279329. Captain. Christopher Compton Michael James.

181st Airlanding Field Ambulance, R.A.M.C.

Christopher Compton Michael James was born on the 27th August 1910 in Marylebone, London. His father was William Warwick James, FRCS (1874-1965), and Mother Ada Louisa Mary Froud (1873-1948).

He was granted an emergency commission in the Royal Army Medical Corps, as a Second Lieutenant on the 29th May 1943, and promoted to war Substantive Captain on the 29th May 1944.

This is his personal account:

“Under instructions from D.D.M.S, N.1. Lieut. C.C.M. James, R.A.M.C. (279329) will proceed from Military Hospital, Banger, County down, N.1. to 1S1 (A/L) Field Ambulance R.A.M.C on 20th March 44.”

In the War Office Movements Order giving these instructions to D.D.M.S. N.1. there followed this note:-“Issue of additional pay under Article 336  (C) Royal Warrant for Pay, 1940, is authorised to Lieut. James whilst actually employed as Graded Surgeon within the authorised W.E. of 181 (A/L) Field Ambulance, and subject to the provisions of War Office Letter 24/Scot/758 (F.2.6) dated 18.1.41.”

On 20th March 44, I duly proceeded to join to 181 (A/L) field Ambulance at its vague address Home Forces, England.

There was considerable ambiguity about this posting, because apart from the location of the Unit, there was also doubt as to the meaning of (A/L). We all thought in Ireland it might mean something to do with Airborne, but since I had not volunteered, was over the volunteering age of 32, and wore spectacles, it was a little difficult to believe that (A/L) referred to Airborne troops.

However, on reporting to the Field Ambulance, I found out that (A/L) meant Air Landing and was the term applied to the Glider borne element of an Airborne Division. The standards for Glider borne troops were not so severe as those for parachutists and it was only the latter who had to be volunteers.

It was a bit of a shock to find myself Airborne, but the spirit pervading the Officers was infectious and I took no steps to obtain my posting into a non-Airborne Unit, and presumably I was not incompatible because the C.O did not get me transferred. What a different atmosphere there was compared to the frictions and grumblings in General Hospitals!

The unit was in training and before the Normandy Invasion D Day, we did two exercises, one a small Brigade exercise (Popeye) and the other a big Airborne Corps exercise, principally for 1st Division. (Mush) “Popeye” was a beast; the day before we had all had T.A.B. inoculations and in the evening entertained some high Officers in the Mess; fortunately I was not feeling well and went to bed early at about 11pm. I was woken as Orderly Officer at about 4.30 am to receive a message which initiated Exercise “Popeye” at 5.30 am. We marched for hours and finished off (without breakfast) at about 6pm. Exercise “Mush” was my first experience in a glider and I quite enjoyed it. It had followed an occasion when I had sat on an aerodrome watching another flying exercise in which there had not been a glider available for me.

For these exercises, we had moved down to Bulford and there my surgical team gathered to me. Owen was the oldest of them and became Plaster-King; Webb, and Operating Room assistant was responsible for the instruments and their sterilisation; Greenough did the preparing of the patients for operation, fetched them and did their dressings. Bannister, my batman, was responsible for maintaining the lighting and heating lamps, boiling the water and making tea as required. (when we had any tea to make). The last arrival was Swiney (pronounced Sweeney) not an operating room assistant but a Nursing Orderly, first class, who had been trained in a Facio-Maxillery Unit operating theatre and he assisted me at all operations.

From Bulford, we returned to our home base until just after D Day (June 6th 44) when we went back to Bulford and were briefed for an operation. We loaded up our gliders and were locked up in camp, but we were not destined to fly this time and after being thoroughly worked up, the operation was postponed 24 hours and so continued the next two or three days until the 24 hour postponement became a cancellation and we were personally was concerned but it seemed many more times  when we were ultimately given some leave. This was our first taste of briefing, followed by postponements and finally cancellation. The strain never grew less and when we finally did go, it was a relief!

In July, I took my team into Lincoln Military Hospital for a week so that we could learn together. We would have been at a great disadvantage before this, because we none of us knew how we would get on together. From my point of view, the Surgery was not interesting, being mainly minor stuff but it served its purpose very well and united us, while at the same time, giving me a chance to assess our capacity as a team.

