The experiences of that first major resupply operation were repeated in most of its details on the following day. The Aircraft involved were 100 Stirlings and 64 Dakotas, from the same squadrons that flown the preevious day. The outward flight proceeded well. Only one aircraft, a Stirling of 196 Squadron, was lost, crashlanding among friendly forces in the airborne corridor with no casualties. The location of the new dropping point requested by 1st Airborne had reached England; it was a road junction 200 yards west of the Hartenstien. But the planners only sent 131 aircraft to that place; the remainder, 33 Stirlings, were sent to LZ-Z, the large open area south-west of Wolfheze used as a glider landing zone on the first day of the Arnhem operation. The reason for this division of effort may have been to avoid congestion over the main dropping zone, but LZ-Z was two miles from the nearest part of the Oosterbeek perimeter and all of supplies dropped there fell into German hands. Two Stirlings were lost from that part of the operation.
The aircraft in the main drop met the usual heavy anti-aircraft fire and exact dropping point was not easy to spot. Warrant Officer Bernard Harvey, in a 299 Squadron Stirling, say; 'We were briefed to drop on orange candles but we found orange all over the place. So we just pitched the stuff where we though best as long as it was on the far side of the Rhine. The was the best we could do.' Warrant Officer Arthur Batten in a 190 Squadron Stirling: Things had changed dramatically and recognittion from aircraft was practically impossible. You could see men waving and sheets being laid out but you had lost them in the smoke or woods by the time you came round again to drop.' Warrant Officer Joe Corless, in 299 Stirling, describes tyical difficulties:
We got a very hot reception with all kinds of rubbish coming up at us. The Skipper was taking violent evasive action. We managed to drop the containers, but one of the hampers jammed in the hatch and the wireless operator and flight engineer were jumping up and down on it in an effort to free it when we were hit in both elevators, rear turret and fuselage, with both rear gunner and flight engineer being wounded, fortunately, not too seriously. Combined with evasive action, we were by now in a very unhealthy nose-up attiude, with both pilot and myself doing our utmost to raise the air speed, which was fast approaching stalling speed. We managed to achieve this, got rid of the hamper and limped home feeling that it had been our lucky day.
Martin Middlebrook Arnhem 1944
Other crews were not so fortunate. Eight of the lumbering Stirlings and two Dakotas were shot down around Oosterbeek or were so badly damaged that they crashed while flying back down the airborne corridor. There was an unusual further aircraft casualty. A photographic-reconnaissance Spitfire of 16 Squadron, based near Amiens, had been detailed to photograph the supply drop. But the Spitfire was hit by flak, and its pilot, Flight Lieutenant Gerry Bastow, had to crash-land among the gliders on one of the landing zones. He managed to avoid capture.
The surviving aircraft flew home. Three more Stirlings were so badly damaged that they had to force-land in Belgium, and another carried back to Keevil a dead bomb aimer Flying Officer Karl Ketcheson a Canadian, who refused to release the supply containers on the first pass over the dropping point because he could not be sure they would fall in the correct place and was killed on the second run by the only bullet which struck the Stirling.
It had been another day of heavy loss. Twelve Stirlings and two Dakotas were lost, 8.5 per cent of despatched. No 196 Squadron at Keevil lost six of the seventeen Stirlings in despatched, but most of the crews were safe. One of those in the lost aircraft was a Daily Telepraph correspondent, Mr Townshend, flying in a 190 Squadron Stirling, but he also avoided capture. This was, however, one of the most successful of the air-supply operations, with a reasonable proportion of the supplies, although still less than half, being recovered by the troops at Oosterbeek.
On Tuesday, September 19th 1944, after an uneventful flight, as the plane,
Stirling Aircraft 'X9C', was climbing, in a bid to clear the landing zone
near Oosterbeek, after having dropped supplies to the beleaguered airborne
troops, who were striving to hold on to the vital battle zones which they
so tenuously occupied, all hell broke loose; the air, which had been comparatively
calm, was suddenly alive with life-threatening anti-aircraft missiles;
was this to be the end of the road for the crew and their passengers ?
This had been Walter Tee's ninth mission since joining his Squadron on 9th August 1944. On his previous assignments he had been involved in dropping agents and supplies to the underground forces in occupied territory and on one previous trip, dropping a SAS force into a paddock in Germany itself. The day before, September 18th, he was part of the airborne Armada which dropped the 2nd airborne lift, which he describes in the following terms, "There was absolutely no opposition, it was a breeze; fighter cover, very very little in the way of flak, but some in the distance. A few gliders came adrift and things like that. The show was wonderfully orchestrated. As we were flying across the English Channel there were air/sea rescue boats on the sea below us. I remember seeing one glider come adrift from the aircraft, it just floated down to the sea and the survivors virtually walked straight out of the glider into a rescue craft.
