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By Root 879 0

we’ve already stormed the Craoneer Heights in 1914!” His officer answered: “Yes, can’t you see that it’s up to us old boys to run the whole show again, and we will do it exactly as we did then.” Gavin himself took up a rifle as his men raked these wretched elderly Germans with fire. “I was amazed by their stupidity,” he wrote later. “To cross an open field in the face of the enemy was foolish.” The Americans contained and eventually pushed back these attacks from the south. But the 82nd was still unable to break through to the bridge at Nijmegen, where the SS were strongly dug in on both banks. The division was obliged to withdraw some men from the fighting in the town, in order to launch a counter-attack to recover the Groesbeek dropping zone, which German troops had temporarily overrun. First Sergeant Leonard Funk of the 508th and a handful of men from his company killed fifteen Germans and knocked out four 20mm guns and three 88mms, for which he was awarded a well-deserved DSC. Funk later became a Medal of Honor winner in the Ardennes battle. The 508th was just able to clear the American landing zone in time for the arrival of 450 gliders carrying the 325th Infantry and their artillery.

The 101st Airborne was resisting constant pressure on its precarious perimeter. The commanding officer of the 3/502nd, Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Cole, who had won the Medal of Honor for his leadership in Normandy, was killed approaching a canal bridge at Best. The Germans promptly blew the bridge, but one of Cole’s platoon leaders set about securing the area with only fifteen men. A two-man bazooka team, Privates Mann and Hoyle, successfully knocked out an 88mm gun. Joe Mann was hit twice, but fought on through the day until he was hit twice more, in both arms. The Germans counter-attacked, throwing grenades as they came. An American NCO, Sergeant Betras, threw one “potato masher” back at the enemy before it exploded. Another exploded beside the platoon machine-gunner, Private Laino. His left eye was blown out, and he lost the sight of the other. He was holding together what remained of his face when he felt another grenade land in his foxhole. He groped with his blood-soaked hands, found the grenade, and threw it out before it exploded. Joe Mann was in a trench with six other men, his shattered arms taped to his body. He suddenly shouted “Grenade!” as yet another fell in among them, then threw himself on top of it. After the explosion, he murmured, “My back’s gone,” then died. He was later awarded a posthumous Medal of Honor. Very few soldiers of any army can be expected to display the capacity for sacrifice shown by Private Mann. But every army needs a handful of his kind, in order to prevail. The survivors of his platoon were obliged to surrender when their ammunition was exhausted, but were freed soon afterwards by another unit of the 502nd.

The first British tanks crossed the new Bailey bridge at Son at 0645 on the morning of 19 September. They were thirty-five miles from the Waal at Nijmegen. At 0830, they linked up with elements of Gavin’s 82nd at Grave, amid more cheering Dutch crowds. By midday, they were in the suburbs of Nijmegen. Soon after, Generals Horrocks, Adair of Guards Armoured Division, Browning and Gavin stood together within sight of the bridge, watching Germans moving unconcernedly across it. The Anglo-American attack began at 1530. German 88mm guns “brewed up” the first British tanks, which caught fire with their usual facility. U.S. airborne troops fought vigorous battles with panzergrenadiers through the streets and market square. At nightfall, the attack was broken off until daylight. The 82nd had by now lost over 200 dead and 700 wounded since its drop, with many more men missing. That evening, convinced that frontal assaults would continue to fail, Gavin proposed a desperate alternative. His men would cross the 400-yard-wide Waal in boats a mile downstream, and outflank Nijmegen bridge. “The attempt must be made,” he told Browning, “if Market Garden is to succeed.”

While they waited for three trucks carrying