大象传媒

Floating down, after an uneventful flight, on a serene and sunny afternoon, but heading helplessly toward a clump of trees, I braced myself for the inevitable impact, then found myself suspended about three feet from the ground. Having suffered only minor scratches, I released my harness and dropped gently to earth. Unbelievably, the tranquillity of my immediate horizon, was disturbed only by the monotonous drone of incoming planes and the sounds of breaking tree branches in the near vicinity. The stark contrast between this exercise and the memory of the fiercely opposed night-time landing to capture the Primosole Bridge in Sicily, which had occupied my thoughts since take-off, seemed to confirm the expectations that this operation was merely a formality; a quick advance over the eight miles to the town of Arnhem, overcoming any slight resistance from demoralised groups of second class enemy soldiers, secure the bridge over the river, then just wait for the British armoured divisions to relieve us within 48 hours. My thoughts were suddenly disturbed by the sound of running footsteps and through the undergrowth burst the figure of a small Dutch boy carrying a silk parachute. I established contact with my section, part of HQ company machine gun platoon and we awaited orders to move off. Screened from view by a canopy of trees, we munched chocolate, smoked cigarettes and debated the possibility of spending the next weekend at home.
We waited, impatiently, for the order to move off, as the sounds of distant gunfire intruded on our diminishing feelings of elation. Finally with the rifle companies leading the way, we started to advance in single file. Threading our way through discarded parachutes and past the civilians busy collecting souvenirs, we left the landing zone and emerged onto a narrow road, bordered on both sides by an avenue of trees. Suddenly, we heard the crack of a rifle somewhere ahead and on the urgent command, took cover. There were sounds of a brief exchange of gunfire and after a short period, resumed our progress, passing on the way the body of a dead German laying at the base of a tree. The sounds of battle, both near and far, grew more insistent as we moved forward in fits and starts, with no clear conception of what was happening ahead. We did know however, that we needed to press ahead urgently to our objective, the bridge at Arnhem and also that our forward platoons were incurring casualties.
As darkness descended, we left the road and took cover in the welcome refuge of a wooded area. There was a general feeling of disquiet; this was not according to plan. We should by now be advancing rapidly through the outskirts of the town, with the 2nd and 3rd Battalions on our right flank, on separate routes but converging as we neared the objective. Instead, we were a depleted battalion, having made little progress, with the main body of troops, Airlanding Brigade, in our rear, preparing defensive positions to protect the landing zones for the second airlift, which would arrive the following day and we were isolated from the other two parachute battalions, who were somewhere, on their separate routes, between us and the bridge. A whispered order was relayed from man to man, "Freeze". We heard movement in the vicinity, a group was moving through the undergrowth on our left flank, who had been identified as enemy. Our task was to arrive in force at our destination, so it was important that we did not engage in unnecessary combat, sacrificing precious time and possibly sustaining further casualties. The sound of the enemy approaching grew louder, so that we could hear them talking and then gradually faded as they passed, unsuspecting, across our front.
Monday, September 18th
Sometime before dawn, a jeep arrived, which transported us to an area at the outskirts of Arnhem, on a major road where the battalion was assembling for a determined thrust towards the bridge. We learned that the 2nd battalion had reached their objective and controlled the north bank of the bridge. Less welcome was the news that the rifle companies of our own battalion had suffered heavy losses during the night. Shortly after the start of our advance, we came to a residential area, a few houses with small front gardens. We halted and the residents emerged, waving and cheering, with offerings of fruit, drinks and flowers, obviously overjoyed that they were now liberated. The euphoria was short-lived, cut short by bursts of machine gun fire from the wooded area, a few hundred yards in front of us, on the opposite side of the road. An elderly lady, near to us, was hit in the back and was carried screaming into the house; meantime we took cover in the front garden, while forward elements of the battalion dealt with this threat to our progress.
As the open countryside gave way to built up areas, we progressed in fits and starts, coming increasingly under fire from groups of enemy snipers, hidden among the buildings in the higher ground of our left flank and I remember particularly a long open gap where we ran singly, at intervals, under fire, to reach the comparative safety of the buildings at the other end. Progress became slower as the forward companies encountered mounting resistance until, as darkness fell, we received orders to occupy the houses to our left. We now realised that we had lost the element of surprise, that any time wasted was to the enemy鈥檚 advantage and ominously, that before we could form a defensive cordon around the north end of the bridge, we faced a bloody battle through a built up area against defended positions. We settled down in a back room, on the ground floor to get whatever rest we could before the next phase. We could hear movement in the houses above and at the rear of our position, which we assumed were enemy, so we made as little noise as possible. The guy next to me kept falling asleep and snoring loudly; I prodded him awake, lightly at first, but more and more forcibly as the night wore on.
