panda1gen
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Almost Lt, I think I took these in 2007 or 8, but who cares .... just to prove there were three ....
Battle for Arnhem.... (6 Viewers)
- Thread starter panda1gen
- Start date
Almost Lt, I think I took these in 2007 or 8, but who cares .... just to prove there were three ....
PanzerAce1944
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Panda1gen, Those dio buildings are hot. Who makes or made them ????
panda1gen
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John Gittings - practically all the scemic stuff is by John
Mitch
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panda1gen
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Mitch, I think there were ten or less of all yellow, the fourth. (The Bulge thread has the winter version)
Mitch
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Cheers, confused when you said just to show there were three. had never heard of the all yellow version. a great little AFV of which I thought I had all!!!!!
Mitch
Mitch
panda1gen
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I was very lucky at a show, back on thread, haven't found out if any Lynxes were in Market Garden!
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panda1gen
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thanks
panda1gen
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From http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/23/a4623923.shtml
REMINISCENCE OF WW2 BY PTE. JOHN BATTLEY, 16TH PARACHUTE FIELD AMBULANCE, RAMC 1ST AIRBORNE DIVISION
At the end of the campaign in North Africa, when I was with the 12th Field Ambulance, our Division (4th) was used to make up the numbers of other units for the campaigns in Sicily and Italy. This brought about a lowering of morale and in order too something definite, my friend and I volunteered for parachute training. We were sent back to England, my friend took advantage of embarkation leave to marry his fiancée, I was best man, and Honor, who later became my wife, was bridesmaid, and so we met. My friend I were posted to the 16th Parachute Field Ambulance, and eventually, on the 17th September 1944 flew off to Arnhem from an airfield in Lincolnshire.
We flew in Dakotas, C47s, which had a static line — a steel cable - running the length of the aircraft, and to which we hooked up our parachutes. Normally we waited until we were about ten minutes from our dropping zone before hooking up, because once hooked up your movements were very restricted. On this occasion we thought there might be German fighter opposition over the North Sea, and so we hooked up soon after crossing the coast. I had a new parachute that had never been used, and the snap-hook would not go over the static line.
The flight engineer appeared with a large file and began sawing away at the hook, and it took him twenty-five minutes to make it open far enough to snap over the line; if we had waited until we were ten minutes away from Arnhem I would not have jumped. When we did jump, the slipstream caught my right shoulder and spun me round to that the lift-webs were twisted right down to my helmet, and the canopy very restricted. I had a kitbag of medical equipment strapped to my leg, which I let down on a line to give me some freedom to get rid of the twists, but his simply created a counter-twist down below, and I landed in this awkward position.
Fortunately it was a warm sunny day, with plenty of up draught, and the landing was no heavier than usual. The first thing I saw was someone running towards me — not a German soldier, but a Dutch woman after the valuable prize of my parachute as a source of dress material. In he Hartenstein Museum, where all kinds of memorabilia of operation Market Garden as on show, there is a rather fetching wedding dress of parachute silk and it would be nice to think it was from my parachute. I hope the couple were very happy. After that more serious things began to happen. I was later taken prisoner, along with many others.
Let us move to 1945, to the end of the war. I was with a working party of about a hundred men, on the German railways, based in a little town named Jesse, in south eastern Germany. I’ll pick up the story when our six guards were sent as reinforcements to the Russian front, which by now was getting very near. I felt sorry for them; you didn’t get to guard prisoners in the German army unless you were unfit for anything else. The Feldwebel (sergeant) in charge of us was 58 years old and had a stomach ulcer; another was a lad of 19 who had been wounded six times and walked with a permanent limp — he looked rather like Pte Pike of Dad’s Army. I wonder if any of them survived. Their place was taken by members of the Volkssturm, the German equivalent of our Home Guard, elderly men in brown uniforms and shining jack-boots. Next day word came that the Russians had taken Annaburg, about six miles down the road from us, so the Volkssturm held a hasty council of war, gave us their rifles, went home and burnt their uniforms — a very prudent move, I thought.
We stayed in our billet, on the top floor of an old furniture warehouse which commanded a view of the surrounding streets, and in the late afternoon someone looked out of the window and saw a Russian despatch-rider directing Russian vehicles at the nearby crossroads. We all ran over to look, then came rushing down the stairs and into the open, cheering wildly. The Russian despatch-rider, no doubt unused to such an enthusiastic welcome in Germany, lost his nerve and fired a burst on his tommy-gun in our direction. No-one was hit, and the only casualty was one of our number who was coming up the stairs with a can of hot water as we came rushing down, and had it spilt all over him. But this was liberation! We tore down the barbed wire and went out into the street, and the first thing we saw was German people looting the food shops. It slowly dawned on us that unless we joined in and got our share we were soon going to be even more hungry than we had been. There were chaps hacking away at great sides of beef or staggering off with large crates of eggs — it was really quite ridiculous. It seems that we cornered the town’s supply of sugar, and when a few days later a committee was formed and proper rationing re-introduced, they regretted that they had no sugar to give us. We didn’t tell them we had the lot. Rations were a little better than they had been after that, but in other ways the German population suffered badly at the hands of the Russians. Looting was systematic: two Russian soldiers to each street, and they would take any small items- jewellery, watches etc, drink any schnapps in the house, then as the mood took them, or depending on how drunk they were, the might do further damage. The women in the town suffered very badly.
