Arnhem

Staff Sergeant Peter Clarke was also relieved. He had been with the Glider Pilot Regiment since it was first formed back in 1942 but had not seen action. To his disgust, he missed out on the D-Day campaign because his co-pilot went down with glandular fever. ‘My frustration was building up. I wanted to contribute to the actual fighting.’ His wish was granted, though he found piloting a glider was not the easy job some people took it for. The controls were notoriously heavy ‘and, though you’re being towed, you can’t just sit back. You must stay directly behind the tow and in the right position above or below the slipstream. You can’t let your attention go for a second. It’s tough physical and mental work and a real test of pilot skills. We were flying for over three hours on tow behind a Dakota. I’d never flown that long before.’ Added to which there was the responsibility. In the back he had a mortar platoon – eight men and three handcarts loaded with shells. He felt an affinity to them, an intense loyalty. ‘You don’t meet the people you’re carrying until that day and you may never see them again. But you feel a massive sense of responsibility to get them there in one piece. These are men who will go on to fight and possibly die and they are placing their utmost faith in you.’¹¹

As the tug released him, he dropped steeply towards the ground and made a textbook landing on a flat, harvested field, slamming on the wheel brakes and running to the end of it before coming to a halt just short of the woods. To his right he could see another glider in trouble. ‘It hit the top of the trees and disintegrated. In seconds, all those lives were wiped out. It was absolutely devastating to see but I didn’t have time to dwell on it. I was just glad I’d got my damn’d thing down intact.’ In an instant, the mortar platoon in the back was out through the door and away. ‘It was the last time I saw them.’ Around him, bolts were unfastened on scores of other gliders and their tails crashed to the ground. The engines of the jeeps inside fired up and they roared off, trailing anti-tank guns, ammunition and supplies behind them. Next stop the bridge at Arnhem, 5 miles away! Around the landing zone, platoons were already in defensive positions, protecting this inland beachhead from an as yet unseen enemy. Unseen but, it would all too quickly be apparent, not absent at all.

3. ‘Home by the Weekend’

Earlier that bright Sunday morning in Oosterbeek, the biggest village between the airborne landing zones and Arnhem itself, the sound of the organ could be heard from the church, its rich notes wafting out over the river bank and down to the Rhine. Anje van Maanen was still in bed. It was 11 a.m. and she was not getting up, she told herself. ‘We are not going to church today so I have all the time in the world.’ Through the window of her bedroom she could see the sun glinting on the garden. Suddenly the roar of aircraft shattered her peaceful reverie. She was used to fleets of bombers overhead, en route to and from the Ruhr Valley or some other target in Germany, the RAF at night and the B-17s of the US airforce in the daytime. But this seemed different. ‘Gosh, quite a lot of them,’ she thought. ‘They’re busy today!’ She heard footsteps on the stairs, and her brother Paul – the one in hiding – rushed into her bedroom. ‘Bombs are dropping from the planes,’ he called out, and together they rushed to the top of the house and poked their heads through the attic window. Mosquitoes were racing across the sky, guns blazing. In the distance to the west, smoke and flames were spiralling upwards from Wolfheze. In the other direction, the barracks at Arnhem were on fire too, along with electric, gas and water works. To the north, the airfield at Deelen was under attack. ‘German anti-aircraft guns in the field behind our house start to bark. We see more fighter planes coming over. It’s looking pretty dangerous so we head back downstairs. Outside on the street, the Germans are nervous. They shout and they fire their pistols at the planes. How silly!’