So we took our glider and troops to their landing and dropping zones without hassle. It was the most amazing sight from about two to three hundred feet, which was the height at which we flew. There was this multitude of gliders in the air, with others on the ground, Hamilcars and the like, most of them broken in half, because they actually explode a charge in the aircraft and the back comes off, so that they can get out their jeeps, or whatever, more easily. There were virtually hundreds and hundreds of parachutes in the air at the same time; some with parachutists, others, multi-coloured, with supplies. The colours of the 'chutes determined it's cargo, the sort of supplies and for whom they were destined. It was like being at a wedding, with confetti in the air."
The following day however saw Walter Tee and the other members of the aircrew actively involved in the ground battle. Suddenly the plane lurched from the impact of an anti-aircraft missile, shortly after having dropped it's supplies from a height of about three hundred feet. The aircraft rudder had been hit and the whole of the port mainplane burst into flames. Try as he might the pilot could not gain altitude, "I will have to put it down !", he informed the crew and spotting a reasonably clear landing area he manoeuvred the plane down and within a period of three minutes or less they crash landed and the aircraft broke up. They had landed in a field with the bomb bays open; the aircraft acted like a plough and the inside was suddenly full of dust and debris. The two air dispatchers who had been pushing the supplies through the open bomb bays were observed unsuccessfully struggling to don parachutes after being hit and were now nowhere to be seen, presumably they must have perished.
The crew exited the aircraft, which was now burning fiercely, via the hatch over the pilot's seat. They hit the ground and saw enemy troops emerge from the woods about a hundred yards or so away. As they ran towards the aircrew they were firing their weapons and after surrounding them demanded that they surrender. Having no other option they complied with this demand and were marched away to a small, two-storey house, which was presumably a command post. They were relieved of their personal effects, watches, escape gear, etc. Given some food and wine, throughout the night they listened to the sounds of battle nearby. The following day they, together with perhaps fifty or sixty other captives, were marched to the railway marshalling yards two or three kilometres from the centre of Arnhem.
Their journey from Arnhem to their next destination, a Dulag Luft, which was a Luftwaffe interrogation centre, was a nightmare. Herded into cattle trucks, so crowded that they were forced to travel standing up, they endured a horrific journey lasting five or six days, with only meagre issues of bread and a little water to sustain them. The truck had only two small windows, one at each end and a timber slatted floor, with gaps about two inches wide. The sides of the truck were solid so that for the whole journey they travelled in darkness. All their bodily functions took place within the confines of the truck and the tin for urine had to be emptied through the gaps in the floor. To add to their misery twice the train was strafed by allied aircraft.
After their arrival at the interrogation centre they were confined for a period in individual cells. Unwashed and scruffy after their week long captivity they were, one by one, escorted to a room where they were interrogated. Walter was astonished to find that not only did they know the name of his CO, whose plane had burst into flames and disintegrated just before Walter's own plane was hit, but the names of other aircrew on the station. After two or three more days of solitary confinement they were transferred to a transit camp where the Red Cross supplied them with a blanket each, greatcoats, razors, toothbrushes, etc.
They were now separated from their officers, who were taken to Offlag One, in north-east Germany, near the Baltic. Walter and the other remaining aircrew were transported on civilian trains to their destination in south-east Silesia. They were grateful that they were accompanied by German guards because the civilian population were very hostile, spitting, gesticulating and uttering curses as they passed.
On arrival in early October 1944, just days before Walter's 21st birthday, they were accommodated in a sleeping apartment which was a large box-like structure. After two days, or so, they were transferred to Stalag-Luft 7, a recently established, permanent camp, where life became more bearable. Every camp hut contained individual rooms with a passage way down the middle. Each room was occupied by four or five persons. Walter's companions were fortunately all fellow Australians. He particularly remembers during one 'appel', which was a daily head count, being wished a happy, 21st birthday. Camp life at first was tolerable, but after two or three months, rapidly deteriorated. A lack of coal with which to stoke up the room heaters during the freezing, wintry conditions, found them burning their bed boards one by one, making their sleeping conditions, precariously balanced on two or three narrow bed boards, instead of the mandatory eight, at the very least, uncomfortable and in many cases unbearable.
Food was strictly rationed and was supplemented on two occasions by a sixth of a Red Cross parcel for each prisoner. However, the daily ration during the final stages of their stay in Stalag-Luft 7 typically consisted of a portion of German bread, about three quarters of an inch wide, from a loaf which was smaller than the English variety, a mug of watery-like turnip soup, occasionally containing a vestige of meat and a cup of ersatz coffee or mint tea, which was horrible, but at least hot.
