Arnhem

By far the largest part of the new supplies, however – more than 90 per cent, according to some estimates – fell beyond the reach of those they were intended for. Wind, weather and flak didn’t help anyone’s accuracy, but the principal problem was that the supply runs were planned on the assumption that the paras would be holding the ground below. And the fact – which it was not always possible to communicate back to the supply airfields in England – was that the area in para hands had never been that extensive and now was shrinking all the time. Inside the Oosterbeek perimeter, Eureka radio beacons were set up on a water tower to try to guide the supply planes in, but, for technical reasons, their signal had a 2-mile margin of error, a fatal discrepancy when the enemy was in the next bush or house. Their batteries were also running low. Soldiers took their lives in their hands to stand out in the open with Very pistols to try to indicate their position, but with little success. Because of the tree screen, the flares could not be seen from above until the planes were directly overhead, and by then it was too late. And, anyway, it later transpired that, for security reasons, aircrew on the drops were specifically ordered to ignore lights from below because they couldn’t be sure whose they were. The Germans gleefully swept up the mass of supplies that dropped into their lines – aware that each container that came their way was important not so much for its contents but because it was vitally needed supplies denied to the British, as were the ones that fell into no-man’s land. These lay out in the open, often visible and tempting but, as Ron Kent noted, ‘it was as much as one’s life was worth to go and get them.’

Where the supplies got through, they brought fuller bellies and fresh hope. Ennis’s men couldn’t get out into no-man’s land to collect stray containers because the Germans flooded the area with lights from flares and were poised with machine guns and snipers to drop anyone who tried. But they had enough to be going on with. ‘They put new vigour into us as we repelled the enemy attack,’ he said. Each man received one tin of foodstuff and about ten cigarettes. The smokes went down well – they always did – but even hungry men turned their noses up at the awful tinned peas and a weird kind of Christmas pudding. Ennis, however, managed to find ‘one tin of tomatoes which contained more liquid than substance, but, when heated up, made a very tasty meal. We practically licked the lining off the tins.’

Dick Medhurst’s role in all this was as the co-pilot of perhaps the most famous aircraft to take part in the entire re-supply mission, sitting up front in the cockpit of Dakota KG374 alongside Flight Lieutenant David ‘Lumme’ Lord. What happened on the morning of Tuesday 19 September would cost the lives of all but one of the eight-man team on board – four crew and four army dispatchers³ whose job was to throw out the cargo. It would also win Lord a posthumous Victoria Cross.⁴ Lord was an unusual figure, in his early thirties and an old man compared with the young tyros around him. He was known as ‘Lumme’ after the mild expletive⁵ that he, a man who had once considered training for the priesthood, tended to use rather than the coarser four-letter swear words that were common among the boys in blue. He’d had a pretty varied life – born in Ireland, raised in India, schooled in Wales and Spain, then jobs as a chemist and a writer of short stories. He was a hugely experienced flyer who enlisted long before the outbreak of war and, as a sergeant pilot, flew old biplanes in missions against Pathan tribesmen in India. War service in North Africa and the Far East saw him promoted from the ranks to officer status and the Dakota squadron at Down Ampney.

He carried paratroopers into France on D-Day, was hit by flak and got home without flaps, then flew continuous supply missions to the Normandy beachhead for several months before preparing for Market Garden. He was non-operational on the first day, but piloted a tug for a glider in the ‘second lift’ on 18 September. It was a bumpy journey, with trouble in the Dakota’s starboard engine and flak peppering the tail, but the experienced Lord reached his designated cast-off point and released the Horsa he was towing. And now, the next day, he was off on a supply mission. In the second pilot’s seat of KG374 was Medhurst, this keen but totally green young man. Fresh out of training, he had arrived on squadron just two weeks earlier and had never flown in anger before. Thus are the random pairings of wartime. Also new to Lord’s team was his old friend Flying Officer Henry King, borrowed from another crew and brought in at the last minute as a one-off replacement for his regular navigator, who had gone on leave to get married.