CHAPTER TWO
The tour of 82nd Airborne Division’s MARKET GARDEN battlefields starts at the western end of the Grave Bridge that crosses the River Maas, which is located on the N324 between Nijmegen and Grave (pronounced Gr-ar-ve). On the Bridge’s western abutment, heading towards Nijmegen, there is a small area to pull off the road on the crown of the bend. Park without blocking the cycle path. The memorial to the captors of the Bridge is located here and nearby are casemates built by the Dutch in 1936 and used by the Germans in 1944. The sluice building on the Raammond waterway, is often referred to as the ‘Power House’ by 504 Parachute Infantry Regiment (504 PIR).
The first of 82nd Airborne’s aircraft, containing their pathfinders, lifted off from their UK airfields in the Nottingham and Leicester areas at 11.09 hours on Sunday 17 September. By 12.31 hours, the leading elements had landed in Holland and were marking the drop zone, DZ Oscar. Half an hour later the sky between Grave and Nijmegen was throbbing with the roar of aircraft, bearing 7,277 US paratroopers and towing forty-eight Waco and thirty-six British Horsa gliders. Private Joe Watts of Company F, 504 PIR recalls the fly in and drop:
‘After a gloomy, drizzly Saturday in England, Sunday, September 17 dawned clear, bright, and sunny, and we were ready. We were briefed with sand-tables and aerial photos taken that morning. Our battalion mission was to secure and hold the bridge crossing the Maas River at Grave, Holland. We would split 2nd Battalion by dropping E Company south of the bridge and the remainder of the battalion, including myself, to drop at the same time but on a DZ on the north side of the river.... it was a daylight drop which was unusual because our previous two combat jumps had been at night and we didn’t know just exactly what that would do for us. We did know we had air superiority, which we hadn’t had previously. These things went through our minds but the thing that was worse was the spelling of the objective’s name: G-R-A-V-E. That bothered us, but other than that, we thought it was a good plan and we thought that the regiment and the battalion were doing just what they should be doing to make sure we all survived.
We were issued escape kits, some Dutch Guilders, gas masks and life belts. The word was passed to absolutely not leave your gas mask behind. We trucked to the aircraft, shouting out our aircraft chalk number so the truck would stop and let us off. We didn’t stand around long, and the next thing we knew, we were flying over the English Channel and the Schelde Estuary. Somewhere along the way we took off our gas masks and inflatable life belts, kicking some into the Channel and stuffing others under the seat back webbing. Our C-47s were surrounded by US and RAF fighter and bomber aircraft. From a window, I watched a P-51 Mustang go after a motorcyclist riding down a dyke. Just before reaching Grave, the fighter escort seemed to vanish, moving above and to one side of our flights. I recall looking out the aircraft window to see the Maas River Bridge – our objective – and the town coming up on our starboard side as the green light signalled us to jump, from 800 to less than 600 feet. My parachute opened. As I checked my canopy, I could see our C-47s still flying to the north-east, into Germany, as parachutes blossomed behind them all the way to Wyler. Then they banked left on the return to England, and BANG, I hit the ground. I could hear some small-arms fire coming from the vicinity of the bridge. There was flak but not around our DZ. I could see some flak up ahead, blossoming among the C-47s.
As I was unharnessing my parachute, I was busy looking for Krauts, squad members and I watched a couple of C-47s that had been hit by flak as they slowly spun, out of control, to the ground. A couple of parachutes opened from one as the crew bailed out. They looked to be within the lines that we, the 82nd, were forming’.
C-47 Skytrains heading for enemy-held territory loaded with paratroopers and their equipment.
Captain Moffatt Burriss, commander of Company I, 3/504 PIR, was further down the stream of aircraft, standing in the door of his C-47.
‘Below were green, lush flatlands, but we saw a lot of flooding... Moving inland, we saw only miles of aircraft on either side and heard only the steady drone of thousands and thousands of engines. It was a sound that, under different circumstances, would have lulled one to sleep.
