Market Garden: A Bridge Too Far
I was close enough to the exit to see outside. Being second in line had its advantages, as the sight was magnificent. Bullets ricocheted off of the steel as the ground fire intensified even more. C-47s filled the air at every altitude. As we neared our objective all hell broke loose when suddenly every Flak unit in the area opened fire at the tightly packed formation. We watched as several planes took a hit and plummeted to the ground as massive fireballs. Suddenly the whole plane shook violently as a shell ripped straight through the floor and right out again through the roof. We heard groaning and a trooper further down the line collapsed as he clenched a hole in his stomach, trying desperately to stop the bleeding. We hadn't even jumped when the bloodshed began…
Our parade through Paris had been grand, and it was indeed a beautiful city. Well, what was left of it was. Tucker and I had joined the Paratroopers. The 101st 'Screaming Eagles' Airborne. The recruitment officers were quite happy to see us, but the troopers themselves gave us a cold welcome. We didn't get along too well, and they kept ignoring us as best they could. On one occasion Tucker couldn't take it anymore and started a fight. There was two of us, and ten of them. Imagine the outcome. They did open up a bit more after that, though, it took quite some courage to stand up to them and they seemed to know that. They told us about their share in the D-Day landings, and we told them about ours. It didn't take long to break the ice after that and we quickly became part of the unit.
Several days later we were redirected further North. Rumors traveled fast among us, and new rumors made their way to our quarters. It claimed Allied Command was planning a major offensive on a Dutch city. The reason was simple: the city held an important strategic value. It held a bridge. Ever since France was liberated the war went into overdrive. In only weeks Monty and Patton had driven the Germans back across the rivers in the Netherlands and back over their own borders. There was just one little problem: how to get over those rivers ourselves. Rivers can easily be used as natural barriers to stop tanks and trucks. Foot soldiers could swim across, but without our armor the Germans would pick them apart. That's where we came in. If the rumors were true, we would be dropped behind the enemy lines and of course, the river. We'd then take the Dutch town of Arnhem with its bridge, and hold it until our ground forces crossed it. Pretty simple, one might think, but we were in for quite a surprise when we got there. A very bloody one…
"Pack your stuff people, we're moving out!" A Captain yelled at us. Tucker and I were quick to pack and made our way out of the barrack with the others. Outside we all lined up for one final inspection. Today was the day, today we'd make history, or so we thought. After all the planning and practice, we weren't so sure of ourselves than we were when we first heard the rumor. It had all seemed too easy, but it turned out to be quite a complicated plan. The airborne army wouldn't just be us, it would contain the 82nd Airborne as well, and the British, and some Poles even. Together our group was huge, and it made me wonder if we even had enough planes to drop us all. This proved not to be an issue, as we were marched to the airstrip. Dozens of C-47s were lined up there and were being fueled as we boarded them. I was told there were dozens of these airstrips scattered all over Belgium and Northern France. As we settled into our assigned seats the engines burst to life and the plane began taxiing towards the runway. My seat was the second one from the door on my side. One by one the planes took off and set course for our intended drop-zone. While airborne we barely felt we were moving and minutes after departure several troopers began to sing. It was our way of killing time, for we knew it'd take a while to reach our destination. It didn't take long for everyone to join in and all thoughts of the upcoming battle were banned from our minds.
About an hour later pretty much everyone had dozed off. We were suddenly awoken when the red light lit up and the jumpmasters started yelling orders. We then heard a beeping sound and the pilot started to speak. "Good morning everyone, this is your pilot speaking. We are approaching the drop-zone, please unfasten your seatbelts and stand up. Thank you." We stood up when the jumpmasters opened the large doors in the side of the plane, just as we flew over our lines and Germans started firing randomly at our planes from below.
I was close enough to the exit to see outside. Being second in line had its advantages, as the sight was magnificent. Bullets ricocheted off of the steel as the ground fire intensified even more. C-47s filled the air at every altitude. As we neared our objective all hell broke loose when suddenly every Flak unit in the area opened fire at the tightly packed formation. We watched as several planes took a hit and plummeted to the ground as massive fireballs. Suddenly the whole plane shook violently as a shell ripped straight through the floor and right out again through the roof. We heard groaning and a trooper further down the line collapsed as he clenched a hole in his stomach, trying desperately to stop the bleeding. We hadn't even jumped when the bloodshed began. The jumpmaster on my side quickly started giving out orders again and we slowly resettled in what was now a routine. As I checked the chute of the guy in front of me to see if it was attached and well I felt someone else tug on mine. The red light started flashing and the jumpmasters gave the 'get ready' order. The trooper in front of me turned towards the exit and waited. The light went dark and the green one next to it flashed on. "Go!" And there he went. I turned in as I was next in line. "Go!"
