18 September 156
1100 - The Bn took off from Saltby Aerodrome.
1345 - Anti Aircraft fire encountered over the Dutch Coast. Chalk No 619 aircraft was shot down in flames.
1400 - The Bn jumped onto DZ. Opposition was encountered.
1430 - The Bn had reached the RV st pt 611838 less about 2 officers and 100 men who were casualties and stragglers.
1700 - The Bn moved off in the direction of ARNHEM along the North edge of the railway in the order C Coy, Bn HQ, S Coy, B Coy, A Coy.
2000 - The Bn met and joined up with the glider borne lift at the rly crossing 665805. The glider borne lift was complete with the exception of one glider containing two jeeps, which landed in the sea. A report was received from an officer of the KOSB that the enemy were holding a strong outpost line along the road from 702805 to 699791.
2100 - C Coy encountered heavy opposition at 696794. The leading pl was ambushed and broken up and a left flanking movement encountered further opposition which brought the company to a standstill. It was apparent that the enemy were holding the line in strength, and the Commanding Officer decided to form a firm base in the wood 678802 until first light with the intention of entering ARNHEM from the North West next morning. Communication with Para Bde HQ had broken down by this time.
Thanks to Mark Hickman
Dawn of Tuesday 19 September found the 4th Parachute Brigade with a clear objective the seizure of the high ground at Koepel and 156 Battalion ready to recommence its advance as the brigade's leading until. Lieutenant-Colonel des Voeux had been ordered to direct his attack on the intermediate high ground close to a group of buildings named 'Lichenbeek' from there the battalion could strike south towards the brigade's objective of Koepel. It was just over a mile from 156 Battalion's overnight stay to Lichenbeek, and only half a mile to Koepel, but it was still a further one and three quarter miles to the place in Arnhem where 1st Parachute Brigade was at that time making its last attempt to get throught to the bridge.
Barring the way to 156 Battalion's advance was that strong German defence line along the Dreijenseweg. Along part of the eastern side of the road there is a bank up to ten feet high, and beyond that ground rises even further through a wooded area. The German defence comprised of armoured-cars, half-tracks, self propelled guns, and well-armed infantry. The vehicles cruised up and down the road or were deployed in the trees. Some infantry were in outposts ahead of the road, like in position into which C Company and the KOSB had bumped the previous evening, but the main infantry line was in the wooded high ground behind the road. Any attack had to negotiate the forward positions and armoured vehicles on the road, then climb the bank, the top part of their bodies immediately became exposed to the Germans positions among the trees, and they could be fired upon at close range before they could deploy into the wood.
Major Geoffrey Powell's C Company made the first move, advancing again towards the position where it had been halted the previous evening. It was a standard company attack, two platoons forward and one in reserve. But the Germans had abandoned that forward position, and there was no opposition. It was a good start. Lieutenant-Colonel des Voeux could now commence his main attack across the Dreijenseweg into the Lichtenbeek woods. A Company was selected for this.The Company was short of a platoon that had been replaced by a platoon of the thirty glider pilots from D Squadron under Captain Ian Muir. A detailed report written later by the company commander, Major John Pott enables this detailed story of a gallant attack to be told.
Captain Ian Muir 'D' Sgdn,22 Flt. No 172724
Captain Muir was taken prisoner with others in a wood on the 20th September. Whilst being marched by a German officer down a road past some enemy machine gun nests, one of the gunners opened fire, killing Captain Muir and the other officer next to him. The German officer in charge took a rifle and immediately shot the perpetrator dead. That was sent to Captain Muir mother in July 1945 by a write from Lt. G. A. Paull who witnessed the whole thing.
The Eagle April 2006 from a letter to the editor from Colin Muir. The War Diary only as Captain Iain Muir Missing.
Lieutenant Lindsay David Delacour Platoon commander 5th platoon, A-Company, 156 Battalion of the 4th Parachute Brigade, AAC Parachute Regiment, 1st Airborne Division. Click on the photo
Before the advance started, des Voeux and Pott went up to the feature recently occupied by C Company to reconnoiter the next move,but the country ahead was too wooded, and nothing of any use could be seen. Brigadier Hackett came up while they were there and impressed upon the two officers the urgent need to get through to Arnhem and up to the bridge where Lieutenant-Colonel John Frost's force was in desperate need of reinforcement. With that exhortation fresh in his mind, Major Pott went off to brief his platoon commanders; he had personal interest in this, his wife being John Frost's sister. Lieutenant Stan Watlings's No 4 Platoon led off the company attack. The cover of the trees thinned as they approached the Dreijenseweg, and they were forced upon by at least two machine-guns. Those men hit dashed forward and reached the road but could not get into the woods on the other side because of the volume of fire. They became pinned down in the shallow ditches at the side of the road. Major Pott saw what happened and ordered Lieutenant David Delacour's No 5 Platoon to attempt a flanking a left-flanking attack, the standard response to such a situation taught at battle schools and practiced many times; Brens of the platoon were to set up a fire group while the riflemen charged in. Sergeant Sandy Thorburn was with one of the Brens:
It was far too quiet.We were behind little heaps of cut logs. You couldn't see anything but tress, and I was certain that there were snipers hidden in them. I wanted to spray the trees ahead of us before we started, but before I could do so, Lieutenant Delacour was hit by the first shot fired just a nicked in the neck. I told him to lie still, but he jumped up and shouted 'Major Pott. Fix bayonets, Charge!' those were his exact words. He was immediately hit again, right across the middle. All hell let loose then. I opened fire with the Bren firing off about five magazines, spraying the trees, but I couldn't see any effect of my fire.
