Wednesday 3rd November 2010
Arnhem and the Rhine Crossings by Ken Williamson, a member of Ewell Probus
Today we were delighted to hear Ken Williamsons (left) account of his experiences as a mere 22 year old pilot of one the gliders used at Arnhem, this was way back in 1944 and today Ken was able to share his part in the Market Garden Air drop, Ken today showed that a 70 years old memory is still as vivid after all those years.
Ken Williamson is a long standing member of the Ewell Probus Club and we thank him for covering a speaker who had to withdraw at short notice. Ken did not have the opportunity to cover the background of strategies but brought a wealth of printed material which he allowed the web master to use as part of this report, thanks Ken, likewise maps which were only available on the top table!! Have been added
Ken was already in the Army and well trained when he volunteered to join the Army Glider Pilot Regiment, he trained in the UK as a normal pilot but specialising on a variety of different glider types, in all about 150 hours air time.
The Horsa was the primary glider used in the paratrooper landings at both D-Day in June 1944 and Arnhem in September 1944. The company Airspeed received a specification for a glider in December 1940 from the Air Ministry. The Air Ministry had witnessed the success of German troops moved by gliders during the early stages of Blitzkrieg. Five prototype gliders were built at Airspeed’s Portsmouth factory and they were used by the British Army during their trials.
The Horsa was made up of thirty separate parts primarily made out of wood. This allowed Airspeed to subcontract the work with some parts being made by furniture makers! The parts were put together at RAF Maintenance Units. In all, over 3,700 were made the, Horsa I was designed to carry 25 soldiers while the Horsa II had a hinged nose and carried vehicles and guns. Both types of Horsas were almost entirely made of wood. This made the gliders light so it obviously helped their ability to do their job.
The first prototype was towed 1941 by an Armstrong Whitworth Whitley. Very soon after this date, they went into full service with the RAF. During military operations, they were mainly used for the 1st and 6th Airborne Divisions and the pilots were usually from the Army’s Glider Pilot Regiment. Maximum towing speed: 150 mph- gliding speed: 100 mph. Whilst the Horsas were made predominately of wood, it was not balsa wood and the final approach had the characteristic of a flying brick with only one chance of landing, no option of going round again, pretty hair raising.
He piloted a Horsa glider (cockpit shown above) in the second wave and as he started to land in a field of potatoes, he said it came as a shock that once the tow rope had been dropped the tug plane zoomed out of site and took the engine noises away, so all that was heard was the silence of just gliding, BUT the they could hear the sounds of the German Ack Ack guns firing at them and the noise of the shells passing through the wooden structure, this was totally unexpected but after the first wave the Germans were more than ready as a couple of not expected Panzer division were in a rest place near by.
The landing went fine and the platoon (25 men) assembled in a state of relief that the trip was a synch and failed to take precaution and as Ken said a Panzer patrol unexpectantly arrived and all hell broke loose with most of the platoon killed or badly wounded, as Ken said a maelstrom of firing, cordite, mortars and bloody carnage. He not being formally part of the platoon escaped in the confusion and made his way to the command post; he was slightly wounded but stayed in the Harlem area until repatriated.
He casually said the Army he was with were virtually out of ammunition and the food supplies were non existent and they only had water but no food for 7 days, at one stage he was taken into a Army field/casualty shelter and dropped off to sleep, but when he awoke it had been overrun by the Germans, so dropping off to sleep totally exhausted only this time awoke to be back in the British control.
As he was a walking wounded he often was allocated to patrol in no mans land, he recounted various hair raising incidents and blandly said if you did not learn fast the art of patrolling you did not live. He related his contact with escapees and their experience in the hands of both the real soldiers and the SS types as follows:-
Ken related the situation of two British servicemen (Bussell and Cambier both Lieutenants) who had escaped from a train taking them into Germany, and Bussell and Cambier were interrogated by two English-speaking Dutch secret police but, trusting in the rules of the Geneva Convention, gave just their name, rank and army number.
Things could not have been any worse for the two men, for they were now passed into the hands of one of the Sicherheitdienst's most infamous murderers who, wherever they went he left a trail of dead behind, this group were lead by Untersturmfuhrer (2nd lieutenant in the S.S.) Ludwig Heinemann. Cambier and Bussell were taken to the local S.D. headquarters in the Selsham villa in Vorden.
