (including killed, captured and wounded) between 17 and 20 September (during the airborne phase of the operation). The 101st Airborne inflicted about 2,000 casualties on the Germans (in addition to having taken 3,511 POWs) from 17-26 September. Between 17 and 26 September, XXX Corps also captured 1,066 Germans.³³

This produces a minimum casualty figure of 11,574 for Nazi Germany.

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