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00:00This is the Reichstag in Berlin. In 1945 it was captured by the Russians.
00:26The victory helped confirm the division of Germany and later of the whole of Europe into East and West.
00:37But this is the story of a battle which might have changed all that. A battle for the bridges over the Rhine.
00:43Which might just have put the Union Jack on the Reichstag instead of the red flag.
00:51The concept was brilliant and it could and should have worked. And the war would have been ended six months earlier.
00:59It's the story of Operation Market Garden.
01:09With the D-Day landings in June 1944, the Western Allies' assault on Nazi Germany began triumphantly.
01:19But fighting their way off the beaches and on through northern France became a bitter struggle.
01:25I don't think it's generally appreciated that the speed at which a battalion bled to death was higher in Normandy than it was on the Somme.
01:39Extremely thick hedges, some of them a thousand years old. An absolute defender's paradise.
01:47The Germans fought hard in Normandy for nearly three months and then at last the dam broke.
01:56Near Falaise the Germans were caught between the Americans and the British and their armies were shattered.
02:02As the survivors fell back towards Germany, the Allies pursued them, advancing more than 250 miles in less than three weeks.
02:19It was beyond our wildest dreams. We did 97 miles in something like 12 hours, which was the fastest advance of a division in history.
02:34First Paris, then Brussels were liberated.
02:38The Belgians were absolutely wonderful. And, you know, they all jumped on our tanks with bottles of champagne and we had a wonderful time in Brussels.
02:51The troops were elated. The Germans were weak. And just a few hundred miles away lay the Reich's industrial heartland, the Ruhr,
02:59where much of its weapons and ammunition were made. If the Allies could capture that, the road to Berlin would be open.
03:08But there was a problem. The web of rivers and canals separating Germany from France and the Low Countries.
03:17This is the Waal, one of the biggest rivers. Getting across these was, in its way, as hard for the Allies as it was for Hannibal to get his elephants over the Alps.
03:30Attacking across them was difficult enough. But then the Allies would have to send over a mass of trucks, supplies and guns.
03:39There were only a few places where this was possible, even if the bridges hadn't been blown.
03:45Yet solve the problem. And the war might indeed be over by Christmas.
03:53The British commander was Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery.
03:57He had planned and led the D-Day landings.
04:00As the extent of his success became clear, Montgomery became desperate to exploit the German weakness.
04:09His headquarters came up with a daring plan.
04:13But it had to be carried out within a week, before the Germans could reorganise.
04:18The plan was called Market Garden.
04:26The plan called for British tanks, under Lieutenant General Brian Horrocks,
04:31to punch their way over the waterways through Eindhoven and Nijmegen to the Rhine at Arnhem.
04:37Once across the Rhine, the British would be able to threaten the Ruhr, or perhaps even push forward to Berlin.
04:46There were eight bridges and eight major waterways between Germany and the Allied frontline.
04:53Each one of them would have to be taken intact and held if Market Garden was to succeed.
04:59So the Allies decided on a daring and original idea.
05:08They would mount the biggest airborne operation in history.
05:1330,000 men of the first Allied airborne army would land behind the German lines
05:19and capture those eight vital bridges which Horrocks tanks would have to cross.
05:23They'd been kept in reserve since D-Day. Operation after operation had been cancelled.
05:32Now they had their chance.
05:34Well, my first reaction was one of enormous enthusiasm and excitement,
05:40because, as I say, this was the first time that anyone on our side
05:44had contemplated the proper strategic use of airborne forces en masse.
05:50There would be three airborne divisions, two American and one British.
06:03Dropping by parachute and in gliders, these divisions would land near Eindhoven,
06:09Nijmegen and Arnhem to take the bridges.
06:12The planners called this an airborne carpet,
06:15over which the advancing British army could push through to Germany.
06:18The airborne corps commander was the British Lieutenant General Boye Browning.
06:25He and his men had just seven days to prepare.
06:29What nobody knew precisely was how many Germans the airborne troops would face when they landed.
06:37But information was flowing in from a variety of sources.
06:40First, there was aerial photography, which produced pictures like this.
06:47And there was signals intelligence from broken German codes.
06:51As the soldiers prepared for battle, all this information began to build into an alarming picture.
06:58The code breakers suggested that there were two SS Panzer Divisions in the Arnhem area.
07:06Panzer Divisions, with their large numbers of armoured vehicles, could be devastating to the lightly armed parents.