Captain Barry Scott was my Anaesthetist, and came from the same medical school as myself! He therefore, knew something of Pentothal Anaesthesia, but little of Chloroform which was our alternative, and he took this opportunity to make himself better acquainted with his materials. We were limited to these two modes of Anaesthesia because we had to use paraffin lamps and burners for lighting and heating. Ether was far too inflammable under our conditions of working and similarly there was something against every other anaesthetic. He and I much enjoyed this soft living after our toughening filed work with march runs, P.T. [Physical Training] and route marches.

In July, also we marched across the Derbyshire Moors and in August, we joined an exercise which gave us a very good holiday in Scarborough.

In the middle of August, we suddenly returned to our home base, packed our kit, and sent it to France by sea. Ourselves, we went into transit camp at Brize Norton in Oxfordshire.

Now started the really unpleasant period of being briefed for operations, and waiting for H hour which was postponed repeatedly until the operation was cancelled. This occurred on 3 occasions as far as I was personally concerned, but it seemed many more times! When we ultimately did go, it was on exercise “Sixteen” which turned into Operation “Market”.

When an operation was sufficiently “on”, the lower levels of seniority were briefed and this briefing was handed on to us who then briefed our men. Many planned operations never arrived at my level, and this was just as well because whenever my equals knew officially about a projected operation, the whole camp was shut and entry and departure without special passes was not allowed. This was a tented camp and the weather was not altogether kind. There was a N.A.A.F.I. for the men, who were too many for its size, and the officers had their messes. There was very little beer, and in any case, a mess secretary was in a difficult position because he never knew how long we should be there. The food was adequate and sometimes, we had extra special meals of superb quality and quantity when it was expected to be our last meal in England for some time to come. Between cancellations and fresh briefings, we consoled ourselves with what little beer there was in this country neighbourhood, or took the recreational transport into Witney, or Oxford, or other neighbouring towns, and drank them dry in about half an hour, filling in the remainder of the evening after the premature closing of the pubs as best we could. The RAF Mess at Brize had a very good line in draught Guinness I remember and a good squash court which we used frequently. Usually, during these interim periods, we were given 24 hours leave passes.

As everything always comes to an end, so did this period of waiting and on Sunday 17th September 194, we found ourselves sitting in our gliders waiting to go. As one of our Officers remarked to me at this moment, we’d “had” our previous cancelled operations and this time we’d 2got” it! He had been waiting to see the first plane fly before he made that remark!

My glider contained nine men, namely two glider pilots, both sergeants, myself, my lance corporal Own, and my team of four others, together with the driver of the jeep which was securely chained inside. And along with its trailer, contained almost half of the equipment and other stores of the field ambulance. We carried our own surgical team equipment in packs, weighing slightly less than 25 lbs per man.

During our period of waiting, about five weeks, the glider had been loaded and unloaded every four or five days, so that they should not be unduly strained by the contained weight. The responsibility for the loading and fixation was mine in the first place and the senior pilots ultimately. As it happened, I had been on leave at the time of the last loading, which had been done by my Lance Corporal, overseen by my surgical colleague Major Rigby Jones. Owen did his job well, as we all had reason to be thankful for later on.

We had spent many hours loading and unloading dummy gliders for practice, it was a strenuous job and we looked forward to the last time we should unload! On landing, our plan was to drop off the glider’s tail, using the quick release bolts, get our jeep and trailer out, and join the main body of the field Ambulance at the rendezvous. From there, we should proceed along a known route to a suitable building where the M.D.S would set up. M.D.S. was our own name (I think) for this organisation. The Main Dressing Station had a special significance for the R.A.M.C. in other situations.