Then all hell broke lose. Below, anti-aircraft batteries opened fire, and we saw flaming tracer bullets streaking towards our planes. Immediately, several fighters broke formation and, spitting fire, hurtled towards the guns below. They were quick and effective. Suddenly there were no more tracers, no more white puffs of smoke...
As the jumpmaster of our plane, I continued to stand in the door and observe what was going on around and below us. At one o’clock, I saw the town of Grave and the massive Grave Bridge – one of our objectives. The red light flashed on. I gave the order to stand up and hook up. “This is it”, I said to myself.
As we approached the bridge, a 20mm anti-aircraft gun mounted on superstructure of the bridge started firing at us. Tracer streamed towards our plane as we flew directly over the bridge at a height of about 600 feet. Sergeant Johnson, my communications sergeant shook his fist at the German gun crew and shouted, “You dirty Krauts. You just wait a minute and we’ll be down there to get you.”
General Gavin wrote how, following the Division’s experience at Ste-Mère-Église in Normandy:
‘Where German anti-aircraft guns were shooting at descending troops, a number of the troopers began firing their pistols at anti-aircraft gunners the moment their parachutes opened and they began to descend. Troopers talking about it later recalled it as being pretty silly because they were just as likely to shoot themselves as the Germans. In retrospect, it also seemed foolish to have engaged a big anti-aircraft gun with .45 caliber pistols, but they did, and most of the Germans broke and ran. ... But we were all pleased with the ability of the troopers to jump in daylight on anti-aircraft positions and destroy them.’
American Colt .45 calibre.
A mosaic of airphotographs for briefing 504 Parachute Infantry Regiment
The Grave Bridge – Sunday 17 September 1944
The Grave Bridge over the River Maas, was first of the three largest water obstacles that the Allied Airborne Corps had to seize on XXX Corps’s route to Arnhem. The Maas is one of Europe’s greatest rivers, second only in significance to the Rhine in its military history. The Maas is known further upstream in France and Belgium as the Meuse. The Grave Bridge was in 1944, the Continent’s longest bridge at almost 400 metres in length. The task of securing the bridge was allocated to 504 PIR, nicknamed ‘Angels in Baggy Pants’. This Regiment had not taken part in the Normandy campaign due to the lack of battle casualty replacements to make good their losses in Italy over the winter 1943/1944. However, by September, they had behind them both combat experience and up to date training, which were to underpin the 504 PIR’s success over the coming weeks.
The main body of 2/504, who were to take the bridge, were to drop on DZ O, a mile to the east of the objective, on the open fields near Overasselt. Private Joe Watts, continues:
‘We assembled and moved out south-east along a road dyke to take the north end of the Maas River Bridge.... We had landed about a mile from the northern end of the approach to the bridge. As we assembled we could see the flak tower by the bridge at this end. It was silent. I can recall, a few farmhouses, occupants out waving at us and calling welcome in English.’
With only light enemy flak positions around the bridge, the airforces were persuaded to drop a company immediately to the west of the bridge (DZ Easy). Thus, two of Brigadier General Gavin’s tactical prerequisites for success were met; namely, a drop close to the objective and an attack from both ends of a bridge. Taking the Bridge was considered by General Gavin to be ‘essential to the division’s survival’, as without it, the vital lifeline to the armour of XXX Corps would be lost.
Dropping on DZ E was Captain John Thompson’s Company E, 2/504 PRI. Their mission, in the words of General Gavin ‘was to seize the western end of the bridge, put up a road block to block any approaches to it, and to takeover the town of Grave’. The Regimental Commander, Colonel Reuben H Tucker has written about his orders and plans:
The Maas Road Bridge today. The objective of 2nd Battalion, 504 Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division.