07:12At least one intelligence officer became seriously concerned.
07:18Major Brian Urquhart was on General Browning's staff at corps headquarters.
07:23His analysis was chilly.
07:24He took me into his office and he showed me photographs of German Panzer IVs mainly, I think they were, tucked in underneath woods.
07:38And he went to General Browning and said that in his view the operation, Market Garden operation was, could not succeed.
07:52The operation was on a timetable and nearing its deadline.
07:56Should it be delayed or even cancelled?
08:00In real war, intelligence is often imprecise and Urquhart might have been wrong.
08:06Time was getting short.
08:09Browning decided that Market Garden would go ahead.
08:13He sent Urquhart on sick leave.
08:16They said that his nerve had broken.
08:19Which, of course, Browning had every right to make his own judgement.
08:28My own view is that Urquhart was a very brilliant chap.
08:31He knew what he was suggesting and that was the end to it.
08:40But Urquhart was right.
08:46The Germans were strengthening their defences.
08:53With only seven days in hand, the planning for the operation exposed flaws in the Allied setup.
08:59British and American, soldiers and airmen, all had their own agenda.
09:05There were disagreements and the inevitable compromises.
09:10The air operation was commanded by an American Air Force General, Lewis Brereton.
09:15He decided that there were simply too few aircraft to deliver all the airborne troops in one go.
09:23Therefore, they would be dropped over three days.
09:26Some British airmen disagreed.
09:29They suggested that because British pilots were used to flying over Europe at night,
09:34there could be two lifts, at least on the first day.
09:37But some British airborne soldiers were also unhappy.
09:43They were concerned about where they were to be dropped.
09:47In some cases, this was up to eight miles from their objective, the Arnhem Bridges.
09:53The vital element of surprise, which had worked so well in Normandy, would be lost.
09:58But Brereton was adamant.
10:02All in all, nobody was really happy with the plan.
10:06And over all this loomed one great, unanswered question.
10:11How many Germans were there on the ground?
10:14Nobody really knew.
10:16The soldiers who were to fight their way up the airborne carpet to Arnhem,
10:31the troops of 30 Corps, were in good spirits after several spectacular weeks.
10:37As far as 30 Corps was concerned, it was in that flush of delight
10:41to be out of the bloodbath in the Normandy Boccage.
10:48And this, the beginning of Market Garden, was great fun.
10:54In a cinema behind the front line, General Horrocks briefed his officers.
10:59He was a charismatic officer who had fought with Montgomery in the desert campaigns.
11:05He stimulated people.
11:07He brought a sense of urgency and confidence.
11:16He radiated confidence.
11:19Well, the Horrocks briefing was pure theatre.
11:25Horrocks strode in and very nonchalantly said,
11:30I'm now going to tell you about an operation that you can tell your grandchildren about.
11:38A mighty bored they'll be.
11:42I can remember thinking what a very good salesman Horrocks was.
11:48On Sunday, the 17th of September, the Air Armada took off.
12:00It was spread right over the sky.
12:12You...
12:14You just stood in wonder.
12:17You didn't know we had so many aircraft, as it were.
12:20You know, you were surprised.
12:22And of course, don't forget, they were trailing gliders as well.
12:24Watching from a factory near the front line, General Horrocks saw the planes with the airborne troops pass over him on their way north.
12:40He gave the order to attack.
12:41600 guns opened fire.
12:51The tanks moved forward, with the Irish Guards in the lead.
12:56The offensive had begun.
12:58It was done this road that the Irish Guards attacked that afternoon.
13:04Behind them, the column stretched back for 50 miles.
13:09Troops, trucks, guns, bridging equipment and assault boats.
13:13The road was only wide enough for two vehicles to pass.
13:17And every single bullet, bomb and tin of bully beef would have to come this way.
13:22A few hundred yards ahead of them, British guns laid down a wall of high explosive.
13:35A creeping barrage that moved slowly forward at just 8 miles an hour.
13:40We were somewhat wary because one had a front one road wide going 60 miles into Indian territory.
13:56So you kept your eyes east and west in case you were going to be attacked.
14:04As they rumbled forward behind the barrage, they had little idea of the German positions.
14:16In fact, the Germans were waiting for them just 3 miles from the British start line.
14:22These hollows are the remains of German trenches.
14:26They'd been dug in here with some anti-tank guns, but the barrage had destroyed the guns.
