Magnificent Disaster by David Bennett

Author:David Bennett [Bennett, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Operation Market Garden, 82nd All American Airborne, US Army, Airborne, WWII, ETO, eBook
ISBN: 9781932033854
Google: QIQ_0WtkGjYC
Goodreads: 11160086
Publisher: Casemate
Published: 2008-01-02T08:00:00+00:00

When the attack on the bridges began, Harmel moved rapidly from Pannerden to Lent, where he observed the first British tanks crossing the road bridge. He attempted to blow the bridge after the first few tanks had crossed but this was abortive. Since Lieutenant Jones had removed the demolition charges only after Sergeant Robinson’s troop had crossed, the wires must have already been destroyed either by artillery fire or by the Dutch Resistance. Some of the Dutch claimed that the wires for the demolition charges were destroyed on D+1 by a twenty-two year old student, Jan van Hoof, who worked in intelligence for the Resistance. Van Hoof was killed on D+2 while escorting the British to the rail bridge to destroy the demolition charges. Exactly what van Hoof achieved is uncertain; that he was a hero of the Dutch Resistance, there is no doubt.

The fact that Harmel was defying Model’s orders is of no consequence since Model was not one to insist on the letter of his law and he had in any case complete confidence in Harmel. Orders to hold or destroy the Nijmegen bridge were received the next day. By then, Harmel had moved back to Bemmel, the new HQ of Kampfgruppe Reinholt. His worst fears had come true. Despite his initial order not to destroy the Nijmegen bridge, he never believed in holding a line south of the Waal and would have preferred to destroy the bridges and establish a strong defense line on the north bank. For XXX Corps, the German failure to destroy the Nijmegen bridge was a stroke of good fortune.

From Bemmel, Harmel organized the defense of the Island, to prevent the British from reaching the Lower Rhine. His main resources came from the Pannerden Canal crossing. Some units were already on the west bank of the canal when they were called upon to move, not to Nijmegen, but to a defense line centring on Elst. While the Guards dallied, Harmel had, by the afternoon of D+4, established a rough defense line stretching from Oosterhout, through a line south of Elst and Bemmel, and so back down to the Waal around Reithorst. In Oosterhout were SS-Lieutenant Schwappacher’s artillery battery and the Frundsberg artillery HQ.

As units arrived from Pannerden, they were placed in line. The most powerful was the squadron of sixteen Panzer IV tanks, attached to SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment 21, with the strength of a reinforced battalion. A weak battalion of reservists organized as Kampfgruppe Hartung also moved from Pannerden. Artillery reinforcements were stationed at Flieren, east of Bemmel and anti-aircraft guns at Pannerden could also be called down from Reinhold’s HQ at Bemmel. Over the Arnhem bridge came the Kampfgruppe Knaust, which had eight tanks under command, a mixture of Panzer IIIs and IVs and assault guns. Since four tanks, said to be Tigers, were destroyed by the British on the route from Oosterhout to Driel, it is likely that these were under Knaust’s command. By 1600 hours, Knaust’s Kampfgruppe was in Elst and had established contact with the forces in Oosterhout.

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