Martin Middlebrook Arnhem 1944
Lieutenant Delacour bled to death, there was a German outpost in the trees just north if the track which was the axis of the company approach, and it had fired into the flank of the glider pilot platoon. Captain Muir was wounded, and one of his officers, Lieutenant Sydney Smith, was fatally wounded and there were several other casualties. Without their leaders and in that confusing wood, the survivors went no further. The dash led by Major Pott got across the road, however, and well into the wood on the other side. Lieutenant Watling's platoon climbed out of the ditches at the side of the road to join in the rush, but Watling was killed at once. The company second in command, Captain Terry Rodgers, was hit and fatally wounded. The German defence, particularly the armoured vehicles, was to strong for lightly armed airborne men. Only Major Pott and a few men managed to get through the German line of defences and well into the trees. Some were badly wounded, one of them, Sergeant George Sheldrake, describes a moving incident:
I was with two lads; we were all in a pretty bad way. Major Pott came over and said that he couldn't take us with him but he put us carefully under some bushes. He said that the battalion might make a fresh attack, and we could be recovered; if not we would be picked up by the Germans. He had to leave us then but, before he moved off, he stood there and prayed over us for a couple of minutes maybe, although there was some mortar and machine-gun fire, and a couple of minutes is a long time to stand up in those conditions. It is something I shall never forget.
Martin Middlebrook Arnhem 1944
A Company's advance ended on its objective six hours after it had started, but with only six men left and John Pott himself twice wounded, one bullet smashing his thigh and another hitting him in the hand. Some survivors hid and were able to escape. The Germans marched away the walking wounded, but left John Pott out in the open for the next eighteen hours, during which time he attempted to write a farewell letter to his wife with his left hand. He was found by two Dutchmen on the following day, carried to the nearby Mill Hill Fathers' house and eventually became a prisoner, the only one of six officers in the A Company attack to survive.
It was not known at Battalion HQ that A Company's fight had suffered so badly, and a third company had been sent forward at about 9.0a.m. This was Major John Waddy's B Company on what was yet another left-flanking movement. John Waddy describes how he received his orders:
The Colonel didn't know the full situation. He thought there were only a few snipers about and said A Company had reached the road and B Company was to push through them and capture the Licktenbeek feature. When he told me about the 'few snipers' I realized from the among of fire we had already heard that there was more than that. When we moved up, it was obvious that A Company had received tremendous casualties; there were wounded coming back in Bren carriers and dead chaps lying at the side of the road, and I passed a complete platoon headquarters all killed.
Martin Middlebrook Arnhem 1944
Yet again, the attack came under heavy fire as it approached the Dreijenseweg. Here are two accounts which shows the difficulty of fighting in the woods, Private Ted Raynolds:
I couldn't see where the Germans were and had to fire at where their fire seemed to be coming from. Things got quite bad. One of the first to be hit was the Number Two on my Bren, Private Ford. Suddenly he laid on the ground, stone dead, with three neat little bullet holes in the throat. Funny enough, he had been a lovely singer. The platoon lost four or five. I remember Dodds being shot in the chest or the neck, and Atkinson was hit in the neck, nut it came out the other side without hitting an artery. I saw him walking back with blood spurting out the side of his neck. They both survived.
A men came out of the woods with his hands up. He claimed to be a glider pilot and certainly wore the glider pilot's equipment. He told us to follow him, saying there were only young Germans ahead and we could easily go and get them. He spoke perfect English, but I was convinced that he was a German because he had come out of the bushes where the Germans were and he went back the same way when we refused to follow him.No one though to stop him.
Martin Middlebrook Arnhem 1944
Private Ron Atkinson was in the same platoon:
Then it happened we walked right into it, fire from above from the flanks, and even behind. My platoon halted and took cover. We saw a figure in khaki running towards us shouting some gibberish about Jerry was here. He turned out to be a glider pilot; he was lucky he didn't get shot from both sides. Then we heard the clatter of tank tracks to our front and flank using the narrow paths among the trees. They let off everything they had at us: small arms fire, armour-piercing shells, high explosive, the lot. Then we had an order to advance at the double no point in waiting to be massacred. We must have advanced about 500 yards when we were ordered to halt and take cover again. I heard my stretcher-bearer pal's Midlands accent asking for assistance, so me, being nosy, crawled over and found him with a arm limp sergeant on the stretcher. The latter was lying face down. I turned him over on his back and proceeded to put my hands under his armpits while Harry held his legs. Then it happened. Something struck me at the back of my neck;it felt like a back heel from a cart-horse. I remember feeling to see whether I still had a head on my shoulders and then looking at my hands and tunic sleeves covered in blood my own blood! I dashed to the rear, to the first aid post, moaning and groaning all the way.
