Colonel Charles Mackenzie was General Urquhart’s chief of staff in Oosterbeek. Mackenzie had been sent south across the Rhine by Urquhart the day before to make clear to General Horrocks of XXX Corps and General Browning how dire the situation in Oosterbeek was. The British commanders at Nijmegen seemed to have no idea of the…
“It was a desperate, terrible day.” General Roy Urquhart drew this conclusion at the end of Sunday, September 24, about the situation in Oosterbeek. After more than a week of continuous fighting and continuous mortar bombardment of the British positions, the airborne troops were close to exhaustion. Because most supplies dropped by the RAF ended…
The British also held out in Oosterbeek on Sunday, September 24. But the price the British paid for this was unprecedentedly high. As a result of the fighting and mortar shelling, approximately 200 British soldiers were killed every day and an estimated 400 soldiers were injured. The wounded could go to the nine emergency hospitals…
After a few hours of sleep, Polish General Sosabowski was woken up on Sunday morning, September 24. Sosabowski had led the crossing of more than 150 Polish paratroopers to the British perimeter at Oosterbeek all night and had gone to bed around dawn. But at 10 o’clock in the morning he was woken up because…
In an attempt to relieve the besieged Airborne Division in Oosterbeek and expand the bridgehead on the north side of the Rhine, General Horrocks, the commander of XXX Corps, ordered a crossing at the Driel ferry on Sunday, September 24. The Westerbouwing was located on the north side of the Drielse veer; a steep hill…
Early in the morning of Monday, September 25, a liaison officer arrived at General Urquhart’s headquarters who had crossed the Rhine during the night to the British perimeter in Oosterbeek. Urquhart received a letter from General Thomas, the commander of the 43rd Division, which was located on the south side of the Rhine. In the…
The pressure from Hitler’s headquarters to destroy the British in the ‘ Hexenkessel ‘, the witches’ cauldron, in Oosterbeek became increasingly greater. On Monday, September 25, the Germans around Oosterbeek did everything they could to deliver the final blow to the British. As on the days before, the Germans bombarded the British positions with everything…
After the decision was made in the early morning of Monday, September 25, to withdraw the remnants of the British Airborne Division, General Urquhart was faced with the question of how to organize the retreat from Oosterbeek. Urquhart feared that the Germans would soon discover that the British were retreating, and that this would lead…
The night of September 25 to 26 seemed to have been made to leave the British perimeter without the Germans realizing this. It rained all night, so sounds could not be heard. Due to the clouds there was no moon, making it very dark that night. General Urquahart had chosen to leave a light screen…
Early in the morning of Tuesday, September 26, General Bittrich, who led the attacks in Oosterbeek, received a telephone call from Field Marshal Walter Model.“Bittrich, when will everything here finally be over?” he wanted to know. The German general replied that the day before he had done everything he could to force a breakthrough in…