I barely heard the 'o' as I was halfway out of the plane by then. As my chute opened up the air current from the left engine caught it and harshly tugged me backwards. I was now sailing in the air, like my practice jumps. The difference was people were shooting at me now. I watched in awe as I took in the sight before me. The sky was filled with planes, parachutes and flak. I could see tracer rounds shoot past me and I looked up, hoping my canopy wasn't ripped by those last bullets. I looked up just in time to see the rounds cutting through the wing of the C-47 that dropped me and my teammates. I could see how it veered off to the left as the pilot lost control and then it started spinning as it spiraled down and crashed on top of an Anti-Aircraft gun. Fitting how the bastards who shot it down were the ones who became victim of its crash. I was getting close to the ground now, and I assumed the pose I had learned during my short training as I hoped it would work.
I hit the ground feet first with a solid thud and let myself fall and roll to soften the impact. Pulling down my chute I rid myself of the harness and assembled my M1. Several others made their way towards me and together we headed towards our main objective, Arnhem. The town lay a few kilometers to the south. We decided to close the gap quick, so we marched at a running pace. After a few minutes we had to dodge a falling plane, and our direct route to the city was cut off by a blazing fire. We rounded the plane quickly, at a safe distance, and saw Germans flushing out of the city. They were headed for us, so we dropped down on the floor and lay out crossfire, catching quite a few off-guard. The others were quick to spot us, however, and returned fire with their MP40's. Though horribly inaccurate, it diverted our attention long enough to keep us from spotting a tank leaving the city, and pointing its cannon towards us. We didn't know it was there until it started shooting shell after shell at our positions. There weren't even supposed to be tanks here, so its presence amazed us all. As we watched in horror more tanks started rolling out of the town. The second wave of planes arrived just then and some of them dropped their troopers straight amidst the Germans. Most were cut down in the air, but some landed and offered fierce resistance. This was our cue, and we stormed the Germans, not caring about the tanks. After killing the soldiers we tossed grenades at, on, under and into the tanks, destroying every single one. It was then that we noticed something.
"This is a freakin' SS Panzer division! They shouldn't even be here!" One of our officers yelled after a closer inspection of the German corpses. Several sarcastic 'great' and 'just our luck' cries were heard before our captain started forcing us into the town. We didn't feel like taking on tanks with nothing but light arms, but we knew we had to. Once inside, a bitter street-to-street fight started. This quickly changed in house-to-house combat as the German defenders learned of our presence. And in the end it resulted in us trying to take each house room by room. One of the goons really pissed us off by destroying our only rocket launcher, a captured Panzerschreck, with a bullet straight on the fire button. Unintentionally killing himself when the thing fired and he ate the rocket. This convinced me rockets taste bad, though I luckily never had the pleasure of finding out first hand. After staring at the pair of bloody boots before us for a moment, we moved on to the next house. We ran into some British troopers in there and they agreed to tag along, seeing as we had the same objective anyway. We didn't realize it, but the tanks we saw outside the town were now inside, and when we crossed the street to the next row of houses one of the behemoths fired at us. The resulting explosion killed a few and wounded others. Tucker and I cursed under our breath as we looked back at the street which was littered with body-parts. Our squad was now cut in three. One third made it to the house, one third was dead or wounded and the other third was still in the house we came from. They signaled us to cover them while they crossed, so we bashed a few windows and started shooting the German soldiers who were attracted by the explosion. By now the tank had reloaded and was waiting for the others to make their crossing attempt. One of them ran out on the road to get it to fire, but the tank waited to see if anyone else came. Apparently its commander didn't want to waste a shell on a single soldier. Seeing this was the case, the others tried to come over one at a time, but only three managed before the commander lost patience and manned one of the machineguns on the top of his tank and perforated the fourth crosser. Tucker saw this as his chance as he leaned out of his window and shot the guy clean in the forehead. It would've worked too, if he wasn't wearing a helmet. Dozed by the sudden impact, the commander lost his balance and fell out of the tank. We watched in amazement as he immediately started yelling "Nicht schießen, nicht schießen!" (Don't shoot, don't shoot!) Obviously seeing Tucker's M1 pointed at him. While doing so he started climbing his tank in a feeble attempt of survival. Tucker never gave him the time as he shot him again, this time aiming for the torso. The German's body shook for a moment before collapsing again, this time for good. The tank crew obviously didn't like this as they let their gun sway and rest firmly on Tucker's window. We all started yelling "Get out!" as loud as we could and Tucker jumped from the first floor just in time to cover his head from falling debris. One of the Brits took his chance and quickly disposed of the tank crew after jumping down the hatch. We heard some shooting and muffled screams from the inside and he emerged again seconds later.
