Arnhem

For the bewildered and frightened residents of Arnhem, precisely what had happened down by the river in their own city was a mystery, to be guessed at in the absence of hard information. They could only piece together this puzzle by sifting the gossip and the unsubstantiated, garbled reports – that’s if they even dared to come out of their houses. While the centre of Arnhem burned, in the north of the town, Pieter Huisman had kept under cover in the basement of his home with his wife and children, in the dark in every sense. He was never sure who was advancing and who retreating. There had been rumours (wrong, as it turned out) of the two armies fighting it out in the market area, the British holed up in the central market and the Germans – appropriately, everyone sneered – in the flea market. From his house, he’d seen victorious Germans marching red-bereted paras along the street and, on one brief, hurried and dangerous trip into the town for water, he saw the bodies of dead British soldiers lined up on the lawn of the hospital. Then again, British planes had flown over dropping leaflets with a message from Prince Bernhard that the allies were at Nijmegen and would be arriving in force in Arnhem very soon.

But the drift of what he picked up was tending in one direction – that the Germans were still in the driving seat, still the masters. When he heard a strong rumour that the British had retreated to Oosterbeek, it was all too believable – and a horrifying swing of the pendulum for people who had thought themselves liberated from an oppressive and hated occupier. The signs were increasingly unmistakable. The noise of firing in the centre of the city had virtually ceased and shifted to its western edge. ‘The Germans are installing more ack-ack batteries on the hill and are shooting towards Oosterbeek,’ he noted. ‘Fresh German troops have come into the town and a regiment of Tiger tanks has been placed on the street behind our home, under the trees. The tank crews are young SS boys, fanatical seventeen- and eighteen-year-olds. Refugees fleeing from Oosterbeek are now passing by.’

If the war was over for the airborne soldiers who had made it to the bridge – one way or another, dead or captured – then it was about to move up yet another notch for those who had not. With the bridge at last secured – and not before time, according to an incensed German high command, infuriated that the paras had held on to its northern end for so long – the German focus of attack switched to the larger part of the invasion force. From behind its loose perimeter at Oosterbeek, what remained of 1st Airborne was fighting for its very survival. The odds did not look good.

10. In the Mood … to Fight until We Drop

As the paras at the bridge in Arnhem trudged off into captivity, 3 miles away in Oosterbeek, their airborne comrades were cocking a snook at the Germans. From the woods opposite one of the many private houses British soldiers were occupying in the thumb-shaped defence perimeter, a familiar saxophone riff sounded, followed by the spirited trombones and trumpets of Glenn Miller’s big band swinging into the catchy ‘In the Mood’. An amazed Dick Ennis stopped firing. This was weird. ‘We could not have been more surprised if the enemy had come dancing towards us spreading flower petals,’ he recalled. Still, it made a change from mortar shells, hand grenades and the chatter of machine guns. Officially, the Nazi regime banned jazz – Hitler deemed it decadent, the music of Untermenschen – which is why it was doubly surprising to hear Miller’s signature tune blasting out loud and clear from German loudspeakers. Back in Britain, boys in khaki had been boogying to it with their girls in dance halls and back parlours since the start of the war. It was a poignant reminder of home and better times – as the Germans playing the record well knew. This was the hook. When the last bar had died away came the sell.

‘Gentlemen of the 1st Airborne Division,’ a soft siren voice intoned in what Arthur Ayers remembered as ‘near-perfect’ English, ‘think of your wives and sweethearts at home. Your division is nearly wiped out and your position is hopeless. You are completely surrounded and cannot survive. The Second Army is long overdue and will never reach you. At this very moment it is losing its last battle in Nijmegen. We ask you in the interests of humanity to cease fighting. Surrender now and yours will be an honourable surrender. You will be treated …’¹ Ayers didn’t hear the rest because the German offer was drowned out by hoots, whistles and catcalls from defiant paratroopers.