The Battle of the Bridges by Frank van Lunteren

Author:Frank van Lunteren
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Casemate Publishers (Ignition)
Published: 2014-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

This telegram was sent to the mother of Pvt. Hugh Wallis of H Company, informing her of the fact that he had been wounded in Holland. Courtesy: Hugh Wallis

CHAPTER 12

ENLARGING THE BRIDGEHEAD NIJMEGEN, SEPTEMBER 20, 1944

While most of the engineers were paddling frantically back and forth across the Waal, Lieutenant Holabird remained on the north bank with his squad, which soon became separated in the confusion of battle. “At some point I wrote a brief note to Captain ‘Spike’ [Harris] and sent it back by one of my engineers. We spread out—from here on I get hazy. I was down to six men, and we were hopping and hollering all over the place. We sounded to ourselves as if we were single-handedly trying to save the bridge.

“Like a bad officer, I got ahead of the group. I remember running through a large pasture, surprised by the whistling of bullets going by and by seeing dead cows up-ended. I wondered if someone was really trying to shoot me. Me! The victorious crosser of the Waal! Finally, after an hour and a half, my euphoria began to wane. I found a little 6 x 6 house, probably storage for farm implements, took off my helmet and looked around. It must have been 1700 or 1730 hours by this time. Bullets were still whistling around, but presumably not at me (I hoped). I wondered what in the world I should be doing. No men, no mission: I was not really an infantryman conqueror. Two of my men arrived. We took council, wondering whether to proceed or go back to the beachhead.

“At this point we discovered Major Cook and elements of the 3rd Battalion coming towards us in a ditch. I reported in, told him everything was OK thus far and that, since I had only two of my squad, I probably should see what I could do at the landing. We three crawled over the top of 20-some 504th men and gradually returned to the beach. It was empty but for some battered boats and six dead troopers—not a very brilliant ending to our crossing. Two of my squad and I remained at the beachhead overnight and made our way across the Waal when a boat came from the other side.”278

By this time, along with the remaining canvas boats, some wooden row and fishing boats were in use, having been gathered by the engineers along the Maas-Waal Canal. A Company formed the fourth wave that was sent across the swiftly streaming Waal River at 1600 hours that afternoon. The executive officer, 1st Lt. James E. Dunn, quickly scribbled in his diary: “We have only about three boats left, but we'll make it—got to!”279 There were too few boats now to send the entire company across at one time: Lieutenant Breard's “1st Platoon crossed first about 1600 hours followed by the rest of the company and the battalion. [...] When we got across the river we went straight for the levee. There weren't all that many boats anymore.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.