Armageddon - Max Hastings [46]
Each little battle with a rearguard or group of infantry with an anti-tank gun takes longer than ever to deal with. The trouble is the wetness of the ground. We cannot operate our armour off the few straight roads as they get bogged down immediately in the small and wet fields. The Germans blow a bridge or a culvert on the only road, and cover it with anti-tank and small arms fire. Getting our infantry round to the back of the enemy party to flush it takes a long time, and is a cold and wet process, and all the time there are commanders at the back screaming at us to make more haste.
Some bizarre delusions persisted at XXX Corps about the possibilities of achieving success. As late as 22 September, the company commanders of an infantry unit of 43rd Division between Nijmegen and Arnhem were issued with orders for an assault to link up with 1st Airborne. “Intention: 12 KRRC [King’s Royal Rifle Corps] will attack and seize the rd bridge at ARNHEIM,” declared this alarming document, which went on to detail deployments once the south bank had been secured: “at least one [tank] tp over bridge . . . KRRC will hold open bridge.” German strength in Arnhem was estimated at 300–500 infantry. The planned timetable for the British assault ended: “1730–1745 hrs—Leading Tp reaches bridge.” It was a source of extravagant relief to the riflemen when this flight of fantasy was cancelled a few hours before its execution.
An unhappy fate befell the 4th Dorsets of 43rd (Wessex) Division. They marched forward through darkness to the bank of the Rhine on 25 September, hurried on by NCOs muttering repeatedly, “Keep up lads, close up lads,” until they reached waiting boats. Then they were paddled across the Rhine in a belated, grossly misjudged attempt to reinforce 1st Airborne Division’s perimeter at Oosterbeek. On the northern shore, in the face of fierce German fire, a young lieutenant called on his platoon to charge, and leaped forward himself. None of the men followed. He turned back and said: “Come on, lads—charge.” Still no one moved. Finally, he said furiously: “If you don’t charge, you bastards, I’ll shoot you!” Reluctantly, his platoon advanced, hounded every step by their officer. By dawn, they were locked in fierce fighting with the Germans. Their ammunition ran low. At last, their colonel, Gerald Tilly, ordered them to cease fire. One eighteen-year-old private admitted only to relief: “Perhaps we were going to live after all.” They were marched into captivity, singing “Green grow the rushes, O.”
The Germans were pressing the British and Americans along the entire sixty-mile length of their salient from the start line of Market Garden to the most forward positions on the south bank of the Rhine. The Allies could hold their ground, but only by relentless exertion which left scant energy, resources or ammunition for pressing on further. Near Nijmegen, the adjutant of a tank regiment of 4th Armoured Brigade wrote in his diary: “Brigadier arrived in the p.m. and I gather the policy is now a decided sit-down till they can clear up this bloody corridor. It is cut again this evening, this time in three places . . . This is really pretty serious, and has ceased to be the joke we have considered it as for some time.” For the whole of 21st Army Group, the “joke” was over. It was now merely a matter of stabilizing the front, and rescuing the victims of failure.
The British XXX Corps suffered 1,480 casualties in the Market Garden battle. The two American airborne divisions, together with U.S. aircrew, lost 3,974. The chronically querulous General Lewis Brereton, U.S. commander of First Airborne Army, wrote in his diary: “In the years to come, everyone will remember Arnhem, but no one will remember that two American divisions fought their hearts out in the Dutch canal country and whipped hell out of the Germans.” For once, Brereton’s sourness seemed justified. The Americans had done their part better than the British. The survivors of 1st Airborne Division were evacuated across the Rhine