So far as the Russian’s relations with us were concerned it soon became clear that they were not going to do anything for us, but were just as likely to rob us of anything of value we still had as the German SS troops who captured us had been. They did not know who we were, so we manufactured a sort of union jack out of odd pieces of material, but they had no idea what that was either, but still asked “Franzos?...Polski?’ when they ran into us. So some of us decided to try and get back to the western allies on our own, and about a dozen of us began trekking westwards. At this time Germany was in a state of total chaos: German armies were collapsing, German soldiers were shedding their uniforms and trying to find their way back to their homes, German civilians were fleeing westwards before the Russian advance, there were people out of concentration camps, convicts out of prisons, all trying to get somewhere. The wildest rumours were circulating, one very persistent one being that the Americans had declared was on the Russians — a piece of wishful thinking on the part of the German population, who were terrified of the Russians, and not without reason.
We reached the river El be and could get no further westwards. The bridges were all destroyed, and the Russians would not let us use their ferries. What were we to do? We looked around and found an abandoned farm, with a white flag at the entrance. The stock were all there, cattle, sheep, pigs and hens — neighbouring farmers had kept an eye on things. So we took it over. One of our number was a red-haired Canadian farmhand who saw to the milking and another was a Scottish gamekeeper who did any slaughtering we needed. We proceeded to live like lords — we had a young pig one day, a lamb on another, and eggs and milk in abundance. The only thing lacking was bread. No doubt German farmers’ wives all baked their own bread, but none of us had that skill. However, we found an enormous stone jar, about three feet high, full of lard, and we made pancakes. I became adept at tossing them, a skill I retain to this day. Of course, the sudden transition from meagre prisoners’ rations to such a rich diet caused continuous indigestion, but we had been hungry for a long time and were not going to stop eating.
As a tribute to the field ambulance and RAMC, one of my favourite film stars, look at any war film from the 40's to the 70's and you are likely to see this beauty. Here we have the K&C army version
Also a link to re-enactor site
http://www.spanglefish.com/16parachutefieldambulance/index.asp
REMINISCENCE OF WW2 BY PTE. JOHN BATTLEY, 16TH PARACHUTE FIELD AMBULANCE, RAMC 1ST AIRBORNE DIVISION
At the end of the campaign in North Africa, when I was with the 12th Field Ambulance, our Division (4th) was used to make up the numbers of other units for the campaigns in Sicily and Italy. This brought about a lowering of morale and in order too something definite, my friend and I volunteered for parachute training. We were sent back to England, my friend took advantage of embarkation leave to marry his fiancée, I was best man, and Honor, who later became my wife, was bridesmaid, and so we met. My friend I were posted to the 16th Parachute Field Ambulance, and eventually, on the 17th September 1944 flew off to Arnhem from an airfield in Lincolnshire.
We flew in Dakotas, C47s, which had a static line — a steel cable - running the length of the aircraft, and to which we hooked up our parachutes. Normally we waited until we were about ten minutes from our dropping zone before hooking up, because once hooked up your movements were very restricted. On this occasion we thought there might be German fighter opposition over the North Sea, and so we hooked up soon after crossing the coast. I had a new parachute that had never been used, and the snap-hook would not go over the static line.
The flight engineer appeared with a large file and began sawing away at the hook, and it took him twenty-five minutes to make it open far enough to snap over the line; if we had waited until we were ten minutes away from Arnhem I would not have jumped. When we did jump, the slipstream caught my right shoulder and spun me round to that the lift-webs were twisted right down to my helmet, and the canopy very restricted. I had a kitbag of medical equipment strapped to my leg, which I let down on a line to give me some freedom to get rid of the twists, but his simply created a counter-twist down below, and I landed in this awkward position.
Fortunately it was a warm sunny day, with plenty of up draught, and the landing was no heavier than usual. The first thing I saw was someone running towards me — not a German soldier, but a Dutch woman after the valuable prize of my parachute as a source of dress material. In he Hartenstein Museum, where all kinds of memorabilia of operation Market Garden as on show, there is a rather fetching wedding dress of parachute silk and it would be nice to think it was from my parachute. I hope the couple were very happy. After that more serious things began to happen. I was later taken prisoner, along with many others.
Let us move to 1945, to the end of the war. I was with a working party of about a hundred men, on the German railways, based in a little town named Jesse, in south eastern Germany. I’ll pick up the story when our six guards were sent as reinforcements to the Russian front, which by now was getting very near. I felt sorry for them; you didn’t get to guard prisoners in the German army unless you were unfit for anything else. The Feldwebel (sergeant) in charge of us was 58 years old and had a stomach ulcer; another was a lad of 19 who had been wounded six times and walked with a permanent limp — he looked rather like Pte Pike of Dad’s Army. I wonder if any of them survived. Their place was taken by members of the Volkssturm, the German equivalent of our Home Guard, elderly men in brown uniforms and shining jack-boots. Next day word came that the Russians had taken Annaburg, about six miles down the road from us, so the Volkssturm held a hasty council of war, gave us their rifles, went home and burnt their uniforms — a very prudent move, I thought.
We stayed in our billet, on the top floor of an old furniture warehouse which commanded a view of the surrounding streets, and in the late afternoon someone looked out of the window and saw a Russian despatch-rider directing Russian vehicles at the nearby crossroads. We all ran over to look, then came rushing down the stairs and into the open, cheering wildly. The Russian despatch-rider, no doubt unused to such an enthusiastic welcome in Germany, lost his nerve and fired a burst on his tommy-gun in our direction. No-one was hit, and the only casualty was one of our number who was coming up the stairs with a can of hot water as we came rushing down, and had it spilt all over him. But this was liberation! We tore down the barbed wire and went out into the street, and the first thing we saw was German people looting the food shops. It slowly dawned on us that unless we joined in and got our share we were soon going to be even more hungry than we had been. There were chaps hacking away at great sides of beef or staggering off with large crates of eggs — it was really quite ridiculous. It seems that we cornered the town’s supply of sugar, and when a few days later a committee was formed and proper rationing re-introduced, they regretted that they had no sugar to give us. We didn’t tell them we had the lot. Rations were a little better than they had been after that, but in other ways the German population suffered badly at the hands of the Russians. Looting was systematic: two Russian soldiers to each street, and they would take any small items- jewellery, watches etc, drink any schnapps in the house, then as the mood took them, or depending on how drunk they were, the might do further damage. The women in the town suffered very badly.