14:30All they had left were light, hand-held anti-tank weapons.
14:36As the British came up the road, the Germans sat tight and waited for their chance.
14:42The Germans let 8 tanks pass their position before opening fire.
14:47Then they made their move.
14:51The Germans let 8 tanks pass their position before opening fire.
14:55Then they made their move.
14:56The Germans let 8 tanks pass their position before opening fire.
14:59The Germans let 8 tanks pass their position before opening fire.
15:04Then they made their move.
15:05All of a sudden we stopped and the bad news began to filter back and you could see the
15:31black smoke going up and we lost nine tanks in a row.
15:41The whole 50 mile column ground to a halt. A few German foot soldiers had stopped an army.
15:48If the plan was to work every minute counted and it took the Irish guards another 40 minutes
15:55to resume their advance.
15:58That morning the men of the British Airborne Division also had a sense of confidence as
16:03they took off.
16:05September 17th. An enormous feeling of excitement. And I think a lot of the ones who had fought
16:12in North Africa and realised just how tough the Germans could be were a bit sceptical.
16:17But in the main, the rest were so fed up with being buggered about after 16 cancelled operations
16:28that they said, oh Christ sake, let's get on with it. Let's go. Let's do it.
16:36The British paratrooper's drop zone was near Arnhem, north of the Rhine, 60 miles behind
16:51the German lines.
16:51There was almost no opposition on the landing grounds. The British had achieved total surprise.
17:07It was an immense armada. Lovely day. Hardly any flak. No German fighters to upset us. So,
17:18as a ride, it was a dolly. As a drop, it was perfect. And the whole brigade was ready to move
17:24off in an hour.
17:37The paratroopers were in a hurry. They had to collect all their kit and march on towards
17:42their objective, Arnhem and its bridges, which lay six miles away through woods and villages.
17:49The first problem that I realised was that on both sides of this road were some fairly
17:55high wire fences. And I realised that if we ran into trouble, we were going to have a
18:00very narrow front to organise ourselves on. We wouldn't be able to do anything about it.
18:08The British commander, Major General Roy Urquhart, was fighting with one hand tied behind
18:14his back. Only half the division had landed that day. And half these men would have to dig
18:21in to protect the landing zones for the next contingent. This left only a quarter of the
18:27division to strike out for the bridge.
18:29General Urquhart sent his reconnaissance squadron ahead in jeeps to make a dash for the bridge.
18:39But the German troops near Arnhem had already reacted to the landings.
18:50German rifles, machine guns and mortars pounded the advancing British.
18:56This is where the battle took place. You can still see where the mortar bombs fell.
19:03Here, where the grass is growing thicker in the craters.
19:07There was now no chance of a lightning seizure of the all-important bridge.
19:12Just as with the guards' tanks, 60 miles away to the south, and at about the same time,
19:19a scratch group of German infantry was holding up a much larger British force.
19:24The German line on that ridge lay squarely in the path of two of the three parachute battalions.
19:33Neither would be able to reach the bridge as planned that day.
19:37We'd actually run into the main defence line that had been set up by the Germans to defend Arnhem.
19:50It was quite evident to all of us on the ground that we weren't going to get there by going forwards.
19:55So we'd either got to go left or go right. And all it needed was an answer to go left or right.
20:01But Clemenson and his fellow officers didn't get their answers.
20:07Due to some peculiarity of the land at Arnhem, the radios the airborne men had brought with them didn't work very well.
20:14Company commanders couldn't speak to their COs, who in turn couldn't reach the senior commanders.
20:20With his troops split up, in contact with the enemy, and with faulty radios, no one knew what was happening.
20:29Urquhart was in a very difficult position.
20:31Luckily for him, one of his battalions found a way round the German line.
20:46Led by Lieutenant Colonel John Frost, they targeted a road running along the river into the town.
20:54It was almost unguarded.
20:56They could soon see the outline of the railway bridge.
21:02But as they approached, the Germans blew it up.
21:09Undaunted, the soldiers pressed on towards the town.
21:14Hoping to reach the other bridge, the road bridge, before the Germans could close the gap.
21:20At about 8pm, after only five hours of marching and fighting,
21:24Lieutenant Colonel John Frost's powers reached the road bridge.
21:29It was the divisional objective, and they'd got it.
21:32Today, none of the buildings which surrounded the bridge in those days survive.
