ARNHEM – It is a bizarre story, but it is true. A month after the end of Market Garden, six American soldiers were ordered to take two German prisoners of war north of the Rhine. The patrol returned a day later with 32 German prisoners of war. (By: Patrick Arink) The bizarre exploration took place…
After the fighting in Oosterbeek had subsided and the remnants of the British airborne division had withdrawn across the Rhine, the Germans made a special discovery. Among the British soldiers who remained in Oosterbeek was also a French sailor. The French sailor was found on Tuesday morning, September 26, at the Oude Kerk on the…
While the British airborne division had long since been defeated and Arnhem had been evacuated by order of the Germans, there was still one British soldier in the city center of Arnhem. He managed to stay out of the hands of the Germans until the liberation in April 1945. This is the remarkable story of…
It was an Arab war cry that was regularly heard during the battle of the Battle of Arnhem. From a foxhole in Oosterbeek or a besieged house around the Rhine Bridge in Arnhem, “Whoa Mohammed” was suddenly shouted very loudly. When one of the British soldiers shouted the battle cry, it was immediately taken up…
Many personal accounts have been written from the English side in which soldiers describe their experiences during the Battle of Arnhem. Much less attention is paid to the Battle of Arnhem through German eyes. Below is the story of the German Colonel Walter Harzer. Harzer was commander of the 9th SS Division Hohenstaufen and played…
The story of General Hackett’s escape is exemplary of the courage of the Dutch resistance to help English soldiers stranded during the Battle of Arnhem. Brigadier General John ‘Shan’ Hackett was wounded in Oosterbeek on September 24, 1944. Hackett ended up in the Elisabeth Gasthuis. With the help of the resistance, he was able to…
Major Stanley C. Panter was one of the British paratroopers who fought at the Rhine Bridge during the Battle of Arnhem. After the war, Panter wrote an extensive battle report. In this factual and blood-curdling story of 4,000 words, Panter meticulously recounts his experiences from the airborne landings on Sunday, September 17, 1944 to the…
When it comes to the mistakes made during the Battle of Arnhem, it is often only about the British blunders. And rightly so, because there are quite a few. What receives much less attention is that a few major mistakes were also made on the German side during the course of the fighting. Waal Bridge…
Immediately after the landings at Wolfheze, the British troops were confronted with a problem that they had to deal with for days: poor communication via the radios. Two things are often mentioned as the main reason for the poorly functioning radios: the radios were equipped with the wrong crystals and the wooded area of Arnhem…
In essence, the plans for Operation Market Garden boiled down to the idea of dropping more than 10,000 soldiers 70 miles behind the front line and race towards them as quick as possible with tanks in two days. As it turned out, Market Garden was far too ambitious. The resistance of the German troops turned…