CHAPTER FOUR
Duration – 90 minutes on foot
No visit to Oosterbeek is complete without a walk around key parts of the perimeter within a radius of a few hundred metres of the Airborne Museum ‘Hartenstein’. Begin with a stroll down Pietersbergseweg past the Schoonoord towards the right hand bend you will be able to see about 200 metres ahead. There you will find the Huize de Tafelberg. It was a hotel prior to the battle and was the actual location of Model’s HQ. It was the building he used personally, although he had staff also working in the Hartenstein; not surprising given the size of an Army Group HQ. During the battle, de Tafelberg was used as a medical installation. In its current, modern-day form it retains the façade, but is now used for other purposes.
Field Ambulances were established to provide medical support to formations on operations. These were company sized units, and for 1st Airborne Division there was one per brigade; each with a strength of about 180 men. A wounded soldier would first be treated with immediate first aid in his Company Aid Post, before moving to the Regimental Aid Post, or RAP, at battalion level. Here he would see his first doctor, but treatment would be limited to preparation for evacuation to the Field Ambulance. Again, treatment here was limited, with surgery normally only being undertaken as a life-saving measure. Full treatment would await arrival at the next level of medical support: a field hospital some way behind the front. As a rule, casualties should be with a surgeon within six hours of wounding in order to preclude the onset of additional complications, of which gangrene was one.
Wounded soldiers receive medical treatment in 9 Duitsekampweg in Wolfheze. Taylor Library
De Tafelberg in 1945. Courtesy Drs Robert P G A Voskuil
De Tafelberg in 2001.
However, cut off from external support Airborne or Airlanding Field Ambulances each brought with them two surgical teams capable of carrying out quite extensive surgical procedures. This allowed them to substitute, as best they could, for the facilities that would normally be provided by the next level of medical support, unavailable to airborne soldiers until they had linked with ground troops. The Schoonoord was occupied by 181 Airlanding Field Ambulance, supporting the Airlanding Brigade. Its two surgical teams were located in de Tafelberg.
With the ever increasing flow of casualties, hotel cellars and houses were used as first aid posts. Here a wounded soldier is being stretchered into the house in 9 Duitsekampweg, Wolfheze, for treatment. TAYLOR LIBRARY
The Schoonoord Hotel in 1945, just the shell remaining after a V weapon strike. Courtesy Drs Robert P G A Voskuil
You will remember from the previous tour that this road was the front line for both sides; and, unusually, medical units were right in the front line. Consequently, Germans visited them from time to time and, once the enemy had become used to the fact that they were medical units, the relationship between both sides inside the Schoonoord and de Tafelberg, whilst never easy, permitted a degree of tolerant cohabitation. Private Roland Atkinson of 156 Parachute Battalion described a visit by a German officer who appeared not at all pleased with what he found, despite assurances from a British doctor that German wounded were being treated as well as their British counterparts, and were upstairs. The German officer spent thirty minutes upstairs and came down:
‘...with a huge smile on his face, and walked down the lines of the British Para’s giving each a Woodbine cigarette. He shook hands with the doctor, clicked his heels together, disappeared into his tank and rumbled back down the road towards Arnhem.21’
The Schoonoord Restaurant 2001, on the right of the picture, much smaller and with offices and shops where its full frontage was in 1944. The petrol station is at the extreme left of the picture.
Some of the visits, however, were not quite so pleasant, as Private Tom Bannister of 181 A/L Field Ambulance reported:
‘The SS marched all the orderlies outside and lined us up with hands on heads near the garage we were using as a mortuary. It looked as though that was it. I was standing next to a chap named Stan Biggs, and he looked across to me, grinned and said “Well, there is one thing, Tom, they won’t have far to carry us”.22’
Fortunately, the implied threat was never carried out.
Walk back up from de Tafelberg and turn right at the crossroads, towards Arnhem. You are walking along the front of the Schoonoord, which in 1944 was a very much larger hotel than the restaurant it is today. It extended all the way to the petrol station some fifty metres down the road; a petrol station earmarked by the logisticians in Divisional HQ to provide eight gallons of fuel per vehicle per day – a purpose for which it was never really used. On the opposite corner of the crossroads was a hotel called the Vreewijk where additional patient care was undertaken by medical staff of 181 Field Ambulance. You can still see the name above the main door of the building, although it is now used as offices.
