Arnhem

On 22 October – five weeks after the Battle of Arnhem had ended – Pegasus was on. The hidden men who would join the escape were carefully brought together, converging on a wooded area near the river, close to the village of Renkum. They came in small parties, some on foot and some by bicycle, with Dutch guides. ‘Digby T is doing wonderful work,’ Lathbury noted. He said goodbye to the Dutch family who had been sheltering him and then, with Tatham-Warter, he cycled 6 miles to the assembly area. ‘We passed many German troops and it gave one a nasty feeling to think that we might be stopped at any moment. There was one particularly unpleasant-looking SS man who seemed to look right through me.’ The rendezvous was in a thick pine wood, where men were arriving throughout the day. ‘They were organized into platoons and sections under officers and NCOs, since what lay ahead was a difficult night move through enemy lines. Order and control were essential. An added difficulty was that many of the men were unfit and weak through shortage of food and exercise or, like me, were recovering from wounds. All of us had some portion of uniform with us so that we should be treated as soldiers in the event of capture. Most of us were armed.’

The distance from the assembly point to the river was 3 miles and, given the difficult nature of the terrain, three hours were allowed so as to be at the river at midnight. As it got dark and the 9 p.m. start time approached, one party of men had yet to arrive. They were coming from the far side of Arnhem, a difficult 10-mile drive through German lines. ‘It seemed impossible that they could ever reach us, without detection. However, at about 8.30 p.m. there were loud noises of motor vehicles approaching, followed by shouting in English. I felt sure that we would be discovered at any moment since there was a German battery position just a quarter to half a mile away. But all remained quiet.’

In charge of that particular party was Tony Hibbert, who had gone out from Ede to round them up.⁹ ‘We travelled in two magnificent old charcoal-burning lorries, open and with sides about 2 feet high. As we were all in British uniforms, it seemed unwise to sit boldly upright and we lay down in two layers with potato sacks on top. It was rough on those at the bottom as the lorries had few, if any, springs. No wonder there was some reluctance to volunteer for the bottom layer.’ The journey was not without incident. They passed through two German checkpoints before stopping in a clearing in the woods. ‘I went round to the back and said, “Everybody out, and keep bloody quiet because there are Germans all round here.” Needless to say, as they climbed out, there was a certain amount of “Fuck you,” “Christ, watch out,” “Prison camp would be better than this!” Just then, a German cycle patrol came along with a lot of tinkling of bicycle bells and cries for us to get out of the way. The troops politely stood to one side and allowed them to pass. The German patrol didn’t seem to notice a thing!’

With all now present, the escape could get under way. ‘We formed up into a column in single file,’ Lathbury recalled. ‘It was pitch dark and one could hardly see more than a few feet. Part of the journey was through thick woods, and extremely difficult. Those of us at the rear found it very difficult to keep up. Everyone was frightened of getting lost and, eventually, a rope was passed back and we all held on to it.’ Silence had been ordained, ‘but we seemed to make the most shattering noise’. The trickiest manoeuvre was crossing a road near some houses and going through a gate into the meadows near the river. ‘Our boots made a terrible noise on the tarmac, but still nothing happened. A slight moon began to shine through the clouds and additional light came from some burning buildings in the village of Renkum, just as we were passing through the enemy’s forward defences.’ Hibbert was astonished that they weren’t detected. ‘We were climbing over hedges and dropping down ditches about 8 feet deep and up the other side. The Germans must have heard us, and probably did see us, but maybe they felt that anyone who was making that amount of noise must be one of their own patrols. Either that, or there were so many of us that they felt the sensible thing to do was to keep quiet, because if they started shooting they would probably get shot at even harder.’