On 17th January 1945 they were instructed to prepare to leave the camp. Two days later, in the middle of the night, with the weather unbearably cold, they began a march during which many of the prisoners perished. The marchers took as many of their meagre possessions as they could carry, but gradually, as they grew weaker, shed their burden as the long march progressed. Walter, who had grown a moustache for, as it turned out, the only time in his life, suffering from the effects of the march, found his misery further intensified when the drippings from his nose, due to a cold, on contact with his moustache, turned to ice.
They would march for an hour, then break for a ten minute rest. About halfway through the march, Walter was so weak and weary that, laying down on the road, he went to sleep in the snow. It is recorded that in many similar situations, the Germans left the sleeper to perish in the snow, but in Walter's case he was possibly placed on one of the wagons at the head of the march.
He has no recollection at all of the rest of the journey, which ended with an appalling three day train journey in apparently horrendous conditions to Stalag 3A, near Potsdam.
His vague recollection of conditions at this Stalag were of four hundred or so bodies lying on a concrete floor in an open factory-like building; so tightly packed that when one person turned over, his immediate neighbours had to turn also. He also vaguely recalls the daily routine of delousing, taking off one's clothes and searching for mites.
Then towards the end of March 1945 they could hear the sounds of battle getting closer each day, complemented by aerial strafing, until on 24th or 25th, the camp which had been deserted by the German guards, was liberated by the Russians. The elements of this liberating force were ruthless; they assumed that the Allied POWs, now freed, would take up arms and join them in the ground battle for Berlin and in the case of the liberated Russian POWs, a refusal to fight resulted in execution.
Then one day, just after VE Day, suddenly, unannounced, a convoy of American troops arrived at the camp. The POWs were then driven to a US artillery base. Deloused, fed and rested, after 24 hours they were flown, via Belgium and Holland to UK, arriving there on 15th May 1945.
On arrival back in Melbourne, Australia, they were given VIP treatment, culminating with transportation by Red Cross cars past a multitude of cheering, flag waving onlookers, to the famous Melbourne Cricket Ground, where they were welcomed home by family and relations.
My Thanks to Debbie Walker for her help with this
Having taken off from Keevil at 14.30 hours moments behind Pilot Officer Kirkham's aircraft was 570 Squadron's LJ 991 with fuselage code E7-'W' 3 3, crewed by: Flying Officer Clifton Beck, RCAF , pilot, Flight Sergeant Simon Cormier, RCAF, navigator, Flight Sergeant John 'Jock' McGarrie, Flight Engineer, Sergeant Sidney Wheatley, Wireless Operator, Flight Sergeant Erle 'Bubby' Milks. RCAF, Bomb Aimer, and Flight Sergeant Harold Stell, RCAF, rear gunner. The two airbornewere from 253 Airborne Composite Company, RCAF. Only one of their identities is known; Driver Cyril Lightwood.
Flying Officer Beck and his crew were one of four replacement crews and arrived on the Squadron the day before and today's sortie was their first trip to Arnhem. Hit by flak over DZ at almost the same time as Pilot Officer Kirkham's aircraft. LJ 991 turned to port, flew in a southerly direction and just managed to cross the river Rhine. One of the Army air despatchers and the wireless operator, Flight Sergeant Wheatley baled out of the aircraft. It is assumed that all the others remained in the aircraft, unable to jumpdue to the low altitude of the aircraft.
After the war Sidney Wheatley wrote to Irene Milks Sheridan, sister of Erle Milks, that he was the only one to parachute from the aircraft ( he did not witness one of the air despatchers baling out from the rear fuselage, AJvH) as he was in the crash position in the nose of the aircraft when the pilot gave the order to jump. The aircraft was very low and he was amazed that the parachute had time to open.
A Dutch farmer. Mr Van Ree, living near the village of Heteran, witness the aircraft coming from the direction of Renkum. The aircraft was on fire and looked like it would crash on the farm. Mr Van Ree and his family quickly fled into the fields. The pilot pulled the plane up just before hitting the farm but the aircraft then stalled and crashed 500 meters further on. The heavy impact threw the pilot, Flying Officer Beck, out of his cockpit. Although badly wounded by shrapnel in one leg and having broken his other leg in two places Beck survived.
Regrettably the navigator, flight engineer, bomb amier, rear gunner, and one of the air despatchers were all killed in the crash. The now rest at General Cemetery at Heteren.
Information from Green On and Photos care of Chris Petter