So far as the Russian’s relations with us were concerned it soon became clear that they were not going to do anything for us, but were just as likely to rob us of anything of value we still had as the German SS troops who captured us had been. They did not know who we were, so we manufactured a sort of union jack out of odd pieces of material, but they had no idea what that was either, but still asked “Franzos?...Polski?’ when they ran into us. So some of us decided to try and get back to the western allies on our own, and about a dozen of us began trekking westwards. At this time Germany was in a state of total chaos: German armies were collapsing, German soldiers were shedding their uniforms and trying to find their way back to their homes, German civilians were fleeing westwards before the Russian advance, there were people out of concentration camps, convicts out of prisons, all trying to get somewhere. The wildest rumours were circulating, one very persistent one being that the Americans had declared was on the Russians — a piece of wishful thinking on the part of the German population, who were terrified of the Russians, and not without reason.
We reached the river El be and could get no further westwards. The bridges were all destroyed, and the Russians would not let us use their ferries. What were we to do? We looked around and found an abandoned farm, with a white flag at the entrance. The stock were all there, cattle, sheep, pigs and hens — neighbouring farmers had kept an eye on things. So we took it over. One of our number was a red-haired Canadian farmhand who saw to the milking and another was a Scottish gamekeeper who did any slaughtering we needed. We proceeded to live like lords — we had a young pig one day, a lamb on another, and eggs and milk in abundance. The only thing lacking was bread. No doubt German farmers’ wives all baked their own bread, but none of us had that skill. However, we found an enormous stone jar, about three feet high, full of lard, and we made pancakes. I became adept at tossing them, a skill I retain to this day. Of course, the sudden transition from meagre prisoners’ rations to such a rich diet caused continuous indigestion, but we had been hungry for a long time and were not going to stop eating.
As a tribute to the field ambulance and RAMC, one of my favourite film stars, look at any war film from the 40's to the 70's and you are likely to see this beauty. Here we have the K&C army version
Also a link to re-enactor site
http://www.spanglefish.com/16parachutefieldambulance/index.asp
panda1gen
Captain
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- Jul 29, 2005
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- 5,914
Part 2 http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/23/a4623923.shtml
This could not last. One morning a Russian officer arrived with an interpreter — A Russian woman who had been sent back by the Germans for farm work — and put a proposition to us. ‘You want to get across the river and back to your own people. Well, we’re going to build a bridge. Now, wouldn’t it be nice if you came along and gave us a little help?’ These weren’t his actual words, of course, and he left a man with a tommy-gun to emphasise his general point. So there we were, shanghaied by the Russians — prisoners once more. The bridge was a very crude affair, and we never finished it, though that day they kept us working until it was too dark to see what you were doing. Then they herded us into a barn and gave us rather a good stew — the Russians always lived off the land, and slaughtering another German cow will have been routine. We went to sleep, and when we woke up in the morning someone who miraculously still had a watch told is it was nine o’clock. This seemed very uncharacteristic of the Russians to let us have such lie-in, so we looked outside and could see no Russians anywhere. We learnt later that they had been sent to deal with some final German resistance in the Dresden area.
As soon as they had gone, the local population got out all manner of small boats and began ferrying people across the river. We crossed too, and being still in Russian-held territory walked many a further mile before coming to another river, the Mulde, where there was a broken bridge across which one could scramble, and an American sentry on the other side. Now we had with us a Spaniard who had come out of a concentration camp, d had joined us on the road that day — cheerful, perky little chap who shared everything he had with us. When we reached the broken-down bridge we learned that the Americans were only allowing American, British and French ex-prisoners of war into their sector, so we told the sentry that our friend was a Frenchman — an American wouldn’t know the difference, would he? I last saw our friend walking jauntily down the road, all the way to Spain. I rather worried about him, because his having been in a German concentration camp meant that he was an ani-Nazi, and Franco and his fascist government were in power in Spain. I hope he was able to slip in quietly and live out his life in peace.
The Americans gathered us into a collecting camp, from where, a few days later we were taken, very early in the morning, to a large airfield near Magdeburg, where we saw literally thousands of ex-prisoners waiting to be flown home. Some of hem had home-made bivouac tents, so had been there for some time. Seeing this we felt sure it would be days before our turn came. But — and only the Americans could have done this — at about eight o’clock aircraft, Dakotas, began landing, filling up and taking off, landing, filling up and taking off in a continuous stream, one after another, and by eleven o’clock we were away. Apparently this American air force functioned only on the continent, because we were not flown direct to England, but dropped off at Brussels overnight. Here we were given the equivalent of £5 to spend and let loose on the town. We soon found that though this seemed to us a great deal of money - £5 was a good weekly wage before the war — it would buy very little. Everything you could think of was available, at a high price. I thought it amazing that in a country that had been invaded, oppressed and starved, everything was available, while in a victorious country like England, hardly anything was available — and even that was rationed.
At any rate the RAF flew us back to England next day, and I remember the white cliffs as we crossed the coast. We landed somewhere in Sussex and were taken to a camp where we underwent various necessary processes before being sent on leave. I was able to telephone my parents in London — I didn’t know whether they had stayed there during the flying-bomb campaign — but they were there, and my father sent a telegram to Honor who was teaching in Liverpool. Then I was home! One of the days I have described must have been VE-day, but I have no idea which.
