24th September 1944

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By the night of the 23rd September, going into the 24th, the twenty men holed up in the Vredehof villa at Oosterbeek have decided that they have passed the point of no return, and that none of them will leave alive: 'This is the end of the line. From now on we retire no more. We shall make a fortress of this house. We shall barricade the doors and windows, and we shall not leave this house again.' [RQMS Morris, 11 Battalion, Parachute Regt]. All that was soon to be left to them - given their continued survival of the relentless armoured barrage - would be close-quarters fighting with the enemy; with bayonets, pistols and knives, man to man, each staring the other's mortality in the face, with little hope of either's survival beyond the moment: medieval in its ferocity and desperation. A paratrooper who fought at Oosterbeek described it as '... a confused mass of struggling, leaping figures...', a pistol shot to the face, a knife to the heart, whoever could strike first would survive, at least momentarily, but most likely ending up on the wrong side of the fight seconds later...

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