‘Open space or not we always planned to jump right on the target. The Div Comdr – General Gavin – told me he didn’t care how I did it, but to get the bridge at Grave. I ordered Company E to jump on the south end of the bridge and the rest of the battalion on the north end. We had no clear DZs but landed on houses, churches, roads, ditches and wherever we came down.’
As the stream of aircraft approached, Lieutenant John Thompson saw the bridge in the distance as he stood in the leading C-47’s door, the first man to jump. In no time they were out and descending in full view of their objective, with some fire coming from the outskirts of Grave and from four anti-aircraft positions on the bridge. Lieutenant Thomas, tasked to take the bridge, quickly assembled his platoon on the eastern edge of the DZ and set off towards his objective using the numerous drainage ditches that bisected the area, as cover. The Raammond Waterway was forded with water up to the troopers’ necks, forcing them to hold their weapons above their heads. Steadily they worked their way towards the two flak towers at the western end of the bridge. General Gavin describes his men’s action:
‘The fire was increasing steadily. As they neared the bridge, they noticed German soldiers running from what appeared to be a power plant [a sluice house] at the southern [western] end of the bridge. Assuming that the Germans might have been carrying explosives, they raked the ground between them and the bridge with machine gun fire. Later they found four dead Germans and one wounded. Very soon they noticed that fire from the flack towers was passing over their heads. The flack towers were wooden towers topped by sandbagged walls about shoulder high, from which the occupants were prepared to engage aircraft with 20 mm. anti-aircraft weapons. They were not able to fire at ground troops within a hundred yards or so of the tower.’
The Raammond Waterway and Sluice House.
At this point, two German trucks roared up the bridge’s approach road from the direction of Grave. Bursts of machine gun fire caused the trucks to career off the embankment, spilling soldiers as they went. The uninjured enemy were seen on their way back to Grave by further bursts of machine-gun fire, making good their escape via the same maze of ditches used by Company E. Lieutenant Thompson’s troopers, having disposed of the reinforcements, concentrated on the capture of the bridge.
‘... a bazooka man worked his way to within twenty feet of the tower and fired three rounds, two going through the gun slits at the top of the tower. The gun ceased firing, and the troopers scrambled up the tower and found two Germans killed and one wounded. They took over the anti-aircraft weapons and at once engaged the German weapons in the flak tower at the other end of the bridge.
At the same time, Thompson had his men break into two teams, working their way around the end of the bridge and across it.’
Meanwhile, Company F and Joe Watts were closing on the other end of the bridge:
‘As we closed on the Nederasselt end of the Maas River bridge, it was now a couple of hundred yards to our left front, we began to get incoming small arms fire from just beyond the bridge structure near the river. We didn’t get any mortar fire –we could hear mortars some place but they weren’t directed at us evidently, but small arms fire kept coming over – we got the “crack” and this stuff passed over us – none of it hit the ground so evidently they were shooting too high. We may not have been the target, I don’t know.
The Sluice House and Pillbox cleared by Company E, 2/504 PIR.
About 200 yards down river there was a brick pump house or “waterhouse” as they called it. Every once in a while we could see Krauts running in and out of the building....The track my company was on, junctioned with the main road and to follow it would mean exposure to enemy fire. We left the track and passed through some woods alongside the main road. When we got to about opposite the brick pump house on the river dike, we brought our squads on line along the main road and rushed across in a couple of waves. We were taking sporadic fire from both the pump house and the bridge area. Our goal was to take the bridge approach while suppressing fire from the house and bridge. There were enemy shooters in the bridge structure. We moved without difficulty down the ditch toward the bridge approaches. When we arrived at the north end of the bridge, we assisted clearing the flak tower... We were taking fire from the town [Grave] and initially from the bridge girders high up where at least two German snipers tied themselves to the girders. I kept firing my Thompson sub-machine gun into the girders at them as we made our way to the flak tower by running on the dike shoulders then across the bridge using girders as shelter. A couple of our guys were using entrenching tools on bundles of what looked like communications wire [the German’s demolition firing circuits]. As we jogged and dodged across the last of the nine spans, we were running out of places to hide, even though it was getting dark about now, we were still drawing fire from the direction of Grave. Fortunately, a friendly someone was standing at the base of the south flak tower warning us of mines off the dike shoulder to the west, at the base of the flak tower, right where I was headed – someone evidently stationed there to prevent the accident prone of becoming casualties.’