Tuesday, September 19th
Having survived the night, rested and our need for food satisfied, we emerged from our temporary quarters in good spirits, ready to do whatever was necessary to cover the remaining two miles or so to our objective. With two hours of darkness to cover our advance, our orders were to keep to the right hand side of the road and proceed with all speed. The enemy commanded the heights on our left hand side, so much of our progress was along the rear of buildings, which revealed an uninterrupted approach to the river. As the darkness gradually gave way to daylight, we found to our alarm that our position was totally dominated by an enemy strong point located in a large factory on the other side of the river. Armed with heavy cannons, they raked our exposed flank with a concentrated barrage. As the light increased this concentrated fire began to take a heavy toll. We had nowhere to hide and the machine gun and mortar sections were deployed to counter this menace. My crew of three was positioned at the forefront of our advance, in an open position in full view of the enemy gunners. I was number 3 on the left hand side of the gunner and he commenced firing across the river in the direction of the enemy force. Suddenly the number 2, on his right hand side slumped sideways and remained motionless. Moving to his position, I pushed his body aside and hoped that he had been hit by an indiscriminate shot rather than a targeted one. A shout from the rear signalled us to pull out and stopping only to collect the identity disk from our dead comrade, we beat a hasty retreat from our exposed position. We were but 1 mile from the bridge !
Rejoining the main body we discovered a state of total confusion. Our line of advance was now blocked by armour, the battalion had, to all intents and purposes, ceased to exist and we were to fall back to a more tenable position.
Just up the road we came across Andy Milbourne, his hands shattered and his face covered in blood, being attended to by a medical orderly. He had been manning a machine gun post, left in position to cover our retreat and had taken a direct hit.
No-one seemed to be in command as we retraced our steps, back towards our starting point, not as a defined unit, but as a mixed group from different units and battalions with no clear destination or purpose, bar to rejoin the main divisional troops, now re-inforced by the second lift and located somewhere in our rear.
It was at this point that I was overtaken by an old friend. Jerry Curtis had been my section Lance Corporal way back in 1941, when we were designated 11 SAS and housed in civvy billets in Knutsford. We had become good friends and remained together until the North African campaign, when he had been promoted in the field to 2nd Lieutenant. Now he informed me that his runner had been killed and we agreed that I would take his place. We reached a road junction where everyone was halted and those officers that still survived were summoned to formulate a coherent plan. The conference was in the grounds of a large building on the corner of the road junction and Jerry instructed me to wait inside the building. Left to explore the various rooms in the building, I looked for and found a large kitchen with a stove, a frypan, a supply of eggs and some butter. Not one to pass up an opportunity, I threw four eggs into the frypan and was soon rewarded with the characteristic sound and sight of eggs popping and crackling. I thought to myself how pleased Jerry would be when he rejoined me, but just as the yolks were firming and the outside turning white, I heard Jerry calling out to me from the front door. "I鈥檓 just cooking some eggs for us"; I said. "Never mind the eggs", he replied, "we have a job to do !" He explained that there were German tanks in the vicinity and the assembled troops were to evacuate the area as quickly as possible, making their way back to Oosterbeek, where a perimeter was to be defended and that he, me and a gunner from the Anti-tank Brigade were to remain behind for fifteen minutes to cover their rear. I was not altogether thrilled with this prospect and as the last of the column disappeared around the bend in the road leaving us in isolation, we scanned the two approaches to our position and listened for any sound of approaching armour. I mentally counted each interminably long passing second until Jerry declared our mission completed and we set off to catch up with the main body.
We came to another road junction, a main open road on our right, sloping upwards and diagonally backwards to the horizon and found the retreating column halted. After a brief fact finding conference Jerry returned and we took up a position among the buildings on this right hand road. Fifty yards or so ahead, on the opposite side of the road were two gunners, manning a solitary anti-tank gun. Without warning a low flying Messerschmidt roared overhead, interrupting the now familiar sounds of battle. The sound of tanks approaching the crest of the hill in front of us was the signal for the anti-tank crew to prepare for action and as a huge monster poked it鈥檚 snout over the top they fired. The tank, mortally wounded, came to a halt sideways across the road and a second tank, following the first, although scoring a direct hit on the gun crew, killing them both, was too late to stop them firing off another shell, hitting its target, which came to an abrupt halt and burst into flames.
As the fading light heralded the beginning of another night of doubt and confusion, we rounded a bend in the road to find a number of houses on each side; at last a defensible position which offered us a temporary advantage. We occupied the houses and dug slit trenches in the gardens at strategic points. During the long night of fitful sleep, we heard evidence of enemy troops in the vicinity and occasionally the rumble of distant heavy armour.

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