Martin Middlebrook Arnhem 1944
Major Waddy was immediately behind the two platoons leading the attack:
I could hear German armoured vehicles moving up and down the Dreijenseweg, quite a lot of vehicles. You could hear the Germans shouting. Then a twin barreled 20 mm anti-aircraft gun on the road opened up, firing high-explosive shells, and these had a deadly effect, bursting in the trees and flinging out small splinters, so that even though your men were on the ground trying to crawl forward, they were still getting killed or wounded. Both leading platoons were held up at a clearing under cover of some aircraft which came low overhead we thought they were R A F and I went forward with some of my soldiers and Tom Wainwright, the Support Company Commander, to try and knock this 20mm gun out. We got up to within ten paces of it, and the man on my right was just about to throw a phosphorus grenade at it when he was drilled right through the head. What had happened was that there was a man sitting in a tree just above the gun and he was firing down on us. I only had a pistol, instead of the German Schmeisser machine-gun I normally carried. I fired half a magazine at him and missed, and then he hit me. I collapsed and started to crawl out, and he took another shot at me. Then one of my Rhodesian soldiers picked me up and carried me out. That virtually stalled the battalion attack.
Martin Middlebrook Arnhem 1944
The events of that morning became known to Brigadier Hackett and at 2.0 p.m he ordered the battalion to disengage. Casualties had been 50 %. It had been a purely infantry battle. Captain Peter Chard of the Light Regiment had been with Battalion HQ throughout, but the country was so close that he had been unable to give any useful artillery support. Neither had the attached anti-tank troop been able to help; the 6 pounder was not an offensive weapon. The battalion, with only one more or less intact company, pulled back to reorganize and await further orders.
CpI Harry Bankhead
156 Battalion
The Parachute Regiment
It was plain in the first few days that the basic plan, so neat on paper, was deep in trouble. The 2nd Bn had taken the Arnhem bridge, and urgently required reinforcement, but the advance of the 1st and 3rd Bus appeared to be stalled. Worse still, Maj-Gen Urquhart and his senior brigadier Brig Lathbury were missing Brig Hicks, in temporary command, was struggling to maintain the drive on the bridge. Sonic hours earlier he had risked sending the South Staff from the north of the LZ to the town, and he now detached die 11th Bn from newly-arrived 4th Para Bde to sustain the assault. The role of my own unit, the 156 Bn in the brigade, bereft of a third of its strength, was radically altered. There was a delay at the assembly area while 133 Field Ambulance was ready to move with the casualties. Eventually, about 1700 hrs, 156 Bn marched off towards Arnhem, our C Company (1 served in the company signals) being in the lead. Morale, high despite the deteriorating situation, received a boost when a genial Dutch firmer appeared with a horse and cart keen to share in his country's liberation. “Why not,” responded Major Powell, the C Company commander. So we left our heavy packs containing rations and clothing.
On the march, an element of melodrama entered the picture. Prior to the landings certain installations at Woltheze had been bombed and the walls of a lunatic asylum had been breached. These afflicted individuals stumbled along beside us for a distance, with wild eyes, slobbered visage and crude gesticulations. A few ranks behind I could hear Greer the battalion comedian, making quite plausible case that they were the wise people and we were the idiots.
The CO, Lt Col des Voeux, decided to keep the battalion moving after dark. The company commander with his HQ, plus the wireless set, nioved sonic 70 yards behind the leading No 10 platoon. In an ideal situation, a recce vehicle would have probed ahead; here the platoon with two scouts in front had to keep going until they trod on the enemy. An officer belonging to the King's Own Scottish Borderers loomed up in the darkness. Although unclear about the general situation, he provided the highly-unwelcome news that the Germans had established a blocking line on the route ahead. The leading platoon was informed hut otherwise little could be done about it. A few minutes later a familiar figure on a motor cycle pulled up beside me. I recognised Captain Irwin, th e popular Padre of the 11th Bn. A true man of God he had held a special service for Christian soldiers of the 4th Bde on the eve of the operation. He paused and we exchanged a few words, most heart—warming in the tense situation. l)espite the warning about the blocking line he was determined to reach the 11th Bn despatched direct into Arnhem. A handshake and he was off. I sense it was a brave man going to his death.
Suddenly, as we neared the Dreijensche Weg, heavy gunfire rent the eerie stillness. Red and yellow tracer, like fleeting flow-worms, from a machine-gun on fixed lines sparked venomously over our heads. Simultaneously Very lights illuminated die scene; a house deliberately set alight, gave a constant sheen. Meanwhile, Coy HQ had dived for cover in a ditch bordering the track. Positioning the wireless set behind a low bank that appeared bullet-proof, 1 contacted Bn HQ. To the sustained hammering of the Spandaus was added the sharp crack of SP guns with the clump of exploding shells. The lead platoon had taken a few casualties, but the slow beat of two Bren guns showed it had not been wiped out as we had feared.