21:38In 1944, buildings crowded close to the bridge and dominated the approach.
21:44In these houses, Frost's men worked up defensive positions.
21:48First, of course, the first thing you do is to knock all the glass out of the windows and break up any furniture you require to give yourself protection from your firing position.
22:03That evening, Tony Hibbert managed to contact his brigadier.
22:10He urged him to send more troops down the river road to the bridge.
22:14And he replied that he wouldn't, that they were engaged, fully engaged, and that they would rest for the night.
22:21Of course, they'd only been fighting for about five hours, and that's not the moment to start resting.
22:31It was a very, very unwise decision, in my view.
22:37About 700 men were holding the north end of the bridge as night fell on the first day of Market Garden.
22:48They waited for their comrades to join them in the morning.
22:52About 60 miles away, Horrocks's tanks were bedding down for the night, already well behind schedule.
22:58They had come only seven miles from their start line.
23:08They stopped for the night here, in the town of Valkensvard.
23:12They'd had a hard day.
23:14Their tanks needed refuelling, and were desperately vulnerable in the dark.
23:19But they were still six miles from Eindhoven, their first objective,
23:23and ten from the American airborne forces with whom they were to link up.
23:30We'd lost other tanks.
23:33We'd lost infantry.
23:35Nobody liked stopping.
23:39We knew, and we were very aware, of the need to press on.
23:45We'd been given the rough timetable, even down to me.
23:48We knew how important, vitally important it was, to get up to the airborne.
23:58The operation was behind schedule.
24:01And all the time, the SS Panzer Divisions, which had so worried the intelligence men, were reinforcing.
24:07Moving forward on the second day of the operation, Horrocks's tanks eventually reached the first of their airborne stepping stones, the bridge at Zon.
24:25Here, Americans of the 101st Division had captured both sides of the canal crossing.
24:30But they had to do more than hold the bridge for the operation to succeed.
24:35They had to hold the road up which Horrocks's thrust would push.
24:40The Germans were in force all around.
24:44The only ground the Allies actually held was the road itself.
24:49The American commander, General Maxwell Taylor, called it Indian fighting.
24:53Remembering the US Cavalry protecting wagon trains as they crossed the Old West.
25:00Throughout Operation Market Garden, the Germans were continually trying to cut the road.
25:06If they succeeded, the plan would fail.
25:08At the same time, the British in Arnhem were fighting to reach Frost's force at the bridge.
25:28But they ran into strong SS opposition.
25:31For the British General Urquhart, the position was extremely frustrating.
25:35He couldn't talk to his commanders in the town, so he grabbed a jeep and drove forward to find out what was happening.
25:44He found himself caught up in the thick of the fighting, around the hospital, over there.
25:52As soon as we baked our nose out, we were shot at with machine guns.
25:56I'd just pulled back to decide what to do next, when a great big chap turned up, whom I didn't know.
26:03And Gerald Lathbury, he said, well, this is General Urquhart.
26:08General Urquhart said, come on, Gerald, we'll go and have a look.
26:12And he set off straight across this road junction.
26:15All hell broke off from the left.
26:18It's when I realised how much room there is around bullets, because I was getting sprayed with bits of brick breaking away from the wall on my right.
26:26And the scattering moment.
26:28And by some miracle, Gerald Lathbury was the only one that was hit.
26:32We got him into the first house, and a German with a machine gun appeared in the door.
26:37Royer told me afterwards, he said, you know, I'm the only serving general who's shot a German soldier with a pistol in a battle.
26:47I said, you weren't the only one who did. We all shot him. He was riddled.
26:54This is the house they were in. It was clearly too dangerous.
26:58So leaving the wounded Lathbury, they ducked out of the door, stepped over the dead German, and raced off round the corner.
27:07A Dutch civilian let them in.
27:12But they could see that outside in the street in front was a German gun and its crew, shooting at British soldiers.
27:20They went upstairs into the attic.
27:25Urquhart and his companions found themselves cooped up here.
27:29They couldn't move until the German gun left the next day.
27:34Urquhart was eventually away from his headquarters.
27:36Unable to influence the battle.
27:39For 36 hours.
27:43His absence meant that during this crucial period, the British airborne troops were almost leaderless.
27:49No one knew if he was alive.
27:52And coordination between units was seriously damaged.
27:54As the airborne general languished in his attic, the guards began to push on at speed.