The Germans took possession of the Schoonoord on the morning of Wednesday 20 September following an exchange of fire with a self-propelled gun which damaged the building, killed a number of people and wounded yet again others who had already suffered wounds. A V weapon eventually destroyed the Schoonoord during the winter of 1944, and the site now houses the restaurant and café and a number of offices and shops.
The Vreewijk Hotel taken shortly before the war. Courtesy Drs Robert P G A Voskuil
Annastraat. No.2
Proceed down the road to the first turning on your right, called Annastraat. You have just walked the length of the so-called ‘10 Para Finger’, a salient held by the 10th Battalion from its arrival in the perimeter on the afternoon of Wednesday 20 September.
The 10th Battalion were relieved by the relocation of 21 Independent Parachute Company from the north-east edge of the perimeter very early on the morning of Saturday 23 September, whereupon the battalion, by now down to some thirty men, was withdrawn into ‘reserve’. The salient extended two rows of houses deep, back from the main road.
When the 10th Battalion moved into position on the Wednesday they had to skirt around the Germans in the Schoonoord in order to occupy the houses, which they had to wrest from the grasp of SS infantry who were already in residence. Accounts of just how many buildings they occupied vary between eight and four. The 10th Battalion having gained its foothold, the Germans in the Schoonoord left during the Wednesday night.
Proceed down Annastraat just a few metres and you will see on your left a detached family home, No 2 – the first house.
This was as far forward as the salient reached. The German attacks were fierce, and the cellar of the house was used to hold wounded. These included Lieutenant Colonel Smyth, who had already sustained injury during the Battalion’s earlier adventures. On Thursday 21 September he was wounded again, this time mortally, when a German soldier threw a hand grenade into the cellar. His injuries paralysed him and he was to die several weeks later in hospital. Among the civilians in the cellar was Mrs Bertje Voskuil. She would have been killed or seriously wounded by the grenade had not Private Albert Willingham stood in the way. Taking the full force of the blast he fell across her, bleeding profusely and quite dead. Reports of the state of the cellar speak of it swimming in blood, and it was clearly not a pleasant place to be. Eventually, the surviving military occupants were made prisoner, but despite having taken the building the Germans were unable to gain great advantage from the position.
From Annastraat walk back to the main road and turn right towards Arnhem. A few metres along is another turning to the right: Lukassenpad. Go down here just fifty metres and view the back of No 2 Annastraat. This gives you an ‘enemy’s eye’ feel for the approach to the British perimeter and the small alleyway is very much as it looked in 1944 with just a couple of buildings added. It serves to give an impression of the difficulties of fighting in areas such as this. Look at the high walls, the fences and the buildings and try to imagine just how difficult it would be not only to fight through as an individual soldier, but also to try and operate as a team. Now move back to the crossroads.
The monument to 21 Independent Parachute Company on the north-west corner of the crossroads.
From the early morning of Friday 22 September 21 Independent Parachute Company dominated the area around the crossroads. They took over the area of the ‘finger’ with 3 Platoon at 3.00 am on Saturday 23 September, when the 10th Battalion was withdrawn. However, after suffering some heavy casualties it too was withdrawn later that day. This left the Germans free to occupy the Schoonoord. Another platoon of 21 Independent Parachute Company defended the area down Pietersbergseweg as far as de Tafelberg, and yet more of them held the area of the crossroads itself. There is a monument to their presence in the garden of the house on the north-west corner of the crossroads.
It was at the crossroads that Company Sergeant Major James Steward of 21 Independent Parachute Company was approached by a German officer asking that he move back 600 metres so as to avoid risking damage to the aid station and to wounded soldiers when they, the Germans, next attacked. Given the very short distance to the western edge of the perimeter you will see that this was an impossible request which was declined and the Germans attacked elsewhere. Not every enemy soldier, however, was quite so polite, and on 24 September Private Frank Dixon of the Army Catering Corps, the company cook, was tasked by his company commander, Major Boy Wilson, to deal with a tank a little way down Utrechtseweg in the Arnhem direction, that was becoming a persistent nuisance. This he did, successfully, with a PIAT.
