Arnhem

Time dragged. Anxiety about what lay ahead constantly threatened to get the better of even the toughest. ‘After an hour or so in the air I found myself looking at my watch rather too often and beginning to yawn. Signs of nervousness.’ Kent’s every move was being watched and he must not let his feelings show – fear, though understandable, was contagious, especially in the claustrophobic confines of a plane. ‘I stood up and moved down the line nodding, winking and grinning, I hope, reassuringly.’ His corporal, who would be jumping last and whose job was to hustle the rest of the stick out in double-quick time to ensure a tight formation on the ground, beckoned him over. ‘How long to go, Sarge?’ he mouthed through the din. Kent cupped his mouth to the man’s ear. ‘About half an hour. It can’t be too soon for me.’ The corporal nodded in agreement. ‘I gave his shoulder a friendly thump and made my way back to my place.’

A sign from a crewman prompted Kent to plug in his intercom. The pilot’s voice flooded calmly into his earpiece: ‘We’ll be crossing the Dutch coast in a few minutes. Then we’ll open up the hatches to give your chaps a blow of fresh air. We alter course soon after, and begin our run-in in about twenty minutes. It’s a lovely day up front, and your drop should be a piece of cake. I should get your chaps hooked up now and then stand by. Good luck and cheerio.’

On Kent’s command, the stick of hunched, thoughtful men came to life. Heavily laden with their equipment, they scrambled to a semi-crouch position. An RAF dispatcher moved methodically between the two shuffling and swaying lines, checking that parachutes were properly hooked to the static line which ran the length of the fuselage and automatically triggered the canopy as each man exited the plane. The twin flaps of the large jump hatch – coffin-shaped, Kent noted – opened, and sunlight and fresh air streamed in. The word was passed – ten minutes to go. ‘We all stood up and, taking care that our static lines did not become snarled up round someone’s ankle, we eased our way closer to the hole. I began to sweat. Weighted down with the parachute pack on my back and full battle order on my chest, my helmet (the top of which was stuffed with half a pound of pipe tobacco) on my head and securely strapped with its chin piece in place, I waited my place in the queue.’ This was always a moment unlike any other, as each man struggled with his thoughts – the fear of jumping, the fear of the humiliating consequences of not jumping.⁴ ‘Then the engines throttled back. We started to lose height. Through the hole, I could now see the ground. We were beginning the run-in.’

If they had hoped to sneak in totally unnoticed, they were disappointed. Kent heard ‘pinging noises, metal on metal, and I guessed we were coming under small-arms fire from the ground. In the roof above the hole, a red light flashed on. The men at the front poised on the edge and the rest of us pressed forward, practically on each other’s backs. The red changed to green and, as if by magic, the men before me disappeared and I was at the aperture and through it and into the slipstream.’ He struggled in the rushing air. His parachute did not completely fill. He was falling too fast. He only had seconds to jerk and twist his body to untangle the lines. He managed this in time to slow his descent and drop gently on to a ploughed field, just yards away from that long barn he had been aiming at. The first men were down on the heath between the villages of Renkum and Wolfheze, five miles to the east of the bridge they had come to capture. The Battle of Arnhem was under way.