This could not last. One morning a Russian officer arrived with an interpreter — A Russian woman who had been sent back by the Germans for farm work — and put a proposition to us. ‘You want to get across the river and back to your own people. Well, we’re going to build a bridge. Now, wouldn’t it be nice if you came along and gave us a little help?’ These weren’t his actual words, of course, and he left a man with a tommy-gun to emphasise his general point. So there we were, shanghaied by the Russians — prisoners once more. The bridge was a very crude affair, and we never finished it, though that day they kept us working until it was too dark to see what you were doing. Then they herded us into a barn and gave us rather a good stew — the Russians always lived off the land, and slaughtering another German cow will have been routine. We went to sleep, and when we woke up in the morning someone who miraculously still had a watch told is it was nine o’clock. This seemed very uncharacteristic of the Russians to let us have such lie-in, so we looked outside and could see no Russians anywhere. We learnt later that they had been sent to deal with some final German resistance in the Dresden area.
As soon as they had gone, the local population got out all manner of small boats and began ferrying people across the river. We crossed too, and being still in Russian-held territory walked many a further mile before coming to another river, the Mulde, where there was a broken bridge across which one could scramble, and an American sentry on the other side. Now we had with us a Spaniard who had come out of a concentration camp, d had joined us on the road that day — cheerful, perky little chap who shared everything he had with us. When we reached the broken-down bridge we learned that the Americans were only allowing American, British and French ex-prisoners of war into their sector, so we told the sentry that our friend was a Frenchman — an American wouldn’t know the difference, would he? I last saw our friend walking jauntily down the road, all the way to Spain. I rather worried about him, because his having been in a German concentration camp meant that he was an ani-Nazi, and Franco and his fascist government were in power in Spain. I hope he was able to slip in quietly and live out his life in peace.
The Americans gathered us into a collecting camp, from where, a few days later we were taken, very early in the morning, to a large airfield near Magdeburg, where we saw literally thousands of ex-prisoners waiting to be flown home. Some of hem had home-made bivouac tents, so had been there for some time. Seeing this we felt sure it would be days before our turn came. But — and only the Americans could have done this — at about eight o’clock aircraft, Dakotas, began landing, filling up and taking off, landing, filling up and taking off in a continuous stream, one after another, and by eleven o’clock we were away. Apparently this American air force functioned only on the continent, because we were not flown direct to England, but dropped off at Brussels overnight. Here we were given the equivalent of £5 to spend and let loose on the town. We soon found that though this seemed to us a great deal of money - £5 was a good weekly wage before the war — it would buy very little. Everything you could think of was available, at a high price. I thought it amazing that in a country that had been invaded, oppressed and starved, everything was available, while in a victorious country like England, hardly anything was available — and even that was rationed.
At any rate the RAF flew us back to England next day, and I remember the white cliffs as we crossed the coast. We landed somewhere in Sussex and were taken to a camp where we underwent various necessary processes before being sent on leave. I was able to telephone my parents in London — I didn’t know whether they had stayed there during the flying-bomb campaign — but they were there, and my father sent a telegram to Honor who was teaching in Liverpool. Then I was home! One of the days I have described must have been VE-day, but I have no idea which.
redhugh
Master Sergeant
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great story, the defeat and collapse of the country and how it occured is a fascinating subject. I especially liked the accounts in anthony beevor's book fall of berlin, in which he describes how the remnants of a division fought on purely to delay the russians so that the german civilians might make it to the western lines.
panda1gen
Captain
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Thanks, yes, is interesting but grim.
sdkfz 251 stuka watched from paratrooper hiding place in a bombed factory roof
panda1gen
Captain
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thanks Joe, you too
from BBC archive,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/50/a3220750.shtml
part 1
‘It’s quiet.’ My first thoughts, as I drifted down to rendezvous in the tidy quilted fields beyond Arnhem. Strangely quiet. Quiet that is if you rule out the ordered chaos for the newly descended First Parachute Brigade, as they assembled before the ‘push’ on Arnhem Bridge. Other thoughts had occupied my earlier moments on the clear Sunday morning in September 1944. The 17th.
Thoughts of previous campaigns in Tunisia, Sicily and Italy, those Mediterranean battlegrounds of rugged hills, of heat and flies, of blistered feet, or sweat ----- and blood.
These were the first parachute campaigns. The novelty was gone now — the pride remained.
We were airborne now, skimming the Fenlands of South Lincolnshire, where the hardy country folk were returning from the little churches or seeking the fleeting joys of rationed beers in the cosy country pubs.
Pubs where I had but recently lingered. In Bourne, in Stamford and in Spalding. Stray September clouds scudded above our American-crewed Dakota as our Platoon Officer gave us our last briefing. The plane rolled and lifted in the breeze. ‘No questions?’ — Right, let them pick the bones out of that’ and the shredded pieces of the officer’s brief shot away in the slipstream.
Time is nothing when you are on these ‘ops’ — but time is everything too. Some lads of my stick were yarning, some singing, and some thinking.
Soon, the coast of Holland was in sight. The tiny flood-bound islands, made by the German’ breaching of the dykes, and the spires of some large town or city.
No flak — Thank God — No flak.
A little while and the forward planes were unloading. A multitude of tiny figures, falling and floating to the good earth. ‘Michelin’ like figures, paunched with packs and parachutes. Parachutes that cracked with a friendly tug as they opened. An open parachute straining above you is the most beautiful sight in the world — to a paratrooper. As I jumped I felt myself thump the fuselage of the plane. A startled thought — then I was clear. My ‘chute opened. I grasped the ‘lift webs’, feet and knees together, and down I floated above the descended gliders — drawn up below as in a car park. I hit the deck in soft plough land. A lucky drop.
My unit rendezvoused on a green smoke signal.