Sicherheitdienst the dreaded SSThey were then taken to Heinemann who accused them of spying and resistance activities, whereupon their hands were tied behind their back and were executed for the spying, Bussell and Cambier. Heinemann, single-handedly, shot them in the head using a captured British stengun. They were buried in the front lawn of the Selsham villa together with the bodies of three Jehovah witnesses who had also been executed. The War Tribunal convicted Ludwig Heinemann and he was duly executed after the war.
Ken answered a wide range of question such as; in the glider was there a lot of turbulence from the slip stream of the propeller driven tug plane? He gave a short resume of how the pilots controlled the gliders to be both in line with the tug but best of all at a higher altitude to avoid being buffeted doubtless as pilot he was busily engaged in activities, but the soldiers in the fuselage on bench seats on each side were doubtless terrified that their only chance of survival was if the glider landed safely, as standard practise they were not issued with parachutes!
The afternoon finished with a Vote of Thanks from Phil Hall who said he was only a teenager at the time, but Ken had done it and not only had the tee shirt but the scar to show, and because of men like Ken we are able to hold onto our freedom so Ken earned a well round of applause.
The following is a brief extract of the material Ken had available, so read on if this interests you?
Arnhem was the main target of Operation Market Garden because it was a good place from where the Ruhr could be assaulted. Also attacking the Ruhr out of Arnhem would bypass the Siegfried line, situated near the border in southwest Germany.
Market Garden (code name) consisted primarily of a Corps and was initially spearheaded by the Guards Armoured Division, with the 43rd Wessex and 50th Northumbrian Infantry Divisions in reserve. They were expected to arrive at the south end of the 101st Airborne Division's area on the first day, the 82nd's by the second day and the 1st's by the fourth day at the latest. The airborne divisions would then join Corps in the breakout from the Arnhem bridgehead.
Four days was a long time for an airborne force to fight unsupported. In addition the Allied paratroopers lacked adequate anti-tank weapons. Even so, before Operation Market Garden started it seemed to the Allied high command that the German resistance had broken, unfortunately two crack Panzer armoured divisions were resting in the Arnhem area, and this had not been picked up by intelligence!!
It was the largest airborne operation of all time; the operation plan's strategic context required the seizure of bridges across the Maas (Meuse River) and two arms of the Rhine (the Waal and the Lower Rhine) as well as several smaller canals and tributaries. Crossing the Lower Rhine would allow the Allies to outflank the Siegfried Line and encircle the Ruhr, Germany's industrial heartland. It made large-scale use of airborne forces whose tactical objectives were to secure a series of bridges over the main rivers of the German-occupied Netherlands and allow a rapid advance by armoured units into Northern Germany.
Initially the operation was successful and several bridges between Eindhoven and Nijmegen were captured. However the ground force's advance was delayed by the demolition of a bridge over the Wilhelmina Canal at Son, delaying the capture of the main road bridge over the Meuse until September 20. At Arnhem the British 1st Airborne Division encountered far stronger resistance than anticipated. In the ensuing battle only a small force managed to hold one end of the Arnhem road bridge and after the ground forces failed to relieve them they were overrun. The rest of the division, trapped in a small pocket west of the bridge, had to be evacuated. The Allies had failed to cross the Rhine in sufficient force, and the Rhine remained a barrier to their advance.
Market Garden would be the largest airborne operation in history, delivering over 34,600 men of the 101st, 82nd and 1st Airborne Divisions and the Polish Brigade. 14,589 troops were landed by glider and 20,011 by parachute. Gliders also brought in 1,736 vehicles and 263 artillery pieces. 3,342 tons of ammunition and other supplies were brought by glider and parachute drop.
The combined force had 1,438 C-47/Dakota transports (1,274 USAAF and 164 RAF) and 321 converted RAF bombers. The Allied glider force had been rebuilt after Normandy until by September 16 it numbered 2,160 CG-4A Waco gliders, 916 Airspeed Horsas as piloted by The Glider Pilot regiment of which Ken was one of the trained plots at the age of only 22 and 64 General Aircraft (Tank carriers) Hamilcars. The U.S. had only 2,060 glider pilots available, so that none of its gliders would have a co-pilot but would instead carry an extra passenger.
