Operation Market Garden: 2nd Battalion of the South Staffordshire Regiment Defend Arnhem Bridge

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By that evening, the troops of the 1st Parachute Brigade were locked in a desperate battle to break through a belt of German strongpoints ringing the western perimeter of the city and secure the road bridge over the Rhine. The tactical situation was far from clear to Maj. Gen. Roy Urquhart, the divisional commander, because of patchy and unreliable wireless communications with his advancing units. Concerned he was losing control of the battle, the general had gone forward on the evening of the 17th to make contact with his leading battalions. He found the 3rd Parachute Battalion, spent and exhausted, stalled in Oosterbeek. After a few hours’ rest, the battalion was on the road early the next morning. The advance started off well, but soon slowed to a painful crawl as the opposition stiffened along the lower road. Progress soon ceased, however, when the set-piece advance degenerated into a general melee in the vicinity of St. Elisabeth’s Hospital. Swept up in the confusion, both Urquhart and Lathbury were cut off and surrounded in a block of houses between the hospital and the prison. With Urquhart and Lathbury out of the picture, command of the division passed to Brigadier Hicks around 0800 on the 18th. Seeing the parachute brigade bogged down, Hicks sent the South Staffords and the 11th Parachute Battalion into the city to support the attack. The South Staffs set off at about 1030.

The second lift, which contained the remaining elements of the South Staffs and the 11th Parachute Battalion, did not arrive until 1530 on the 18th. The initial assembly was delayed by German fire on the LZ. An advance guard, consisting of Major Lane’s A Company and a section of mortars, set off within a few hours after landing. Company C and the majority of the battalion transport, under the command of Major P.R.T. Wright, followed some two hours later. After his glider aborted in the first lift, Major Cain and Company B Headquarters Section joined this group.

With B Company in the van, the South Staffs had begun filtering into the area around the road junction and St. Elisabeth’s Hospital by 1900 to relieve the battered remnants of Lt. Col. David T. Dobie’s 1st Parachute Battalion. The men spent what was left of the evening preparing for the attack. Battalion HQ was set up in a house on the corner of Utrechtseweg and Oranjestraat.

D Company of the South Staffs, the lead element, took up position north of the road in and around the houses and gardens west of the high boundary wall of the hospital. B Company South Staffs was in position across the road slightly to the south. A Company South Staffs and the 11th Battalion were strung out along Hulkesteinseweg and Klingelbeekseweg. Company C and the battalion transport were still on their way from Oosterbeek.

After an evening of orders and counter orders, Division HQ finally gave the word to press on into the city. At about 0200 Major Ian Toler, a glider pilot commanding B Squadron, No. 1 Wing Glider Pilot Regiment, was roused by a parachute officer and directed to the battalion headquarters. There he found McCardie with some of his own officers and Dobie, commander of the 1st Parachute Battalion, sitting around a single candle in the darkened front parlor, making final preparations for the attack. Dead tired after the 14-hour march from the LZ, Toler recalled: ‘It was a dramatic scene, windows full of bullet holes, one chap bent over a wireless and a single candle burning. The atmosphere was very tense, they’d had terrible communication problems but had just managed to get through to 2nd Battalion holding the bridge.’

The colonels decided on a simple plan that was conceived that evening. The attack would begin at 0400. The South Staffs would lead the advance up Utrechtseweg with the 11th Battalion in support. The 1st Parachute Battalion would advance along the right flank, along the river. The 3rd Parachute Battalion was nearby but not in contact. Because of the geography, the South Staffs’ assault would have to diverge from the line of attack of the parachute battalions soon after departure. The confined nature of the terrain provided precious little room to maneuver, or to allow the battalions to provide mutual support during the assault. To make matters worse, time did not permit a full reconnaissance, and it was unclear where the main line of the German defenses began. The British would have about two hours of darkness and had to be clear of the open ground before dawn, or risk being cut to pieces on the open road.

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Tags: 20th - 21st Century, Airborne Operations, Historical Conflicts, World War II

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