We moved off through wooded country towards Arnhem — and the bridge. The crackle of arms ahead foretold the battle to come. It was no longer quiet. The Germans, entrenched in strategic positions, were exacting dear payment on our forward companies for the progress they were making. No time for thinking now. Tanks, armoured cars and machine guns belched death and destruction on the approach to Hartestien and Oosterbeek.
The wounded drifted back through the darkening lanes. We halt, we start off again, we halt, we dig in — and on again, and again. We change direction. Our progress in the rear was dictated by the success of the leading companies.
Stray mortar bombs and bullets harassed us. Platoon officer Sutton suffered a head wound. Sergeant McKnight took over.
Vicious fighting ahead. A welcome lull. We move on. Beside a hedge lay Sergeant Bradley, seriously wounded, attended by the ‘medics’. An old pal from Ringway days. A little further ahead and the smouldering body of a Lieutenant. His pouch hit by a bullet and its phosphorus bomb exploded. We spent the weary night in the gardens of Oosterbeek.
The residents crouched in the tiny cellars. Men, women and children. Women, who next day were to welcome us with Orange armbands and to pin the Free Dutch colours on our tunics as we passed along the bright, bloody streets. Women who risked death in these streets, while succouring the wounded. Women who met death, with the Orange men, at the hands of the Germans, when the British had gone.
panda1gen
Captain
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part 2
Monday morning saw quicker progress, although pestered by snipers, positioned in houses and buildings on the way. Sly snipers shooting in surprise — shooting and running. At the Bridge things were hotting up. Casualties were very high. Dead strewed the buildings at its approach. Wounded fell out, received attention- and fell in again, to be re-wounded in turn, or killed. The Second Battalion held on, bloody but unbowed waiting the Second Army — and waiting for us, the First Battalion.
The second air-lift, reinforcements were due in at ten on this Monday morning. Sweet relief. It was nearer 5pm, when they dropped. Too late — was it too late? We were halted at a cross roads in Oosterbeek. It looked as if we would be there forever. Suddenly my buddy, Corporal Stan Lunt and I, on stolen time, decided to investigate a rumour of a German SP Gun at the station nearby. We slipped up a side street to the station. The street led over a small bridge beneath which, in a cutting lay the station. We were surprised to see a man in the station office.
Lunt with Sten gun ready strode across the bridge. I stood on the side to cover him. Beyond the bridge the road was flanked by a high hedgerow. Suddenly, above the hedge, a hand appeared and a German stick grenade tumbled down towards Lunt. I shouted, he stepped back, firing a burst at the hedge. An unearthly agonised scream mingled with the explosion of the grenade. Lunt scrambled back towards me unhurt, as I fired ten rounds rapid into the hedge.
We scurried around the corner of a large house as the Germans counter-fired. From the house stepped a Dutchman, ‘would you like a cup of tea?’ — in English. Blimey what a time for a cup of tea. ‘No thank you, goodbye’. We scrambled over a wall and eventually rejoined our unit. Our beloved Sergeant McKnight greeted us — ‘Where the hell have you been?’ We were moving again, into Arnhem. Smoke and fire darkened the streets. Broken glass and broken vehicles, debris littered the roads. At one point we passed a German staff car, stopped with the occupants dead, one hanging from the driving seat, the other strewn below him on the road. Further on a water main had burst, spraying a minor torrent into the roadway. The body of a dead civilian, in blue overalls, lay in the gutter, with the cooling insolent water mingling with his blood, lapping gently round his body.
German planes swooped overhead, making for the beleaguered Second Battalion. No British planes.
Soon we were withdrawing. We couldn’t make the bridge. Sorry we can’t make it — our apologies were written in blood. We went back, from house to house. Scrambling across street corners. Further back. Night fell, still moving. A machine gun burst, wounded four of the platoon, from the treacherous darkness. Dawn on Tuesday, saw us withdrawing again. The German iron ring was closing in on us, relentlessly. Mortars thumped and clattered around us. Murderous thumps. German tanks whirled and snarled close by. A call came for our Bren-gunners. I had one now. Lunt and I ran forward. At a corner, a German Tiger tank was firing over the cross-roads. Our anti-tank guns had smashed one of his tracks, but he was still firing. I threw myself on the road, the massive front of the ‘Tiger’ rattled with the impact of my long burst. His gun ceased firing.
A shout. Germans behind a hedgerow — I ran to a fence adjoining a corner shop, my Bren across the railings, and raked the hedge with fire. A momentary pause and then the sheet glass of the shop by my side crashed in a myriad of tinkling pieces. The tank had woken up. A near miss, thank God. I decided to move — we withdrew. As we left Arnhem, we knew somehow we wouldn’t be going back. That night we hardened our position. The withdrawal had congested the road from Arnhem to Oosterbeek.
Units became inextricably mingled, easy prey for marauding tank shells and mortars. We were to help with the withdrawal into the ‘perimeter’ round Oosterbeek. The bridge defenders must be on their last legs by now.
We took over a house on an embankment overlooking the broken rail bridge across the Rhine. Our backs were against the wall, but the Germans gave us a quieter night. Above Arnhem, in the distance, the sky glowered red with the fires burning beneath. Wednesday’s first light saw me sharing a fry-up of bacon with a gunner-officer. A cooked meal, my first since early Sunday in England. Especially welcome. Welcome because I had left my pack at one of the woodland halts. I had since lived off the land, pears and tomatoes, scrounged on the way. On of the lads began to shave. To shave in his meagre supply of water — precious water. ‘What the hell are you shaving for. When we get back they will think you have been to a bloody party’. When we get back — if we get back.