Hours later we reached the all important bridge. Well defended as it was, we had to wait for more troops to arrive before we could make our move. At around nightfall we felt like we had enough men so we took positions, preparing to rush the bridge. Not only did we have to succeed in capturing the bridge, but we also had to keep the Germans from blowing it up. If they blew the bridge the entire operation would be nothing but a waste of lives. Suddenly we rushed forward while yelling a battle cry. The Germans were caught off guard and started to run for the other end. We chased them down the bridge, but several machineguns were waiting for us. We ducked behind what little cover was available and returned fire the best we could. I capped a few Germans, but more took their places. This rush had failed and it didn't take long before the order to retreat was given. As Tucker and I gave covering fire the others retreated several meters and gave us cover while we did the same. We took up positions in the houses at our end of the bridge. The Germans tried to retake their earlier positions, but from our houses we could pick them off one at a time. Nevertheless things looked pretty bad for us. The enemy had tanks, and we were running out of grenades. Grenades weren't the only things in short supply, we were depleting our ammo fast and if we didn't get any soon we'd only have our knives left. At day break this huge tank appeared out of nowhere. I recognized its structure as that of a Tiger tank and watched as one of the most dreaded monsters of the war rolled straight at us. We did the only thing we could, we panicked. People were frantically searching for any grenades we might have left, but we couldn't find any. The huge tank tilted its 88mm canon up towards our window and we rushed for the stairs. Ducking behind anything that even closely resembled cover we held our breath. Nothing came. Confused I walked over to the door and slowly poked my head out. Hanging out of the hatch laughing his head off was a Paratrooper. We didn't think it was funny and we let him know it. He explained him and his mates had captured this tank on some Germans near the town entrance. We quickly forgave his tasteless prank after we realized we now had something to fight back with. They got to use it almost instantly, for the Germans must've thought it was theirs. They came out to drive us out of the house, only to freeze when the tank's 88mm turned to face them instead. One of them started shooting at the tank with his Mauser, but seemed to forget the bullets just bounced off the armor. One shot killed the lot of them; we didn't even have to move a muscle.
Armed with our tank we stormed the bridge again, making quick work of the machinegun nests at the other side. Now all we had to do was hold the bridge until our own armored unit could reach us. Sounds easy enough, right? Not really, as the Germans rallied their tanks and drove us right out of the town. Losses on our side were mounting, and our ammo was running low. Top of it all, we hadn't had a decent meal since we got here. Our radioman was trying to contact HQ to arrange a supply drop and after dozens of tries he finally got through. About an hour later we heard planes coming in and we stared up at the sky. Those C-47s had never looked this good before. We continued to stare as several boxes were dropped from them, with parachutes attached. We watched as they slowly fell to the ground. The wind picked up and we continued to watch as the crates slowly drifted away… towards the German lines. They got our food. Not long after we got the order to retreat. Not to new positions, but across the river, back to our own lines.
We waited until midnight to start crossing the river. We used small inflatable rafts to sit in, but we had no paddles, so one of us had to swim to the other side carrying a rope. Then we pulled ourselves across using the rope. Tucker and I were good three-quarters into the crossing when the Germans shot several flares into the sky above us. It didn't take them long to spot our chain of rafts and they fired at us with machineguns. The bullets tore right through the rubber and everywhere rafts were starting to deflate and sink. We pulled as many people into our raft as we could before we started pulling again. The guy next to me groaned loudly and fell back into the water. I could just see the red stains on his uniform before he went under. We reached the other bank and looked back at the carnage. Something deep inside me told me the Germans must've known about our midnight exodus, but I wisely kept my mouth shut.
Our hardship wasn't at an end just yet, as we had to fight our way back to our lines while being chased by a whole German division. If only the ground forces would've pushed through to Arnhem, maybe this would've had some use. Now all it was was senseless bloodshed and a waste of men and equipment. This major defeat set back the end of the war by another year, if not longer. Germany celebrated as we mourned our losses. We didn't know, but the worst was yet to come…
AN: Ok, I know I said this chapter would at least feature the start of the Bulge, but as you can see it didn't. I had no choice, this chapter counted almost 3200 words, and I believe I rushed the ending, so it could've well been longer. In my opinion it would've been too big, so I chose not to start the Bulge just yet. I don't know an awful lot about Market Garden, but this is what I came up with. Most of the stuff I got from things I've read and movies I've seen, but other then that it is my imagination. In my opinion this battle has been vastly overlooked by historians, as it was indeed nothing more but pointless bloodshed, fueled by Monty's (I think it was his idea, but not sure) ambition to end the war in 1944. It was a massive sacrifice of men and material with the sole purpose of bringing the war to Germany. If it hadn't failed I might've understood what drove the planners, but it failed miserably so I can feel no sympathy towards those men. The blood of many is on their hands.
Rest assured though, the Battle of the Bulge WILL be fought in the next chapter. If you think this chapter was too long, tell me and I'll split long chapters up in the future to ease your reading.
WeirdDutchGuy