21st September 1944

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By the 21st. the situation was clearly extremely bad and the operation as it had been conceived was effectively over: to quote from Iain Ballantine's 'Arnhem; Ten Days in The Cauldron' in his chapter for that day: ' 'Two world powers at war, fighting at a distance of 25 yards from each other...' - Frans de Soet, Oosterbeek, September 1944.' The following statements are from the personal remembrances of involved individuals. They are not necessarily congruent in time, but serve to illustrate at distance, some of the intensity, confusion and horror of those few short days in September, 1944: 

David Jebbitt, Medical Orderly, 181st Field Ambulance, RAMC:

    '... I was part of the first lift of the operation, which took place on the 17th September 1944. We flew in a Horsa Glider (towed by a Dakota) from Down Ampney Airfield in Gloucestershire and landed at the drop zone near Wolfheze outside of Oosterbeek. As part of the 181st Field Ambulance, I was based at the main dressing station in the Schoonoord hotel (Oosterbeek). Casualties were heavy and medical supplies short and I soon found myself taking over the rôle of anaesthetist, under the direction of one of the surgeons. Amputations were carried out using saws issued for POW escape purposes and these were little more than hacksaw blades... '

R.H, Rank Unknown, Phantom unit attached to 2nd Para Battalion:

    '... I was attached to 2 Para at the bridge as a member of the "Phantom" unit. I was to work with un-named members of the British and Belgian SAS and further our contacts with the resistance. These plans never got off the ground. There were other members of "Phantom" at Oosterbeek, they had the only fully working radio link back to the UK. Like many others during Market Garden, transport drivers, etc., our work could not be carried out so we pitched in with the true soldiers. It's the first time I've really spoken about it. I was taken prisoner on the Boulevard Heuvelink, there would be about seven of us, we were stripped of all of our possessions, one of the lads [Corporal Robert H. Summerfield] had his wallet taken and a picture of his wife torn up. When he made a move to protest he was shot where he stood... '

Alfred Ringsdorf, Truppenführer, Waffen SS:

    '... The fighting in and around the houses of Arnhem are very hard to describe, they were even more horrifying than what we had experienced before in Russia. I was 21 years of age and I was in charge of a unit of stormtroopers of the Waffen SS. In a side street where we were operating, a British Para popped up with his hands up to surrender. I searched him for weapons and as I turned from him for a brief moment, British machine-gun fire hit my my prisoner instead of me. I took cover behind his body...[and] discovered that my prisoner had died on the spot... I remember a cease-fire period when British, German and Dutch doctors and medics were tending the wounded on both sides and gathering the bodies of those who were killed...'

Comments

  1. Anonymous22 September 2024 at 09:02

    NATO had extensive commemorations, yesterday, at Arnheim for the 80th anniversary complete with British Para's flying the spectacular Union Jack!

    ReplyDelete

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