23rd September 1944

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Under cover of dark the previous evening, troops of the 1st Polish Parachute Brigade attempt to cross the Rhine in dinghies and rafts with supplies, starting at 21:00, hoping to link up with and reinforce the beleaguered British Airborne troops; but are spotted quickly and suffer heavy casualties in the process. Maj Gen Urquhart is still hoping against hope that they can last out until XXX Corps arrive to form a bridgehead on the north bank of the river...

In the eighty years since the Battle of Arnhem, much has been made of the pivotal rôle that the failure of comms played in the defeat. To quote the official account of the British Airborne Divisions: 'By the beginning of 1943, a suitable form of wireless set was yet to be forthcoming.' By virtue of the limitations of contemporary electronics, the power and range of radio kit portable enough to be viable for airborne troops to carry and deploy under the kinds of conditions they were certainly to face in battle, was severely limited.

The nature of the various types of field sets available suitable for their intended purpose ensured that they would be limited at most to an area of about three miles in diameter. The intended deployment of troops in Market Garden meant that comms would be needed over as much as fifteen miles distance, and the challenging, heavily-wooded terrain and built-up areas that would form the extended battlefield, would further emphasise the limitations of the radio kit.

Bill Marquand [commanding 1 Para Signal Section] had seen first hand in recent exercises in Grimsby, just before the commencement of the operation, how poorly the kit had performed around the town, and specced a greater than usual number of field telephones and cable for Arnhem just in case. The unexpected ferocity of the fighting conditions they later encountered was to render that backup plan ineffective in reality, anyway. Whether a full-functioning signals network would have affected the outcome of the battle is however moot, as the opposition was far fiercer and better organised than was planned for...

Comments

  1. Anonymous24 September 2024 at 07:52

    I think that my father installed the SW radios in the DamBusters, they were unique in that they could talk to eachother unlike Mr Dick Dickies faffing about with TS Indefatiguable!!
    Oh who is the photo of mate?
    ATB
    Joe

    ReplyDelete
  2. sideways24 September 2024 at 08:01

    Unnamed soldier, ©Imperial War Museum

    ReplyDelete

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