Arnhem

Lord told the dispatchers to hang on tight and, with the door still open, banked sharply to the left to line up for a second run. To do this he needed full power from both engines. Experts say that if he had shut down the burning engine and feathered the propeller, the fire might well have blown out and he could have headed home with a reasonable chance of making it. But that was not what he chose to do. On fire or not, he had to keep both engines going if KG374 was to complete her mission. He came round in a half-circle and joined the flight path again, alongside another Dakota, carrying ammunition and medical supplies, that was about to make its first run. The wireless operator on this plane, Flight Lieutenant Stan Lee, was standing in the astrodome, horrified as he caught sight of this new companion, just a wing tip away and on fire. ‘At this point we were over the river and we banked right over the top of the bridge to turn to the drop zone. The other aircraft [Lord’s] stuck to our wing tip as if by glue and I became alarmed. The fire was out of control and I could see that it would not be able to continue to fly for much longer. I was worried that in its final moments it might swerve and take us down with it. I almost wished it would go away. I couldn’t understand why the pilot didn’t force-land the aircraft while he still had some control.’⁷

There was now another change of course. The pilot of the Dakota that Lord was shadowing deduced from the amount of flak coming up from his designated DZ that it must be in enemy hands, and he switched to an alternative. Lord followed suit until both planes, still side by side, dropped their loads at the same time. Inside the cockpit of KG374, Lord flashed on the green light for the panniers to go. An observer below could make out the uniforms of the dispatchers and noted how they stuck to their task, though they must have known that, with every second, they were getting too low to jump. Their job done, Lord ordered everyone out. King, who would be the only survivor, remembered the captain calling, ‘For God’s sake, bale out!’ In the back cabin, King saw the fresh-faced Medhurst coming towards him from the cockpit, his hand raised in a thumbs-up that the mission was accomplished.

The plane, barely 500 feet in the air, lurched. King already had his parachute on and was turning to help the dispatchers don theirs when there was a tremendous whoosh as the starboard fuel tank exploded. The blast flung him out of the aircraft. ‘Suddenly I was in space with the ground racing up at tremendous speed. I felt a jerk and I found I was now floating down. Seconds later I landed heavily on my back.’ The radio operator in the parallel Dakota spotted King’s white parachute among the coloured ones dropping with cargo, but his eyes were then drawn to the disaster in the air as Lord lost his battle to save KG374 and her crew. ‘Its nose dropped sharply, the wheels started to come down. It lost some forward speed and fell behind us. Then it slowly folded in two. The wing tips came up to meet each other and, just as they touched, the starboard wing broke off and floated down like a leaf.’ The bulk of the plane, now upside down, nosedived into the ground, ending up a ball of fire followed by a plume of black smoke. Survival was impossible.

On the ground, many soldiers watched in awe as Lord’s flaming Dakota dived and died. They would never forget the sight. Roy Urquhart, commander of 1st Airborne, remembered ‘the eyes of hundreds and probably thousands of careworn soldiers gazing upwards through the battle haze. We were spellbound and speechless.’ Even the Germans stopped. ‘An army commander reported that ‘a hush came over the battlefield and for two minutes all fighting ceased as German SS and British paratroopers spontaneously saluted in silence the great courage of the men who had just died.’ Lord was awarded a posthumous VC, but that badge of courage was, in many ways, earned by the whole of Transport Command for its deeds over Arnhem.