Captured at Arnhem: From Railwayman to Paratrooper by Norman Hicks

Author:Norman Hicks [Hicks, Norman]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Captivity, Biographies & Memoirs, World War 2
ISBN: 9781783030330
Amazon: 178303033X
Goodreads: 19157158
Publisher: Pen & Sword
Published: 2014-01-02T10:00:00+00:00

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From then onwards we did not see any more of our troops, and there were now only three of us with Captain Cox. Moving away from the bridge, we went along the river bank for about a mile to see if we could get across and back to our troops on the other side. However, we were unable to cross as the river was too wide and the opposite bank was now thick with Germans who were crossing in boats.

We were trapped, and the only option to extricate ourselves was to climb away from the river and up into the hills and then to try to work our way around the German troop concentration. We climbed a hill and threaded our way down the other side into a valley where we came across a wide, dry irrigation ditch about the size of a canal. After following this for a while we saw a large, stone farmhouse on a rise in the middle distance, and as it was a large building we decided to give it a wide berth, reasoning that it was probably occupied by Germans or Italians.

Continuing along the ditch, we came to a vast orange grove. The trees were about 8ft high and covered in unripe fruit and stretched for as far as the eye could see. Beneath the trees the grass was dry and standing about 2ft high so we crawled in to get our bearings. It was then that we heard the dogs. Looking through the grass, we could see a party of Germans with three Doberman-type dogs on long leads walking along the top of the ditch from the direction that we had just come. The dogs were straining on their leads and baying and we presumed that they must be following us. Ropey uttered a ‘bloody hell’ in a forced whisper and momentarily pausing said, ‘Hicks, if they see us, you get the dogs, we’ll handle the lads … just get the bloody dogs, we don’t want them in among us’. I’d been given the job because I had my Bren gun sited on them and the Bren is a much heavier and effective weapon than a Sten.

We lay still watching as they came closer, and the dogs continued to bark but they stayed on top of the bank. Fortunately, they carried on straight past. The dogs appeared to have been attracted by something other than us, and straining they eventually made their way up to the farmhouse.

It was July and stinking hot, and we were getting short of water, mine having previously disappeared down my leg from the crack in my bottle. In addition, we hadn’t slept for a couple of days and had eaten only hard rations. In the distance we could hear the firing and assumed that something was still going on, but we didn’t want to move on in daylight as the dogs and Germans were still at the farmhouse and would surely spot us. We were still not certain if they were hunting for us specifically or paratroops in general.

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