The M.D.S, was organised as a Hospital with a reception department containing a first aid room, a Nursing wing and a wing for resuscitation, operation theatre, and post-operative wards. There were two surgical teams, No 1 under Major Rigby Jones M.C. with our Dental Officer Captain P. Griffin as his Anaesthetist, mine was No 2. We planned to operate alternately, being on duty for this for 12 hours, allowing 8 hours for relaxation and sleep, and the remaining 4 hours for looking after our ward patients. On Friday September 15th, I went on 24 hours leave, and stayed the night in the YMCA in Oxford and returned to duty at 9.am. At 10.am, I was briefed together with the other officers of the unit and we then proceeded to brief our men, showing them the maps and aerial photographs of the landing zone. We handed in all our spare kit which was to follow us by sea and looked over our personal loads to make sure everything was still in order. Everything was still in order of course, we’d done this kind of thing several times before, and were getting bored with it. Saturday/Sunday night – 16th/17th September was the night for change from double to single Summer time, and we had not to be on our flying grounds until 9.30am so we went to bed for a good long sleep, discussing what chance there was of this operation actually being on! It had once before happened that postponement had been announced at midnight!

SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 17th, 1944.

We woke after a good night’s sleep to find that operation ‘Market’ was still on and as the morning progressed, it still failed to be cancelled. We had an enormous breakfast, but I cannot remember whether it was mutton chops (large, succulent and almost non fatty) or several eggs and bacon, or something else. We had these “positively-the-last-meal-in-England” several times, and it is a little difficult after the event to be absolutely certain on which occasion one ate what.

We loaded up into large open trucks, dressed in battle array, though carrying our tin hats and wearing our berets. I found a comfortable seat on a container, which held tea to cheer us as we waited to fly. The long procession wound through that lovely part of Oxfordshire that borders Gloucestershire, until we arrived at Down Ampney. The country folk stood and watched us on this lovely Sunday morning which promised a pleasant, steady glider flight for us. We wondered what they thought about it! We couldn’t quite make up our minds either.

Grouped down one end of the runway was a column of aircraft drawn up in fours, a pair of gliders in the centre. Each flanked on its outer side by its tow-plane.

Our glider was number 287 and there were three others behind ours. I do not know how many more gliders there were flying from other aerodromes. After anti-air sickness pills, (Hyoscine gr 1/100) had been handed round, we checked our loading to make sure that none of the chains had loosened and stowed loose gear safely. We met our tow-plane pilots, Canadians, who told us they had safely taken some gunners on the Normandy invasion. Our glider pilots, two sergeants, appeared shortly afterwards and joined us in drinking tea from the container we had brought with us. One of our Officers coming on the lift next day, took photographs of each glider crew grouped around the steps into the glider, and farewells were shouted and waved, our door was shut and fastened, and we sat strapped into our seats with our tin hats on, awaiting our departure. We could not very clearly see what was going on, owing to our positions and the small size of the windows. The Gliders Pilots sit in their Perspex house, with a good view of everything. I was sitting in the front seat behind the pilots partition on the starboard side, with three of my crew sitting along the same side on my left, facing the other side of the glider. The remaining three sat facing forward at the tail end, separated from us by our load, and unable to see us and only able to communicate by shouts.

Our other Surgical team (No 1) was in the Glider due to go before us, and we could see it standing alongside on the other side of the runway. “It’s off”  our pilot called and we craned our necks to watch our fellows depart, but they did not get far because their tow rope broke about fifty yards along the runway and the glider came to a standstill. A moment or two later, we ourselves started with a gentle jerk and with increased speed, the noise increased to a roar and then suddenly dropped to a loud hum as we left the ground, we knew now the ‘Operation Market’ had started for us.

Flying in a glider is not altogether unpleasant. The noise which I have already described as a loud hum, is a mixture of the sounds of the tow plane’s engines and the rush of air on the wings and body of the glider. The movements which go on through the flight are a combination of rapid vibration of the whole machine with sudden larger dropping, rising and side slipping. This was by second flight in a glider and proved as pleasant as the first; on the whole it was a fairly smooth passage except when we had to fly through cloud and the tow-plane was out of the sight of the glider pilot. Usually, the glider flies above the tow-plane’s slipstream, but in cloud, it drops below so that the tow-plane indicator will function and we had to do this on one occasion, at other times the clouds were not very thick and the glider pilot managed to carry on alright although frequently, unable to see the tow-plane. The risk of course in this is that the rope may become slack and wrap itself around the glider, or it may get broken by a sudden jerk.