From windows overlooking the Rhine and the low-lying fields between, with Bren gun I waited, waited with aggressive, war-like Jock Clements. Below us, an anti-tank gun, camouflaged. Beyond this, skirting the field, were remnants of our unit, under Lieutenant Williams, a well respected officer. Further ahead lay a scattering of dead cattle and a deserted German ‘Flak’ position. Time slipped by, the Germans were late. Suddenly from nine o’clock left, over the railway, poured a fast moving arrowhead formation of troops. Our forward unit called ‘Enemy’ and we fired our Brens. The Germans never knew we were there. They never knew what hit them. At 300 yards they were wiped out — one man flailing his arms above his head.
Quiet again — At the broken bridge beyond, a German tank sneaked through. Before it could gain advantage the anti-tank gun fired. A direct hit. An explosion, flame bursts, and scurrying figures. Another danger dealt with.
As the ‘Perimeter’ closed we withdrew again, under fire, to new positions, dug in along the edge of a dyke. Spasmodic mortar fire punctured the night. In one flare up we suffered a great loss — Sergeant McKnight — one of the boys.
Thursday — Hell is Thursday. Supply planes were still coming in, dropping their precious supplies — into German hands. Sometimes ‘Dummy’ running, some at tree-top level, in flames from ‘Flak’, courageous but futile. We weren’t there. Crashing in flames from concentrated ‘Flak’ pounding like devilish piledrivers. In a hopeful attempt, Lieutenant Clarkson lit a yellow smoke candle. A recognition signal to the planes. Almost immediately he was hit by a well directed mortar bomb. The yellow cloud drifted slowly over our lines. ‘Anybody gotta fag — When’s the Second Army coming?’ ‘Look to your front’. We repelled an advancing company of Germans, reeling and scrambling for cover. The Germans were quick to react. Bombs showered among our positions, spewed by the multi-barrelled mortars, splinters splattered through the stinking smoke. Death stalked two-handed to his harvest. Amid this hell, pinned down, deafened and weary, I dozed off. Asleep in the inferno. When I awoke (a hundred years later?) An astonished comrade exclaimed, ‘I thought you were dead’.
Four PM — we must withdraw. The remnants of our Unit fell back along the base of a dry ditch. Myself, Corporal Lunt and Private Frankie Thompson covered them with Brens. We went back, through the smoke, eyes peering. An oath — Lunt had been hit. In the thigh from the flank, we couldn’t see where. We ran back. ‘Nothing serious’. He pushed us on. A few yards and searing pain snatched my arm. A bullet scorched through my side and tore out of my back. I looked at my arm, shattered, with blood pouring down, trickling from my fingers. My back, now numb, felt saturated in blood. They came to me. Told me to rest. ‘Be back with a stretcher Wally’. Death only comes to other soldiers. All soldiers know this — I felt the pain, the weakness flowing over me. This was it — This mustn’t be it. My thoughts flooded back to my home — to my home. This mustn’t be it — I don’t want to die. A silent prayer.
I forced myself to my feet, arm useless, in pain. Dead and dying lay all around, choking in filthy smoke. I caught the eyes of a comrade in desperate agony. ‘I’m sorry mate, I can’t help, sorry’. I stumbled drunkenly across a thousand miles of fields and ditches. My eyes unseeingly. My legs rebelled but I forced myself on. ‘Whatsamatter Bol’? The voice of Ginger Pearce guided me to a large house. A house being used as a dressing station. Outside the dead lay against the walls. Inside there was hope. ‘Get out’. ‘Only wounded in here’ — because I wasn’t carried in, I wasn’t wounded. God let me in — I fell in. They dressed my wounds, injected morphine and helped me to an upstairs room. A room where wounded lay all round the walls. No beds, no stretchers left for me. They lay me, belly down, on a narrow table. A seven-day clock ticked in a corner. To sleep. The morphine helps. How it helps.
Monday morning saw quicker progress, although pestered by snipers, positioned in houses and buildings on the way. Sly snipers shooting in surprise — shooting and running. At the Bridge things were hotting up. Casualties were very high. Dead strewed the buildings at its approach. Wounded fell out, received attention- and fell in again, to be re-wounded in turn, or killed. The Second Battalion held on, bloody but unbowed waiting the Second Army — and waiting for us, the First Battalion.
The second air-lift, reinforcements were due in at ten on this Monday morning. Sweet relief. It was nearer 5pm, when they dropped. Too late — was it too late? We were halted at a cross roads in Oosterbeek. It looked as if we would be there forever. Suddenly my buddy, Corporal Stan Lunt and I, on stolen time, decided to investigate a rumour of a German SP Gun at the station nearby. We slipped up a side street to the station. The street led over a small bridge beneath which, in a cutting lay the station. We were surprised to see a man in the station office.
Lunt with Sten gun ready strode across the bridge. I stood on the side to cover him. Beyond the bridge the road was flanked by a high hedgerow. Suddenly, above the hedge, a hand appeared and a German stick grenade tumbled down towards Lunt. I shouted, he stepped back, firing a burst at the hedge. An unearthly agonised scream mingled with the explosion of the grenade. Lunt scrambled back towards me unhurt, as I fired ten rounds rapid into the hedge.
We scurried around the corner of a large house as the Germans counter-fired. From the house stepped a Dutchman, ‘would you like a cup of tea?’ — in English. Blimey what a time for a cup of tea. ‘No thank you, goodbye’. We scrambled over a wall and eventually rejoined our unit. Our beloved Sergeant McKnight greeted us — ‘Where the hell have you been?’ We were moving again, into Arnhem. Smoke and fire darkened the streets. Broken glass and broken vehicles, debris littered the roads. At one point we passed a German staff car, stopped with the occupants dead, one hanging from the driving seat, the other strewn below him on the road. Further on a water main had burst, spraying a minor torrent into the roadway. The body of a dead civilian, in blue overalls, lay in the gutter, with the cooling insolent water mingling with his blood, lapping gently round his body.
German planes swooped overhead, making for the beleaguered Second Battalion. No British planes.
