Lest we forget

“To the people of Gelderland. British and Polish soldiers fought here against overwhelming odds to open the way into Germany and bring the war to an early end.

“Instead we brought death and destruction for which you have never blamed us.

“This stone marks our admiration for your great courage and remembers specially the women who tended our wounded.”

The memorial installed by paratrooper veterans stands testament to an ill-fated chapter in military history immortalised in the film a Bridge too Far.

Operation Market Garden, from September 17 to 25, 1944, was the the biggest air operation ever seen. It ended in failure, with the Nazis driving the entire population of Arnhem into the Netherlands countryside in punishment for welcoming the Allies.

Not a brick was left standing in the old town, which even the birds abandoned Yet despite their suffering, the people of this region still hold a strong affection for their Allied liberators and imbue their children with stories of what price was paid for their freedoms.

Part of that memory has been embodied in the setting up of a Liberation Route Europe, which started in the Netherlands and has now been rolled out, stretching 3,000km from the south of England to beaches of Normandy, through France and Netherlands Paris and on to Berlin.

Our visit took in key points of Operation Market Garden and the ensuing Rhineland Offensive, where over 80 audio spots marked by boulders have been set up. Each is accompanied with personal stories of civilians and soldiers, downloadable onto a smart phone.

Picked up in Arnhem up by jeeps used in the Normandy landings, we started our tour at the John Frost Bridge, where modern buildings testify to the destruction of the old.

A screen was flipped up in the back of a jeep to show archive footage of the fateful campaign.

Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery’s aim was to punch a hole in the German defences and cross into the Rhine heartland to end the war by Christmas. The bridge in Arnhem was the last the Allied forces needed to capture to ensure the success of the operation.

Paratroopers were expected to hold out for four days at the most, but the odds were stacked against them from the outset. They were not helped by having to parachute down eight miles from their objective.

To compound things the soldiers were not told of two battle-hardened SS Panzer divisions resting up in nearby woods.

Only Lieutenant Colonel John Frost, leading the 2nd Parachute Battalion, got through. Several hundred men valiantly held on to the northern side of the bridge before running out of food, water and ammunition.

Our visit took us to the house where Major General Roy Urquhart took refuge when he got trapped behind enemy lines, past the church where 400 wounded fighters were tended to by the Angel of Arnhem and to the banks of the Rhine in Oosterbeek, where German machine gunners picked off the remaining paratroopers as they retreated back across the Rhine.

About 1,700 British soldiers lost their lives, with more than twice that number taken prisoner.

Villa Hartenstein, which served as the headquarters of the British command during the battle has been converted into the Airborne Museum.

Deep underground is a vivid recreation of the battle for Arnhem. Shattered buildings, thumps of artillery fire, explosions, rattling machine guns and shouting add to the atmosphere. All that is missing is the smell of cordite and death.

Market Garden may have been a failure, but it set the scene for the final push into Germany.

We stayed in Hotel Sanadome in Nijmegen, before the second day of our tour, which began at the National Liberation Museum, in nearby Groesbeek.

Cathy McKell, our guide for the visit, is a living link to the period – her father being a Scottish soldier who fell in love with a her Dutch mother.

She gave a harrowing account of what became known as the Hunger Winter 1944-45, when 22,000 civilians starved to death as they waited for their final liberation.

The museum houses a moving sculpture by Niet Aanraken, which is based on a dream she had of soldiers coming back to life and emerging from their graves. Each face in her sculpture Resurrection was modelled from photographs of servicemen.

Our trip took us across the (now unmarked border) into the Reichswald Forest, where Germans had formidable defences. In places one can still see vestiges of massive ditches dug by forced labour.

Those who died in the final push into Germany lie in the Reichswald War Cemetery – the largest of the Commonwealth cemeteries of the Second World War in Europe.

A bulk of the graves are those of airmen who served with Bomber Command.

Leaving the battlefields one’s thoughts returned to the closing lines of the message at the Airborne museum.

“You took us into our homes as fugitives and friends. We took you forever into our hearts. This strong bond will continue long after we are all gone.”

For many veterans returning to commerorate Market Garden next weekend it will indeed be a last emotional moment they are able to rekindle those bonds.

Travel facts

• Gavin Englebrecht travelled courtesy of of P&O Ferries from Hull to Rotterdam. For futher details visit POFerries.com or call 08716-646464.
• There are connection to Arnham and Nijmegen from Rotterdam station.
• Details of the liberation route can be found at liberationroute.com
• Scandi Sanadome sanadome.nl
• National Airborne Museum nationalairbornemuseum.nl