We cruised around England for some time and then crossed the East coast at Aldeburgh. The face of the countryside appeared like a series of aerodromes with a few fields separating them. This sounds fantastic but is was in this way they appeared to me. Most aerodromes had planes grouped around them on the ground.

Our tow-pane pilot was very kind and kept us just above the main stream of planes and gliders so that we had the minimum of vibration. I saw two gliders go down into the sea and make good landings in the vicinity of Air Sea Rescue Craft. One tow-plane and glider turned back across the English coast and I saw another glider make a landing in Holland just after we crossed the Dutch coast. A friend of mine in another glider saw similar incidents but the most vivid and unpleasant was that of a glider which blew up on making a forced landing in England. In the middle of the North Seas, some parachutists carried by plane, passed by going a little faster than us. It was a lovely day now and we thought of the Dutch people below preparing their Sunday dinner – if their rations were sufficient to enable them to have one, we didn’t know.

We had taken off at 10am and at 1.30pm our tow-plane was cast loose. I had been following our route on a map and was taken completely by surprised because I thought we had another five minutes to go. To get a good view I had spent most of the journey sitting on the inside part of the centre wheel which juts through the floor of the glider just behind and between the pilots; the members of my team came and stood behind me every now and again to see what they could see. We immediately put on our tin hats again and fixed our straps in position in case we had a bad landing, warning the three men in the tail that we were about to land.

Once the glider is free of the tow –plane, noise almost ceases and the movement of gliding is very smooth and pleasant until one hits the ground when the glider emits horrible noises from its wheels and all the body work groans and creaks. We glided nicely through the air and flattened out from our initial dive. I’d pulled my feet off the floor (as a precaution) against getting my legs caught up if the wheel happened to come through as it might if we bounced violently, when suddenly, the pilot shouted “Prepare to crash” which we echoed to the men in the tail and then there followed a frightful noise and we bounced and crashed about until we found ourselves lying on our backs and still proceeding to our right. We were all strapped firmly in of course, so none of us were individually thrown about.

As soon as we came to a stop, we undid our harnesses and grapping our revolvers, got out of the front door which was now in the ceiling. I got out first and everything seemed nice and quiet so I informed the others inside and dashed to the tail to find out if the three in the back were all alright. Their door was now on the floor! I raised my fist to band on the side of the glider and suddenly an axe-head appeared through the woodwork from inside, just at the spot I was going to rap on!! The men inside were alright and had started to cut off the tail. No one in front was injured. The glider was lying on its right side and we had to cut the tail off because it could not be dropped off. Unfortunately, what had previously been floor was now wall and our jeep and trailer hung by their chains which had been effectively fixed.

Having removed the tail which took about 10 minutes, we paused to consider our next job – that of freeing our jeep and trailer and getting them out without their overturning. This was an immense task which took a long time.

There was no enemy interference where we were and I decided we could remove our jeep and trailer but if we did get interfered with by the enemy, we should have to set the glider on fire. I sent a messenger on a collapsible bicycle which was part of our equipment and he reported at our rendezvous and came back to us. Later, I sent him off again to borrow a jeep to give ours a tow as it was awkwardly wedged. Once our jeep was out, I returned the borrowed one and ultimately freed the trailer. My watch had stopped at 3.30pm so I do not know exactly how long the whole affair took, I estimate about 2 ½ hours. Throughout this time, there was no enemy interferences in my immediate locality, though there were frequent noises off and when we left the glider, we left nothing of our equipment in it. My senior pilot presented me with a compass as a memento and was most apologetic about the crash. What had happened was apparently as follows ;-

We had cast off the tow rope and glided down to the landing ground which was a relatively smooth field with a loose earth surface but just as he was going in, another glider came in underneath and there was no room for us. He tried to rise over the avenue of silver birch trees which lined the track and so go into the next field but we were not travelling fast enough and crashed through the birches, leaving our wings in the trees. We shot through the trees like a flying cigar, landed on our port wheel, (our starboard one stayed in the trees) and turning on our starboard side we had slid noisily across the loose soft earth. Our Glider Pilot Sergeant Carter of F Squadron, acquitted himself nobly throughout the flight and we owe our thanks to him for a pleasant journey. He had chosen a very suitable tree to hit head on because it snapped off about ten feet from the ground and our momentum was sufficient to carry us through the trees on the other side of the avenue. It is also a tribute to the construction of the Horsa Glider, that having been subjected to such treatment, no one of its crew was hurt and our equipment was undamaged.