28:10With the Grenadiers in the lead, they covered 20 miles in just a few hours, to link up with the American 82nd Division, which had captured the Bridget Grave on the first day.
28:24Well, my name is Moffett Burris, and I'm from Columbia, South Carolina, and I was company commander of I Company, 504 Parachute Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division.
28:41The operation just went right.
28:45It went as planned.
28:47As soon as we got within a rifle and machine gun range of the bridge and fired, they started waving a white flag.
28:56I think it was one of them's undershirt, and they surrendered.
29:01And at that point, we felt real good, and we said, maybe we will be home by Christmas.
29:07The British sped across the bridge towards Grosbeek, which dominated the town of Nijmegen.
29:14There were now just two bridges left between them and the German heartland.
29:19There was a good chance that Market Garden would work.
29:23The guards' tanks were here.
29:26Horrocks was on his way up the column, and the Americans were already fighting in the streets of Nijmegen.
29:30To succeed, the British and Americans had to capture the bridge there, the last before the bridge at Arnhem, just eight miles away.
29:43On the fourth day of the operation, General Horrocks arrived to join his tanks in Nijmegen.
29:49He made straight for the best viewpoint in town, the power station by the river.
30:00Today, it has been replaced by a new one.
30:11But the view is still substantially the same.
30:15This is what Horrocks would have seen.
30:28In front of him was a huge river, the Val.
30:32To his east, the ancient city of Nijmegen, with its two bridges.
30:37The nearer one carries the railway.
30:39The further one, at that stage amongst the largest in Europe, the road.
30:43The town was already wreathed in smoke from the street fighting which was taking place.
30:50But he could see more smoke away to the north.
30:54He could see smoke from the fighting at Arnhem.
31:00Frost and his men had held the bridge for three days now, without reinforcement.
31:04But the tanks of the SS Panzer Divisions were beginning to blast them out.
31:10The tactic was to fire high explosives into the sides of the building to break the wall down.
31:19Then fire smoke shells through that.
31:22And, of course, the smoke shells have got phosphorus in them.
31:26The phosphorus sets light to anything inflammable in the house.
31:31And they then burned the perimeter down bit by bit over the period of the next 48 hours.
31:37Once the water ran out and the flames became uncontrollable, then you had to get out of the building as quickly as you could and get into another one and set that up for defence.
31:50Just a few miles away in Nijmegen, Horrocks's soldiers had had no success in crossing the bridge.
31:59They were still fighting in the streets of the town.
32:02It was time to try another approach.
32:05Horrocks held a conference here at the power station.
32:08The plan was to cross the river in force in boats.
32:15To do so in daylight was a fearsome undertaking.
32:19The Germans were securely ensconced behind a dike on the far bank of the river, making the attack doubly dangerous.
32:27But if the Allies were to reach Arnhem in time, risks had to be taken.
32:32Having been ordered up from Grave the previous night, Moffat Burris was at the conference.
32:40And when we got to the top floor, already there was Colonel Tucker, our regimental commander, General Browning and General Horrocks.
32:50And General Horrocks asked Colonel Tucker,
32:54Is this an awesome task? Can your lads do it? Colonel Tucker.
32:58And Colonel Tucker's response was,
33:02Well, General, if we take the bridge, will your troops be lined up, will your tanks be lined up ready to go?
33:10And I can remember his words as if he said them yesterday.
33:14He said, My tanks will be lined up in full force, hell-bent for Arnhem, and nothing will stop them.
33:21Horrocks's confidence seemed boundless.
33:28Those tanks would come from the Grenadier Guards, who were now in the middle of a bitter battle in Nijmegen,
33:34fighting through houses and streets, and finally through a wooded park which overlooked the bridge.
33:40It was very slow and difficult fighting.
33:42At two o'clock that afternoon, the guns of .30 Corps opened fire on the German positions across the river.
33:58We were really horrified that we would be crossing that swift river and those canvas paddle boats.
34:16Because with only three, four, five or six paddles in there, the men had to paddle with their rifle butts.
34:22While the crossing was in progress, Horrocks and Browning were watching from the top of the power station,
34:31almost like monarchs looking out over some 18th century battlefield.
34:36Unable to influence things, and well aware that triumphal disaster hinged on the sheer courage of the men down here.
34:44Well, when we got about, the lead boat got about a third of the way across, all hell broke loose.
34:55That's when the rifle fire, the machine gun fire, 20mm fire, just opened fire.
