Mackay detailed a few sappers to remain at their posts as a rear guard and to stop any German attack during the evacuation. The wounded were brought up from the basement, with eight or so seriously wounded being brought up on doors or mattresses. There was a low wall that the defenders had to cross to reach the new position and unfortunately they would be exposed to German fire when doing this. Several men from both units were wounded and killed doing the maneuver. Meanwhile the rear guard was also suffering from the shelling, and more men were wounded and killed there as well.

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The retreating British hoped to reach a nearby smaller building, which had been evacuated by the sappers on the first night. But as the first men began to move, Lieutenant Simpson was wounded. “As we made our way across to a wall, we came under fire,” Padfield remembered. “John Bretherton was killed as he was getting over it. Twiggy got a machine gun burst up the side of his body as we were lifting him over the wall, but he was still clinging to life. The next 20 minutes were phenomenal; we were caught in an enfilade of fire, and air bursts. Charlie Grier was hit by a stray bullet; it made a hole in his helmet but didn’t mark his head. Billy Marr had his pack severed from his back but with no injury.” One of the men carrying Lewis on his mattress had half his face shot away and slipped quietly to the ground dead.

Through the din, Major Lewis called out from his mattress, “Time to put up the white flag.” His second in command, Captain Wilfred Robinson, remembered: “Being unwounded, I felt guilty about allowing myself to be captured, so I went up toward where he was and called out to ask if the fit men could attempt to get out. He shouted back that we could.” About 10 men ran across to some gardens in the houses to the east, but were soon discovered and taken prisoner. Lewis shouted that the remainder should surrender and that they should take pride in their performance. Men took the bolts out of their weapons and threw them away, leaving the arms behind.

Padfield noticed that Sapper Butterworth was the farthest forward, and he was told to put his white handkerchief on the end of his bayonet and to go slowly forward waving it. While he was doing this, a German opened fire and shot him in the legs. A German officer then told the men to come forward, saying, “You are very brave, but very foolish.” The Germans surrounded the pitiful survivors and took them prisoner.

Swift was directed by a German soldier to leave Major Lewis in a cellar. Lewis asked for water, and Swift remembered “staying behind to leave him my water bottle and then being chased out with arms raised by another German soldier.” Swift also commented on “the kind treatment we received from our captors, even to being given cigarettes and drinks of wine.” He recalled, “It was only later that rear echelon troops, who were no doubt more afraid of us than we of them, got a bit nasty.”

With the loss of the position at the Van Limburg Stirum school, Frost’s battalion had little hope of holding its position at the bridge. Late that afternoon, Frost ordered the men to attempt a breakout. Those too badly injured were left behind to be taken captive. Defeated but defiant, the surviving defenders of the schoolhouse were escorted through the rubble of the town. As they marched into an uncertain future, the men sang “Roll Out the Barrel.”

West of Arnhem, the rest of the division fought on around Oosterbeek. With Arnhem now securely in their hands, the Germans could concentrate their full force on Urquhart’s men. The remaining paras fought on for five more days, and on September 25 the 1st Airborne Division was evacuated. Of the 11,000 men who had landed on September 17, only 2,300 made it safely back to Allied lines.

Too often overlooked in accounts of the fighting at Arnhem, the defense of the Van Limburg Stirum schoolhouse by 60 brave men was a crucial element of Frost’s gallant four-day defense of the bridge. Without the stand made by Major Lewis and others, the Germans would have been able to concentrate their full force on Frost, forcing him from his position sooner. This would have allowed the Germans to move more men against 1st Division forces fighting around Oosterbeek, and might have ended with even more men winding up on casualty lists or as POWs. Although it ultimately ended in a British defeat, the fight at the schoolhouse should be remembered as one of the greatest examples of a defense in urban terrain ever carried out by the British army.

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