I am a very unwarlike Surgeon. Although I had been trained, I had no idea what things really were like in war, and that antique adage about ignorance being bliss was proved to be absolutely true for me in the days to come. As a first example of my ignorance, I instructed everyone to eat part of their haversack ration while we waited for the jeep to come and tow us. We settled ourselves comfortably around the mess of the glider, in the afternoon sun, just as though it were a picnic, and it was only after a couple of rather louder bangs than usual, that I realised we ought to have been taking cover. I asked the men if they thought this was a good idea and they seemed to think it was, because they proceeded to move themselves and their equipment into some bushes.

We had one diversion during this period, the arrival of dropping of one of the Parachute Units. It was a wonderful sight and very cheering to see, without any apparent enemy opposition. Having gathered all our equipment together we proceeded to the rendezvous and were directed to where we could join up with the Field Ambulance. We proceeded along a road for a short distance and arrived at the correct place, the last members of the unit to join up.

Team 1 had already set up shop; the breaking of their tow-rope had delayed them only a short time, they had been pulled back to the starting line, a new tow-rope provided and then flown off as tail end Charlie of our particular formation. We ate and then took over from them, three operations being performed before we changed duties at 3.am next morning. The theatre was in the back part of a house in a room which could have been used as a garage, but what its real purpose was I do not know. The houses were charming and modern in a style we later learnt to recognise as Dutch. The inhabitants gave us every help they could and I was led off to inspect their houses in case they could be used later as ‘Aid’ stations. To begin with, we did not have many casualties. The more severe were brought into our house for resuscitation and possibly operation, the less severe went into the house next door. The M.D.S. was functioning for the moment as planned, and a Press Photographer who had come in one of the Gliders, came along and took some photographs of us.

At this point, it is amusing to consider that because we were now receiving wounded, I was entitled to draw Specialists pay for the first time since leaving Ireland. Under the Royal Warrant quoted at the very beginning of this diary, I was only paid Specialists pay under certain conditions and although having served for the last six months as a Specialist, these conditions were only now being fulfilled. This is the usual way in which graded Specialists receive their extra salary in the army.

When I took over I went into the room where the severely wounded were, to see who needed an operation and which I should do first. The orderlies there were warming the patients with bricks heated on a primus and generally making them as comfortable as possible. We had a nasty moment once, when the stove was upset and the paraffin ran out and started a small fire. This naturally, frightened the patients, who moved themselves with considerably rapidity, the fire was quickly controlled and the patients made comfortable once aOwing to the extremely effective Allied bombing the day before, there was very little “Flack” opposition to our flight, but the water supply had been cut and we were very short of this essential commodity. I do not know where our supply came from.

MONDAY 18th SEPTEMBER 1944

At 3.00 am, I came off duty after a difficult operation on a man who would inevitably die. I had known this fact soon after I had started work on him, but he was the first patient I had come across where I should have decided not to waste time operating. I had not the courage of my convictions to say “this man must surely die from this injury, we will waste no further time on him” I ought to have said it, and not fatigued my team uselessly, but I called my colleague Surgeon Major Rigby Jones and he agreed with me, but as there were no other patients awaiting our attention he thought we ought to do what we could. The patient died 12 hours later. I retired to spend the night in a slit trench, and I slept like a log until about 7:15 am.