35:04The men started slumping in the boat, some of them killed, some of them wounded.
35:15I remember in my boat, I was sitting on the back seat with the engineer, and he was standing there with the boat paddle acting as a rudder.
35:24And he had, one hand was on the side of the boat, and I noticed his wrist turn red, and he said, Captain, take the rudder, I've been hit.
35:33Well, just as I reached for the rudder, he caught a 20mm high explosive right through his head, and it just blew his head apart, just blew it off.
35:40And I was just covered with my head and shoulders inside with his blood and brains, and I caught some of the shrapnel in my side.
35:57When we hit the opposite bank, I said, all right, let's go head straight for the dike.
36:03Well, as we started across that pasture, those machine guns just had a complete field of fire there, that it was just running through a hail of bullets.
36:18Nobody stopped, unless they were hit.
36:21Unless they were hit.
36:30The Val crossing was one of the bravest attacks of the entire campaign.
36:35Crossing the river, and taking this dike, cost Barris about half his company.
36:41But the survivors then had to go on, and take those bridges, to help the tanks to get across.
36:46When they reached the road leading to the bridge, the Americans achieved complete surprise.
36:54But then they heard the sound of tanks.
36:57They thought the tanks were German.
37:01But they weren't.
37:04They were the tanks of the Grenadiers, led by a sergeant from Lord Carrington's squadron.
37:10He and his tanks, three tanks, whatever they were, went over, and I followed him over.
37:19I thought they were going to blow the bridge up at any moment, and I imagine so did he.
37:24And I was absolutely astonished when we got over the bridge.
37:27We just swarmed over the tank and started hugging the guys.
37:33I remember the guy's head that was sticking out of the turret.
37:36I just hugged him around the neck, and I said,
37:38You guys are the greatest sight I've seen in years.
37:42And I kissed the tank and told them to head on to Arnhem.
37:46But the tanks didn't move.
37:49Ahead of them on the road was a German anti-tank gun.
37:53So I went over and I said, Why are you stopping?
37:56Why are you not going to Arnhem?
37:59He said, Well, I can't go up there.
38:01That gun will knock out my tank.
38:04And I said, Well, we'll go with you and get that gun.
38:07And he said, No, I can't go without orders.
38:11The guards had fought their way onto the bridge through tough resistance.
38:16And they were worried about the ground on the other side of the bridge.
38:19The road from the bridge was on a sort of embankment.
38:26And I think it would have been quite difficult to go ahead.
38:29I think it would have been difficult anywhere, even in the daylight,
38:31because you were a sitting duck for anybody who was there.
38:34But I thought at night when we'd just sort of stormed the bridge, so to speak,
38:38it would have been very difficult to push through in the dark.
38:42But I felt betrayed.
38:49I just sacrificed half of my company to capture that bridge,
38:54and in the face of dozens of guns,
38:59and they were stopping because of one gun,
39:02and they had a whole core of tanks.
39:07The tanks didn't move that night.
39:10The Grenadiers' war diary speaks of the need to consolidate the captured bridge.
39:15But it's clear that Horrocks' sense of high tempo hadn't percolated down the chain of command.
39:20Although the Grenadiers weren't to know it,
39:23there was almost nothing between them and Arnhem eight miles away.
39:29And the plan might yet have worked,
39:32because in Arnhem Frost's men still retain their handhold on the north end of the bridge.
39:38We had, by this time, about 300 wounded in the cellars,
39:55but I still believed that Thirty Corps would be coming up,
40:00certainly up to the south bank, within a matter of almost hours,
40:04and we could hear them.
40:11I think Lord Carrington was across the bridge before we were overrun.
40:18A very close run thing.
40:20At eight o'clock I realised that our little battle was finished.
40:35We just didn't have the ammunition,
40:37and when the other side can run tanks right up to your front window
40:43and with no chance of you retaliating,
40:50there comes a moment where you can't go on.
40:57There was never any question of surrender.
41:01A hundred of those who weren't seriously wounded tried to fight their way out.
41:05Most of them were captured or killed.
41:08The Market Garden plan had called for Arnhem Bridge to be held by a whole brigade,
41:25nearly 3,000 men, for two days.
41:29In the event, 740 men held it for three and a half days.
41:34It was a heroic defence and it's been justly celebrated.
41:40But the story doesn't end here.