Frank Dixon reports the success of his mission to Boy Wilson. Courtesy After the Battle Magazine Film Company
Private Frank Dixon ACC taking on the German tank. This is a clip from the film Theirs is the Glory, made by veterans of the battle shortly after the war. Courtesy After the Battle Magazine Film Company
Walk back towards the museum past the church on the site of Brigadier Hackett’s headquarters. Cross over J J Talsmanlaan, past the Kleyn Hartensteyn on the left and turn down into the museum towards the exhibit of the Sherman Tank and the 17-pounder anti-tank gun you will have seen on your visit. After a few metres you meet the junction with the path coming from the Kleyn Hartensteyn car park. Stop here, turn right and face the large columnar monument on the ‘triangle’ of ground on the other side of Utrechtseweg opposite the museum. The inhabitants of Oosterbeek presented the monument to 1st Airborne Division. General Urquhart laid the first stone in 1945 and Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands later unveiled the whole thing. The triangular patch of grass was the DAA from Monday 18 September to Wednesday 20 September; the place where reserves of ammunition and other supplies were held dumped on the ground. You will notice that it is open and exposed. On the far side of the triangle, beyond the monument, is a line of trees along the road that marks the western side, called Oranjeweg. This was the location of the Divisional Ordnance Field Park detachment. Comprising just four jeeps and eleven men it carried a range of spare parts. There were other RAOC soldiers managing bulk loads of stores delivered by glider and undertaking associated duties, nineteen in all.
Down the eastern side of the triangle is a narrow road adjoining Utrechtseweg almost opposite where you are standing, and called Hartensteinlaan. This was the area occupied by 250 Airborne Light Company RASC, with their headquarters in one of the houses on the northern side of the road and two platoons in the area. It was from here that Paddy Kavanagh and his men made their fateful journey to the ambush at the top of Stationsweg on 19 September.
Walk now behind the museum and from the back steps look to your half left into what is now a delightful garden of trees and shrubs. This was the area to which the ammunition and stores held in the DAA were moved on Wednesday 20 September. The open triangle of ground in front of the museum was exposed and very vulnerable to both mortar fire and snipers, and the move, inconvenient though it was, had become a practical necessity.
From the back steps of the museum you can walk down into the gardens down the path in front of you and after thirty metres take the left path which leads you to a rather battered 17-pounder anti-tank gun some 100 metres away.
The DAA, with the OFP location circled in the trees on the left and 250 Airborne Light Company on the right, where vehicles can be seen. The identity of those in the centre of the picture is unknown. Imperial War Museum
This was the site of the artillery headquarters, and from here twenty-year old Lieutenant Paddy de Burgh kept his eye on the radio and monitored the stock levels of artillery ammunition in the DAA, which eventually occupied the area between where the gun now is and the Hartenstein. It was here, on 25 September, he took the message over the Gunner radio net: ‘Op BERLIN tonight.’ Not being aware of the detail of withdrawal planning that had been underway over the preceding twenty-four hours or so, he turned to Lieutenant Colonel Robert Loder-Symonds, the division’s senior Gunner, and said: ‘that means we are going, doesn’t it?’
The same view today, with the memorial column in the centre of the ‘green’.
Taken from the back steps of the museum, with the balustrade showing on the bottom left of the picture, the stores in the second DAA can be clearly seen behind the stretcher party. Imperial War Museum
Nearby, as you move back to the museum you will see the tennis courts again, used as a cage for German prisoners of war. The prisoners incarcerated in the tennis courts were a mixed bunch, representative of the variety of units the Germans had been able to bring together to counter the airborne landings. Ken Clarke, whom we last encountered at the Kavanagh ambush, was dug in nearby:
‘I remember how mixed they were as men, some were as tired as we were, but some of the SS were very arrogant and abusive. There was a female prisoner among them and she wished to use the toilet, but no one was willing to escort her.’