Shortly after the battle for the Grave Bridge a German anti-aircraft gun in a flak tower, under new management, protects an Allied convoy from possible German air attack.
The memorial to the capture of the Grave bridge by E Company 504 PIR. Note the pillbox that was built by the Dutch in 1936 and used by the Germans in 1944.
General Gavin summed up the importance of 2/504’s success:
‘To us this was the most important bridge of all, since it assured us of linkup with the British XXX Corps.’
The captors of the Grave Bridge painted by military artist James Dietz.
While Companies E and F were consolidating the position and removing wires, detonators and camouflaged charges from the bridge’s structure, they were still under fire from the direction of Grave. As an immediate response Captain Thompson and his men retraced their steps back to the bridge ramp and established a roadblock 1,000 metres back along the road to Grave town. With Company E still under fire, Company D also crossed the bridge to attack Grave. As they approached the town, they came under heavy German machine-gun and mortar fire. However, outnumbered by the determined paratroopers, the already shaken Germans were driven from Grave, which was reported as secure at 20.00 hours.
In common with practice elsewhere, the Dutch inhabitants of Grave began a celebration that hampered the preparation of defences, as the population fêted their liberators. Tales of singing well into the night are still shared by veterans of the 82nd and
Situation on the morning of 19 September when 2 Household Cavalry Regiment leading XXX Corps, reached 82nd Airborne at Grave.
the Dutch people who still welcome them back for commemorations. However, during the night a tank approached from the direction of Uden and in the darkness and euphoria of success the Americans assumed that it was British. As they approached, the tank opened fire and killed several paratroopers. In a hail of bazooka rounds, the tank withdrew. This was the only occasion when a German counter attack approached anywhere near the Grave Bridge.
During the night of Monday 18 September, the garrison of the Bridge learned that XXX Corps would reach them the following morning. At 08.20 hours on Tuesday 19 September, armoured cars of B Squadron 2/Household Cavalry Regiment (HCR) arrived at the bridge. The HCR’s historian describes the meeting:
‘The Americans had captured intact this vital steel structure spanning the Maas, a very fine performance indeed, and now the second vital link-up had been effected by the regiment. A brief halt and talk with the commander on the spot elicited the information that Nijmegen bridge, spanning the River Waal, had also been captured. This news unfortunately proved to be quite incorrect.‘
At 10.00 hours, the leading Sherman tanks of the Grenadier Guards Group reached the Grave Bridge. However, as 2/HCR’s leading troop believed that damage to a bridge further along their designated route to Nijmegen was bad enough to prevent a tank crossing. Therefore, the Grenadiers were diverted, via Overasselt, to a lock bridge at Heumen.
On the morning of Wednesday 20 September, the Welsh Guards held the Grave bridge and the western approaches to Nijmegen. The following day, the leading battalion of 43rd Wessex Division, 4/Dorsets, took over defence of the Bridge. and guarded the vital structure, along with divisional and corps anti-aircraft detachments. These hitherto little used gunners were now an essential element of the defences, as the cumbersome Allied air space control measures and the early autumn weather allowed the Luftwaffe to challenge Allied air superiority over the battle area. On 23 September, the Dutch Princess Irene Brigade took over defence of the Grave Bridge.
A mixture of German troops board a Mk V Panther during the late summer of 1944.
The first Sherman tanks of the Grenadier Guards approaching the Grave bridge.
Royal Netherlands (Princes Irene) Brigade.
Left; Prince Bernhard conversing with Lt. Colonel A.G. de Ruyter van Steveninck, Commander of the Dutch Brigade.