Soon we were withdrawing. We couldn’t make the bridge. Sorry we can’t make it — our apologies were written in blood. We went back, from house to house. Scrambling across street corners. Further back. Night fell, still moving. A machine gun burst, wounded four of the platoon, from the treacherous darkness. Dawn on Tuesday, saw us withdrawing again. The German iron ring was closing in on us, relentlessly. Mortars thumped and clattered around us. Murderous thumps. German tanks whirled and snarled close by. A call came for our Bren-gunners. I had one now. Lunt and I ran forward. At a corner, a German Tiger tank was firing over the cross-roads. Our anti-tank guns had smashed one of his tracks, but he was still firing. I threw myself on the road, the massive front of the ‘Tiger’ rattled with the impact of my long burst. His gun ceased firing.
A shout. Germans behind a hedgerow — I ran to a fence adjoining a corner shop, my Bren across the railings, and raked the hedge with fire. A momentary pause and then the sheet glass of the shop by my side crashed in a myriad of tinkling pieces. The tank had woken up. A near miss, thank God. I decided to move — we withdrew. As we left Arnhem, we knew somehow we wouldn’t be going back. That night we hardened our position. The withdrawal had congested the road from Arnhem to Oosterbeek.
Units became inextricably mingled, easy prey for marauding tank shells and mortars. We were to help with the withdrawal into the ‘perimeter’ round Oosterbeek. The bridge defenders must be on their last legs by now.
We took over a house on an embankment overlooking the broken rail bridge across the Rhine. Our backs were against the wall, but the Germans gave us a quieter night. Above Arnhem, in the distance, the sky glowered red with the fires burning beneath. Wednesday’s first light saw me sharing a fry-up of bacon with a gunner-officer. A cooked meal, my first since early Sunday in England. Especially welcome. Welcome because I had left my pack at one of the woodland halts. I had since lived off the land, pears and tomatoes, scrounged on the way. On of the lads began to shave. To shave in his meagre supply of water — precious water. ‘What the hell are you shaving for. When we get back they will think you have been to a bloody party’. When we get back — if we get back.
From windows overlooking the Rhine and the low-lying fields between, with Bren gun I waited, waited with aggressive, war-like Jock Clements. Below us, an anti-tank gun, camouflaged. Beyond this, skirting the field, were remnants of our unit, under Lieutenant Williams, a well respected officer. Further ahead lay a scattering of dead cattle and a deserted German ‘Flak’ position. Time slipped by, the Germans were late. Suddenly from nine o’clock left, over the railway, poured a fast moving arrowhead formation of troops. Our forward unit called ‘Enemy’ and we fired our Brens. The Germans never knew we were there. They never knew what hit them. At 300 yards they were wiped out — one man flailing his arms above his head.
Quiet again — At the broken bridge beyond, a German tank sneaked through. Before it could gain advantage the anti-tank gun fired. A direct hit. An explosion, flame bursts, and scurrying figures. Another danger dealt with.
As the ‘Perimeter’ closed we withdrew again, under fire, to new positions, dug in along the edge of a dyke. Spasmodic mortar fire punctured the night. In one flare up we suffered a great loss — Sergeant McKnight — one of the boys.
Thursday — Hell is Thursday. Supply planes were still coming in, dropping their precious supplies — into German hands. Sometimes ‘Dummy’ running, some at tree-top level, in flames from ‘Flak’, courageous but futile. We weren’t there. Crashing in flames from concentrated ‘Flak’ pounding like devilish piledrivers. In a hopeful attempt, Lieutenant Clarkson lit a yellow smoke candle. A recognition signal to the planes. Almost immediately he was hit by a well directed mortar bomb. The yellow cloud drifted slowly over our lines. ‘Anybody gotta fag — When’s the Second Army coming?’ ‘Look to your front’. We repelled an advancing company of Germans, reeling and scrambling for cover. The Germans were quick to react. Bombs showered among our positions, spewed by the multi-barrelled mortars, splinters splattered through the stinking smoke. Death stalked two-handed to his harvest. Amid this hell, pinned down, deafened and weary, I dozed off. Asleep in the inferno. When I awoke (a hundred years later?) An astonished comrade exclaimed, ‘I thought you were dead’.
Four PM — we must withdraw. The remnants of our Unit fell back along the base of a dry ditch. Myself, Corporal Lunt and Private Frankie Thompson covered them with Brens. We went back, through the smoke, eyes peering. An oath — Lunt had been hit. In the thigh from the flank, we couldn’t see where. We ran back. ‘Nothing serious’. He pushed us on. A few yards and searing pain snatched my arm. A bullet scorched through my side and tore out of my back. I looked at my arm, shattered, with blood pouring down, trickling from my fingers. My back, now numb, felt saturated in blood. They came to me. Told me to rest. ‘Be back with a stretcher Wally’. Death only comes to other soldiers. All soldiers know this — I felt the pain, the weakness flowing over me. This was it — This mustn’t be it. My thoughts flooded back to my home — to my home. This mustn’t be it — I don’t want to die. A silent prayer.
I forced myself to my feet, arm useless, in pain. Dead and dying lay all around, choking in filthy smoke. I caught the eyes of a comrade in desperate agony. ‘I’m sorry mate, I can’t help, sorry’. I stumbled drunkenly across a thousand miles of fields and ditches. My eyes unseeingly. My legs rebelled but I forced myself on. ‘Whatsamatter Bol’? The voice of Ginger Pearce guided me to a large house. A house being used as a dressing station. Outside the dead lay against the walls. Inside there was hope. ‘Get out’. ‘Only wounded in here’ — because I wasn’t carried in, I wasn’t wounded. God let me in — I fell in. They dressed my wounds, injected morphine and helped me to an upstairs room. A room where wounded lay all round the walls. No beds, no stretchers left for me. They lay me, belly down, on a narrow table. A seven-day clock ticked in a corner. To sleep. The morphine helps. How it helps.
panda1gen
Captain
- Joined
- Jul 29, 2005
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- 5,914
part 3
I don’t remember waking but I must have awakened. The mists were slow in dispersing — and the pain came back. The bullet had just missed my main artery in my arm and just missed my spine but it had torn my back muscles apart.
