Arnhem

But not everyone in the airborne division was at a standstill. The leading strike force had found a reasonably open route into Arnhem and, with luck and good speed, had the bridge well in their sights. For them at least, the main objective of Market Garden was within reach.

4. ‘Are We on Overtime Now?’

Ron Brooker was in the so-called coup de main striking force, which was tasked to race ahead in jeeps the 5 miles or so to the bridge at Arnhem and seize it, hopefully before the Germans realized what was happening and could react. There were three routes designated for the invading force to converge on the city, and his 200-strong reconnaissance squadron, a mixture of paras and glider troops, started out on the northern one, only to find a strong enemy force in its way. Its job was not to stop and fight but to skirt around trouble and keep going. Brooker was driving the squadron’s commanding officer, Major Freddie Gough, and they now swung south away from the trouble and congestion, to take the centre route. ‘We passed the wrecked car of a high-ranking German officer. His body lay half in, half out of the vehicle; a pool of blood covered the area around his body.’

This was Major-General Friedrich Kussin, the military governor of Arnhem and the man ultimately responsible for the defence of the bridge. When the parachutists and gliders were spotted landing he had driven out to see what was happening. His car had run into a forward airborne patrol and been raked with machine-gun fire before the driver could turn and flee. Numerous soldiers recalled the sight of that high-ranking body and being encouraged that they had the enemy on the run. ‘Must have been a severe blow to them,’ concluded para James Sims, stretching out his hand to trace a cross on the dead man’s cold forehead. It was the first corpse he had ever seen, and his mother had told him that if he did that it would never come back to haunt him. But a mother’s soothing words had no currency here. ‘What are you doing?’ yelled a sergeant. ‘Get mobile. You’ll see plenty more like him before you’re much older.’

But this line of advance was soon blocked too, running into more and better armed opposition. Pressing forward, Brooker found himself almost deafened by the sound of small arms and heavier weapons and the high-pitched screams of mortars. ‘We passed several bodies, both the enemy and our own.’ It was time to switch routes. Once again, the way ahead was blocked, and he headed for the southern route, following the north bank of the Rhine. This was the one already taken by Lieutenant-Colonel John Frost of 2 Para, leading the only group making real progress towards the target that day, though also taking losses. ‘Hairy’ was how, with typical army understatement, Brooker would one day describe what now lay ahead: a hellish advance on Arnhem through a series of ambushes and obstacles. He kept his head down and his foot on the accelerator as the major, sitting beside him, gripped the Vickers K4 machine gun mounted on the front and swivelled to meet each attack and rattle out his response. ‘Bullets were whizzing back and forth but I just pointed the jeep and kept going. I felt remote from everything, just concentrating on driving. I had absolutely no control over my own destiny.’

The grey-haired, ruddy-faced Gough – ‘a marvellous man, a perfect gentleman’ – was, he noticed, having the time of his life. ‘He was loving it. He was normally a benign, calm person, but he was different in action. You couldn’t have wished for a better bloke beside you.’ The enemy were popping up all over the place. ‘We turned a sharp bend in the road and almost ran into a group of Germans marching in file down the road, heading in the same direction as ourselves.’ With Brooker’s foot on the pedal, the paras just sailed past without a shot being fired, by either side. ‘I don’t know who was the more surprised. We were sitting ducks and I was half expecting the bullets to start flying into our backs, but nothing happened. It was almost like an Ealing comedy.’ Further back in the line, Leo Hall was startled to see a German patrol coming towards him on a side road from the river. They were on bicycles. ‘I walked towards them with my Sten. With rifles slung, they were helpless, so off their bikes they tumbled and quickly surrendered to me. Their panniers contained stick grenades. I felt chuffed. Easy!’