41:42Three miles away, the rest of the division was still holding out
41:46around the village of Oosterbeek.
41:52At Oosterbeek, there was a ferry across the river.
41:55If the British could manage to build the bridge here,
42:00they could still push on into Germany.
42:04Here the airborne troops made their stand.
42:08They'd been reinforced by another landing,
42:12but they'd also suffered grievous losses.
42:15Of the division's 10,000 men, only 3,500 remain to defend the crossing.
42:28The ground here, behind Oosterbeek church,
42:32is still scarred by the pits they dug for their light field guns.
42:36They form part of an enclave, a mile deep, by half a mile wide,
42:42going up into the village of Oosterbeek.
42:45If they could hold this bridge head,
42:47it was still possible that Horrocks could get his tanks across the Rhine after all.
42:53Psychologically, this was a sea change.
42:59Because until then, we'd been fighting to get to the bridge,
43:02and now we were going to be put into a defensive situation
43:07to hold a perimeter,
43:10so as to enable 2nd Army to come across the Rhine there
43:14and to hold this, come what may.
43:18Oosterbeek was an unlikely setting for an all-out battle.
43:22A perfectly peaceful Dutch suburban large village,
43:31absolute in apple pie order,
43:34as though nothing had ever happened.
43:41I had not expected to run into armour.
43:45I was certainly surprised at the resilience that the Germans were showing.
43:53Considering all that we'd been told was that they were demoralised,
43:58and that they were old men and boys and so on.
44:02In fact, we had SS soldiers in front of us.
44:04As Horrocks' tanks pushed forward, after taking the bridge at Nijmegen,
44:14the airborne soldiers put up an increasingly desperate defence.
44:17Casualties were very heavy as the battle raged.
44:22Among them was James Clemensen.
44:25He was sent to a makeshift hospital in the house of a Dutch civilian next to the church.
44:30And she used to come round every evening and read from the 91st Psalm and encourage people.
44:40And she was the most marvellous example.
44:43A fantastic woman who kept everybody's courage up.
44:47Only a few hundred yards away, across the river from the airborne soldiers, help began to arrive.
45:01First, by air, some Polish paratroopers.
45:06Then Horrocks' forward parties.
45:08If they could get across the river in strength, the division and the plan might be saved.
45:14Eventually, Horrocks himself came forward to take a look.
45:18Some say that he was looking pale and ill as a result of his desert wounds.
45:24He climbed the tower here at Drill, directly across from the Oosterbeek enclave.
45:31He could see that the key to the crossing was the small but steep hill called Westerbühne,
45:37which dominates the ferry.
45:39Once held by Urquhart's men, this position had now been taken by the Germans,
45:44who could sweep the ferry with their fire.
45:46He himself later said that this was his blackest moment of the war.
45:55With the Germans reinforcing from the east, his own force risked being cut off completely.
46:03Horrocks ordered his men to attack across the river in strength.
46:07But the assault was a disastrous failure.
46:10Horrocks and Browning realised the game was up.
46:13Rather than reinforce them, they decided to evacuate the airborne lane.
46:18The following night, the surviving soldiers at Oosterbeek came out.
46:31Only some two and a half thousand eventually made the crossing.
46:36Guided by mine tapes, they crept through the woods, down to the river, through a storm of fire.
46:42The battle to force the bridges into Germany was over.
46:47The battle to force the bridges into Germany was over.
46:53A very airy silence the following morning.
46:59None of us knew what in fact had happened.
47:01The airborne division had left behind nearly 1500 dead and more than six and a half thousand prisoners.
47:13Many badly wounded.
47:14One of our doctors came along and told us that our soldiers had withdrawn over the Rhine and that we would be taken to a German hospital.
47:29That was a horrible feeling.
47:34Because it was totally unexpected.
47:40But it was a very lonely feeling when you're abandoned.
47:44It would be another four months before the Allies crossed the Rhine again and captured the Ruhr.
48:01But by that time, the Russians were in sight of Berlin.
48:04The Allied failure was tragic.
48:09Because the operation might indeed have shortened the war.
48:13Europe might have been very different.
48:16And millions of people would not have died.
48:19Had Market Garden succeeded.
48:34But we don't have to go to Berlin is by Paris.
48:38Leave a lot of theажи in some workshop practice.
48:40투 blenders
48:46rizzy
48:50Mag them
48:58The French
48:59The French
49:01A
49:02amazing
49:02You
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