We were ordered to withdraw through the lines of the 3rd Battalion, which had established defensive positions 1,200 yards to the rear. Evacuation of the seriously wounded was a problem. There were 120 who had to be carried and more who could walk with assistance. They were lying in the basements of houses along the last street, hoping we could hold at least that much of the village. The regimental surgeon sent six jeeps in after dark, and they successfully evacuated 20 of the litter patients. Six captured Germans were used to carry out three more wounded, and the rest were evacuated using the seat carry method with the M-1 rifle, a painful process for many of the wounded.

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About 4 o’clock that morning, we dropped from exhaustion in an open field. Sentries manned the perimeter. At dawn the sentries spotted movement across the field. When the sentries heard the troops speaking German, they opened fire. As we discovered, a German battalion had bivouacked in an adjoining field. Our battalion quickly moved into action. B Company circled left and brought flanking fire on the German unit, and our mortars zeroed in and fired several punishing concentrations. The Germans surrendered. We captured many more Germans that morning than we had men in the battalion. If they had known what they were up against, they probably wouldn’t have surrendered.

I was returning alone across the field when I saw the body of Sergeant Mullins. We had both been assigned to the regiment in the summer of 1942, and he had been my platoon sergeant for two years. We had trained our eight machine-gun squads together, taking them through jump school and jumping with them into Normandy. When I was wounded, I left the platoon, and I hadn’t seen him in several months. I had more respect for Mullins than any subordinate I had ever known. Mullins was a big man — over 6 feet, 200 pounds and not an ounce of fat. He was like a mother hen to our men and probably died trying to protect one of them. I closed his eyes, cried over his body and left him where he fell. I could do no more. The battalion, meanwhile, was marching toward Hell’s Highway and another battle. I ran to catch up with them.

Company C had lost all its officers. They had jumped in with 120 men; only 20 were left. I was sent down to take over the company, which made me the proud commander of two understrength squads.

During the remaining days of the operation, the British 1st Airborne Division suffered the fate that all paratroopers fear — the link-up force could not break through to them. With their backs to the river, the paratroopers were cut off and surrounded. The greatly superior German forces steadily pushed them back until the division was confined to a small perimeter west of Arnhem and north of the lower Rhine. Their continued resistance in that impossible situation is one of the most heroic in modern warfare. The Allied commanders decided that future resistance at Arnhem was not justified, and with a gallant effort, using canvas rafts and improvised floats, withdrew the survivors across the river at night. The British had taken 10,095 men north of the Lower Rhine — 3,490 came back after eight days of fighting.

There was no question that Operation Market Garden was a gallant failure. It had not placed the Allies across the Rhine, nor had it encircled the German armies in Holland. It had not bared the right flank of the Siegfried Line.

Though the operation as a whole was a failure, there were some gains. The Allies’ northern flank was advanced 65 miles over a series of rigid obstacles-specifically, two canals and two rivers. Large parts of Holland were liberated, making it possible for the strategic port of Antwerp to be reopened. After 10 days, the campaign became one of normal combat operations. The assault and counterattacks had drained the forces of both sides. The battle now was an anticlimax. The airborne forces assumed their mission of assault was over and that they would be withdrawn and outfitted for another parachute operation. But that did not happen. The British did not have sufficient forces to hold. The First Allied Airborne Army was not relieved until 71 days after it jumped into Holland.

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