Because the C-47s served as paratrooper transports and glider tugs and because Troop Carrier Command would provide all the transports for both British parachute brigades, this massive force could deliver only 60% of the ground forces in one lift. This limit was the reason for the decision to split the troop lift schedule into successive days. Ninety percent of the USAAF transports on the first day would drop parachute troops, with the same proportion towing gliders on the second day (the RAF transports were almost entirely used for glider operations).Brereton rejected having two airlifts on the first day.
September 17 was on a dark moon and in the days following it the new moon set before dark. Allied airborne doctrine prohibited big operations in the absence of all light, so the operation would have to be carried out in daylight. The risk of Luftwaffe interception was judged small, given the crushing air superiority of Allied fighters but there were concerns about the increasing number of flak units in the Netherlands, especially around Arnhem. Brereton's experience with tactical air operations judged that flak suppression would be sufficient to permit the troop carriers to operate without prohibitive loss. The invasion of Southern France had demonstrated that large scale daylight airborne operations were feasible. The time required to assemble airborne units on the drop zone after landing would be reduced by two-thirds.
Horsa being towed by a Stirling BomberCommand's transport aircraft had to tow gliders and drop paratroopers, duties that could not be performed simultaneously. Although every division commander requested two drops on the first day, Brereton's staff scheduled only one lift based on the need to prepare for the first drop by bombarding German flak positions for half a day and a weather forecast on the afternoon of September 16 (which proved erroneous) that the area would have clear conditions for four days, so allowing drops during them
Garden consisted primarily of Corps and was initially spearheaded by the Guards Armoured Division, with the 43rd Wessex and 50th Northumbrian Infantry Divisions in reserve. They were expected to arrive at the south end of the 101st Airborne Division's area on the first day, the 82nd's by the second day and the 1st's by the fourth day at the latest. The airborne divisions would then join Corps in the breakout from the Arnhem bridgehead.
Four days was a long time for an airborne force to fight unsupported. In addition the Allied paratroopers lacked adequate anti-tank weapons. Even so, before Operation Market Garden started it seemed to the Allied high command that the German resistance had broken.
Highway 69 (later nicknamed "Hell's Highway") leading through the planned route was two lanes wide, generally raised above the surrounding flat terrain of polder. The ground on either side of the highway was in places too soft to support tactical vehicle movement and there were numerous dykes and drainage ditches. Dykes tended to be topped by trees or large bushes and roads and paths were lined with trees. In early autumn this meant that observation would be seriously restricted.
Major efforts to re-open the rail network were started, and by the end of August, 18,000 men, including 5,000 prisoners of war, were engaged on railway construction. After many delays, the first trainload of supplies reached the US Third Army depot at Le Mans on 17 August. But these efforts were far too late to have any effect on the battles taking place after Operation Cobra and the subsequent breakout into France. Instead, all supplies for the armies had to be carried forward by truck, and there were simply not enough trucks for this effort. Advancing divisions US 12th Army Group left all their heavy artillery and half their medium artillery west of the Seine, freeing their trucks to move supplies for other units. The 21st Army Group stripped two of its divisions of their transport, and four British truck companies were loaned to the Americans.
As the Allied pursuit across France and Belgium continued, distances increased beyond the range of a single truck, requiring fuel to be brought forward in those trucks to re-fuel operations further from the ports. Fuel consumption soared. Soon it took five times as much fuel to deliver supplies than was actually delivered. By 28 August the Communications Zone could no longer guarantee fuel deliveries and both the US First and Third Armies reported less than a day's supply on hand. Furthermore, the stripping of the armies of their own transport had the effect of seriously slowing their own manoeuvrability.
On 30 August, the drastic step was taken to suspend imports entirely; 21st Army Group would draw on its reserves in Normandy until the ports of Dieppe and Boulogne could be opened. The situation was exacerbated by the fact that 1,400 British three-ton trucks were found to be useless because of faulty pistons in their engines - they could have moved 800 tons per day, enough for two divisions. Offensive operations slowed to a standstill, giving the German forces their first respite in weeks.
There are many books written about Harlem, mainly by historians sitting in comfort well after the events, some put the battle as a failure, others stated part of a normal battle, gains and losses etc, was it as reported just A Bridge Too Far whatever the pundits claim, Ken can claim he was part of the real thing, with a the confusion, noise, smell, horrors and human tragedy of war that will live with him forever.
