Arnhem

Ultimately, the decision to evacuate was down to Montgomery, as the field marshal acknowledged in his memoirs. At his mobile tactical headquarters outside the Belgian town of Leopoldburg, he received a signal from Urquhart on Monday with the starkest of sit-reps. ‘Must warn you that unless physical contact is made with us early tomorrow, consider it unlikely we can hold out. All ranks now exhausted. Lack of rations, ammunition and weapons, with high officer casualty rate. Even slight enemy offensive action may cause complete disintegration. If this happens all will be ordered to break towards bridgehead rather than surrender. Have attempted our best and will do as long as possible.’

Monty was well informed by his own on-the-spot liaison officers. He would also have had Horrocks’s reports, and it is clear that, as early as Friday, Horrocks was of the opinion that establishing a bridgehead across the Lower Rhine west of Arnhem was problematic without massive reinforcements and had passed that firm assessment up the line.² If the probes across the river by the Polish Brigade and the Dorsets had been unopposed then there might still have been a chance for a bigger operation, but the stiff opposition they encountered sealed the fate of any rescue mission. ‘We could not make contact with them [1st Airborne, across the river in Oosterbeek] in sufficient strength to be of any help,’ Monty wrote later, ‘and I gave orders that the remnant of the division were to be withdrawn back over the Lower Rhine at Arnhem and into our lines.’ Market Garden was Monty’s brainchild and he now had no choice but to kill it off. He conferred with Dempsey, commander of the Second Army, and they agreed that the 1st Airborne should pull back across the Lower Rhine.

It would seem that the decision had virtually been taken before the Dorsets made their ill-fated night crossing. With them that night went a colonel from a different regiment carrying contingency plans and orders. He was dumped from an amphibious craft into the muddy water on the far side, waded ashore and then made his way through the fighting to the inside of the perimeter. As dawn was breaking, he reported to Urquhart’s headquarters in the Hartenstein cellar and handed over a letter informing the general that the Second Army was abandoning its attempt to reinforce his bridgehead and giving him permission to withdraw his men back across the river when he saw fit. Urquhart took a little time to think through his limited options. Intelligence reports – backed by common sense – suggested that the Germans were building up to a major assault to annihilate the last pockets of resistance. It was time for 1st Airborne to cut its losses and leave while it still could. He called in his senior officers from the dug-outs and semi-derelict buildings they were grimly hanging on to, and they ducked their way through mortars and sniper bullets to his HQ for a 10.30 a.m. conference.

They were, Urquhart ordered, to prepare an evacuation for that night, under cover of darkness, starting in the north of the enclave and rolling down like the collapsing of a bag to the river bank, where boats from the far side would be waiting. The listening officers did not need to be told that this was the most difficult of military operations – withdrawal when interlocked with the enemy. The blueprint for what was designated Operation Berlin was the British withdrawal from Gallipoli in 1916, which, ironically, had been the only successful part of that military disaster. Urquhart’s staff drew up a complex timetable. The route by which every single group would move and the time of every movement were to be planned to the last detail. Covering fire from the other side of the river had to be coordinated. Orders were to be passed down the line in the strictest of confidence. Copies of orders were to be memorized and destroyed. Any Dutch people still in the area were to be kept in the dark for fear of panicking them and giving the game away. The Polish contingent, dug in nearest the river and freshest to the battle, would form the rearguard – last in, last out. The first man, it was hoped, would be away at 2200 hours, but as for the last of the 2,500, nobody could say when. But at least the end was in sight. Just one final water obstacle, the Lower Rhine, to get over and what was left of the 1st Airborne Division would be out of this hell-hole.