John Frost's story

On the morning of Sunday, September 17 th, 1944, we were flown over from England to Holland and we landed, either by parachute or by glider, near the small village of Wolfheze, at rather a distance from Arnhem. The Germans were completely surprised by these landings, and we almost succeeded in capturing Fieldmarshall Model, the commander of the German armed forces in the region.

He had had such a narrow escape that one of my friends, on reaching the Fieldmarshall's hotel ("De Tafelberg") that afternoon, treated himself to the lunch that had been prepared for the German commander and which he had not had time to eat.

We received a great welcome from the Dutch civilian population when we went on our way towards Arnhem, but the Germans soon discovered what we were up to and they closed off all roads leading to Arnhem. In their hurry to do so, however, they at first overlooked the most southern road along the river Rhine, and I succeeded with my battalion to use this road and to reach the northern ascent to the Rhine bridge just before it got dark.

Now we had to try and cross the bridge in order to capture the southern ascent to the bridge. We were afraid that the enemy would blow up the bridge, just as he had done with the railway bridge at Oosterbeek.

It was therefore necessary to destroy the wires leading to the detonation charges. But when we tried to cross the bridge, the Germans opened fire from the other end and killed or wounded everybody they saw. This led to a fierce battle which did not end till Thursday morning.

Unfortunately, for a number of reasons our radio's did not work properly, so that we hardly knew what was going on elsewhere. We had a carrier-pidgeon with us which we released with a message to England, in which we said that the northern part of the bridge was in our hands. Afterwards, the pigeon received a medal for its bravery!

The Germans did everything they could to drive us from the bridge, but we held on to the buildings surrounding the northern ascent, although the enemy tried to take us by surprise by an armoured-car attack on the morning of Monday 18th. We kept hoping for reinforcements from Oosterbook or from the British Second Army near Nijmegen, but nobody came, apart from more and more Germans.

They shelled our positions with every gun they possessed, they attacked us with heavy tanks, and they tried to overpower us by their infantry.

Our largest problem was our shortage of ammunition, we only had the ammunition we had taken with us on the Sunday of our arrival, we had not received any fresh supply since that day.

The number of casualties grew and grew, and the cellars of the surrounding houses were full of wounded soldiers. We also suffered from lack of water and then, worst of all, the enemy started to set the houses on fire in which we were holding out. When Monday evening came, most houses had been destroyed, and in the night of Tuesday to Wednesday all the streets around the bridge seemed to be on fire. The noise made by the burning wood was as loud as the noise made by the enemy bombardment.

On Wednesday morning I got wounded. This fact did not influence the course of the battle as by that time it was no longer possible to direct any organized fighting. Near the bridge there was a large building which occupied a key-position in our defence, but there were also about 200 wounded men in its cellars. On Wednesday, this building caught fire. It was impossible to put this fire out, which meant that all the wounded men would be burnt alive, unless something could be done to get them out in time.

I allowed our medical officers to leave the building in order to try and contact the enemy and to come to an understanding about this problem; after all, there were also many wounded German soldiers in these cellars. They agreed on a cease - fire and soon both parties did everything they could to save the wounded.

After the evacuation of the wounded, the fighting started again, but it soon became clear that our defense had become a hopeless case. Practically every house had been destroyed, so that we had no shelter left. The Germans were superior in number and in weapons, we had had no sleep for four nights and days and we lacked food, water and ammunition.

The end came on Thursday: the poor rests of what had once been the 2nd Parachute Battalion were overpowered and made prisoner. After I had recovered from my wounds, I was sent to Colditz, a prisoner of war camp. In the spring of 1945 we were liberated by the Americans and flown back to Englandl

When we neared the English coast, the pilot called over his shoulder, "Look, Sir, the white cliffs of Dover!" After having been away for nine months, I was safely back home again.

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