As consciousness returned I listened and heard and saw,. At least I think I saw. I must have seen. Yes I saw. The clock ticked on, uncaring. The wounded lay suffering below my eyes. The lesser wounded could move around a little. The stench of blood prevailed. I had no shirt, just a thin blanket. They gave me soup and water. Sometimes twice a day. A thumb joint depth of soup in a cup and the same of water.
Water was precious now — paid for in blood. It came from a pump in the garden of the house. Around the pump lay many dead, sacrificial bodies of men, fallen in the run to the pump. For water — for us. I was lucky, sometimes Corporal Lunt came to see me, from the battle outside. He gave me a ‘swig’ of water, and a cigarette. This we shared, a ‘drag’ a time with the others. Beyond the window, away from the blur of pain, so they told me, was a fruit laden apple tree. This tree became the conversation and the hopes of the wounded — Fine red apples. One of our wounded, unbelieving, strained to the window, to believe. He fell — shot. Death the reward for the curious — Fine red apples.
Outside the battle raged. Tanks grinding and wheeling. Machine guns’ gibberish chatter resounded through the house. The building shook. Indiscriminate tank fire penetrated the lower rooms. Armour piercing shells added death to the already wounded.
One shell tore through the walls above my back. Plaster and debris falling everywhere, clouted my injured back — What’s a little more pain. The apple tree remained unshaken. They told me after this a fearless Airborne Padre went out with a Red Cross flag, confronted the tanks and demanded that the Germans ceased fire and to recognise the house as a hospital. The tank commander agreed. We were left alone for the little time remaining. All these days we had been aware of a Dutch lady passing among us, helping, heartening. Late on Monday, 25th, Lunt came. He was sorry, they had to leave, across the river.
Early on Tuesday the lady came round again. She was sorry, she had to leave before the Germans came. Daylight came, time passed. The Germans hadn’t come. I moved, slid from the table. I shuffled to the stairs, made to descend on my backside. Halfway down the door burst open. Armed SS men sprang in, eager faces, weapons raised.
Is this it? A tall Colonel of Medics thrust himself before them and shouted that the wounded must not be molested. They obeyed — yes they obeyed. We were taken in trucks, about 15 to a truck. The German driver smiled, smiled and shared out apples amongst us. Apples from the tree — one each. The truck rolled on.
At a corner the driver stopped — stopped to find loot. We waited — I bit my apple. Beyond the truck, strewn at the roadside were the dead. Near the hand of one, legs all awry, lay a bright red beret — I threw my apple away — On to Appledoorn — to captivity, and another story.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/50/a3220750.shtml
I don’t remember waking but I must have awakened. The mists were slow in dispersing — and the pain came back. The bullet had just missed my main artery in my arm and just missed my spine but it had torn my back muscles apart.
As consciousness returned I listened and heard and saw,. At least I think I saw. I must have seen. Yes I saw. The clock ticked on, uncaring. The wounded lay suffering below my eyes. The lesser wounded could move around a little. The stench of blood prevailed. I had no shirt, just a thin blanket. They gave me soup and water. Sometimes twice a day. A thumb joint depth of soup in a cup and the same of water.
Water was precious now — paid for in blood. It came from a pump in the garden of the house. Around the pump lay many dead, sacrificial bodies of men, fallen in the run to the pump. For water — for us. I was lucky, sometimes Corporal Lunt came to see me, from the battle outside. He gave me a ‘swig’ of water, and a cigarette. This we shared, a ‘drag’ a time with the others. Beyond the window, away from the blur of pain, so they told me, was a fruit laden apple tree. This tree became the conversation and the hopes of the wounded — Fine red apples. One of our wounded, unbelieving, strained to the window, to believe. He fell — shot. Death the reward for the curious — Fine red apples.
Outside the battle raged. Tanks grinding and wheeling. Machine guns’ gibberish chatter resounded through the house. The building shook. Indiscriminate tank fire penetrated the lower rooms. Armour piercing shells added death to the already wounded.
One shell tore through the walls above my back. Plaster and debris falling everywhere, clouted my injured back — What’s a little more pain. The apple tree remained unshaken. They told me after this a fearless Airborne Padre went out with a Red Cross flag, confronted the tanks and demanded that the Germans ceased fire and to recognise the house as a hospital. The tank commander agreed. We were left alone for the little time remaining. All these days we had been aware of a Dutch lady passing among us, helping, heartening. Late on Monday, 25th, Lunt came. He was sorry, they had to leave, across the river.
Early on Tuesday the lady came round again. She was sorry, she had to leave before the Germans came. Daylight came, time passed. The Germans hadn’t come. I moved, slid from the table. I shuffled to the stairs, made to descend on my backside. Halfway down the door burst open. Armed SS men sprang in, eager faces, weapons raised.
Is this it? A tall Colonel of Medics thrust himself before them and shouted that the wounded must not be molested. They obeyed — yes they obeyed. We were taken in trucks, about 15 to a truck. The German driver smiled, smiled and shared out apples amongst us. Apples from the tree — one each. The truck rolled on.
At a corner the driver stopped — stopped to find loot. We waited — I bit my apple. Beyond the truck, strewn at the roadside were the dead. Near the hand of one, legs all awry, lay a bright red beret — I threw my apple away — On to Appledoorn — to captivity, and another story.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/50/a3220750.shtml