The same view today.
Back to the Hartenstein now, on round to its left and rejoin Utrechtseweg turning left away from Arnhem and towards the landing zones. Hoofdlaan, down which you should turn, is 200 metres on your left and fifty metres along it you will come to a house on your right: No 3. We are now entering the rear area of the 1st Battalion The Border Regiment and if you face the house you can begin to obtain a feel for the layout of the Battalion, helped by the sketch map of the area on page 121. The roundabout, which you navigated on the two previous tours, is 250 metres ahead and slightly right on Utrechtseweg, and to its left was C Company directly ahead of where you are standing. A Company is half right, and you saw their position on the last tour when we visited the ‘4 Brigade Hollow’. Half left, and 700 metres away, was D Company and even further round to your left, and some 1,100 to 1,300 metres away, were the two positions occupied by B Company: the Westerbouwing until Thursday 21 September and further back from then to the end of the battle on the night 25/26 September.
No 3 Hoofdlaan was the Battalion’s RAP: remember, the first point at which a casualty would get to a doctor. As we go round the 1 Border area on this tour and on the next it is worth bearing in mind the distance to this spot and the country through which a casualty had to be moved. Walk on down and turn right into Van Lennepweg. After fifty metres No 3, on your right, was the Battalion HQ.
The grounds of the Hartenstein, in the background are the tennis courts where the German prisoners were kept. TAYLOR LIBRARY
OOSTERBEEK
20-26 September 1944
Corporal Jim McDowell is in the forground, Private Norman Knight to the left and Private Ron Tierney is facing the centre. Imperial War Museum
Immediately opposite that, and some fifty metres into the woods, was the site of a 3˝-mortar with its crew commanded by Corporal Jim McDowell, with Private Norman Knight and Private Ron Tierney; and which appears in many of the books and films about the battle. They were there to give fire support to C and D Companies in their forward positions, but so short were the ranges that the mortar was firing practically vertically in order to put the bombs where they were most needed.
The 6-pounder anti-tank gun being towed to its position. It was able to deal with Panzer IIIs and IVs but could only destroy a Tiger tank with a close range shot into the side. TAYLOR LIBRARY
High hedges and fencing made movement extremely difficult for the British and Germans as this picture shows. Here the men of 15 and 16 Platoons, C Company, Border Regiment, wait to repulse a German attack. TAYLOR LIBRARY
A captured mixed bunch of German soldiers, thrown together to counter the British air landings. These were taken prisoner in Wolfheze on Monday 18 September 1944. TAYLOR LIBRARY
Walk on along this road and it bends to the right. Stop half way between the bend and the junction with Utrechtseweg and you are at the mid-point of the area occupied by 15 and 16 Platoons of C Company, 1 Border shown in the photograph on page 119. They were in the gardens to the left and right of the road and tucked into the hedges, 15 Platoon in the area through which you have just walked, and 16 Platoon in the area up to the junction with Utrechtseweg. The other two platoons in the Company were further forward with 17 Platoon just to the left of the crossroads and 18 Platoon further south down the road to the left. On the other side of Utrechtseweg was one section of 16 Platoon protecting two Vickers machine-guns covering the area to the west and north-west and providing a link to A Company to their north. There was also a 6-pounder anti-tank gun forward in the hedge between the junction with Utrechtseweg and the Oude (Koude) Herberg crossroads.
German self-propelled guns, like the ones shown here, arrived to reinforce the circle around the beleaguered airborne forces at Oosterbeek.
That ends this short walk through part of the perimeter. Walk on up the lane; turn right onto the main road and return to the start point. The balance of this visit to the area will be covered in the next tour, which is best undertaken by car.
If you want a refreshment break it is always nice to do so at the café at the Westerbouwing, which you will get to in about twenty minutes on the next tour. However, it is only open daily in July and August, at weekends, by appointment for parties and infrequently otherwise. You can ring on +31 (0)263348111 to check, but depending on the time of year, therefore, you may wish to consider visiting one of the cafés near the Oosterbeek crossroads before embarking on the next part of your visit.