After a good breakfast, I went off with another officer to reconnoitre a large building into which we were going to move. I think this place had previously been a Sanatorium of some sort. It was a modern building which incorporated all modern conveniences for nursing chronic sick. As no one in the world, I believe, has ever regarded the aged and chronic sick as worthy of a decent modern hospital, (they always seem to get pushed into badly lighted old stone building where nursing has the maximum handicap) I assume that this place had been built as a tuberculosis hospital. It lay a little to the south of us, still in the suburb of Wolfheze and we crossed the railway to reach it. A detachment of Glider Pilots had passed through this area and there was little left of value here, but in going through the building to discover its lay out, one of our men found some bottles of wine, others found cigarettes and half burnt French and Dutch money and two radios. I collected a rucksack of German type with zip fasteners and all very nice and clean and brand new. We decided that to recce a building of this type was the best part of war, but unfortunately we could not waste time doing it.

This was an L-shaped building, the ground floor was principally living rooms, and administrative offices. The former surgery we took over and with rooms next door, we found a very satisfactory operating room set up, in fact, two theatres, two sterilising rooms and accommodation for our own team to live in. the rest of the ground floor was provided with beds and mattresses and patients were brought in a short time after we arrived. Water again, was in short supply but the tanks were fairly full and we had the central heating reservoir as a last store.

The Germans had obviously left in a hurry but we heard that the Luftwaffe girls who had occupied it had been evacuated on the preceding Wednesday. These girls, the equivalent of our W.A.A.F., rather rudely nicknamed “Lustwaffe” by our Dutch interpreter, had removed almost everything of their belongings except for some food, but they had left their mark in the acrid smell of stale scent which clung to all the cupboards and rooms which they had used.

In the grounds there were a number of trucks and cars effectively immobilised and an anti-tank gun still loaded; whether this was useable or not we could not say, not knowing anything of modern offensive weapons. There were no signs that war had passed across here except the body of a German officer lying out in the garden. Maybe I was lucky but this was the first sign I had yet seen close to apart of course from my patients.

My team had arrived soon after we set up shop. We did one operation here. In the meantime, as surgery was not indicated because we expected to move once again, we assisted in receiving and making comfortable the stream of casualties which were now coming in. There did not seem to be enough room for them all, or perhaps they arrived too quickly for us to prevent bottlenecks temporarily. I was fully occupied with this when I received an order to prepare to move in half an hour to go to another place. My team started packing up and I tackled the cook-house staff to provide us with some food in a hurry and we had time to eat this before we actually went. The move from Wolfheze to Oosterbeek was a triumphal procession. I was sitting beside the driver of a captured enemy truck and had a first rate view. The whole Dutch population seemed to have turned out to greet us. The houses were decked with British and Dutch flags and with great lengths of orange streamers. People had brought out boxes of apples and jugs of water and as we halted frequently, we benefited accordingly. The weather was warm and sunny and my thirst was accordingly large, so I was grateful for the fluid. Our previous shortage was not extreme but it made one pause to consider before one drank or washed.

The Dutch enthusiasm gave one the feeling almost of a crusader. Here were these people being held down by the abominable 'Boche' and here we had arrived in a tremendously propagandised battle to free them. The second lift which had come in by this time had brought some newspapers with them and the headlines gave us a jolt. Fancy us being involved in such a tremendous effort, the largest airborne action yet to have been attempted. Our moral was very high and the way the Dutch came out openly to welcome us only confirmed our feelings that the outcome of the operation could only result in complete success and over running the Germans. Some of the people were in tears.

Our part in the procession ended when we drove into the treed forecourt of the Schoonoord Hotel, hereafter called the M.D.S. This building stood on the corner of a minor crossroad on the road to Wageningen and as events turned out, this very minor crossroads became a major objective in the battle which developed, but I do not think that at the time we occupied it, anyone could have foreseen how important it would become. It was a large building with big downstairs rooms suited to the general purpose of holding casualties but there was no satisfactory room for use as an operating setup. We were contemplating using a hospital nearby. Capt. Griffin, our dental officer and anaesthetist, to No 1 Team, went off with him to reconnoitre while I and my Commanding Officer re-examined the hotel.

Griffin returned and said he thought the new place good, so he and I drove off to look and see. We drove down the side turning to the south in a jeep with no lights; it was getting dark by now and arrived at the Hotel Tafelberg which the Dutch had taken over as an emergency Aid Station. There were a set of rooms in the Western side suitable for operating rooms, with large rooms suitable for nursing on the north and south sides, which had been partly furnished with beds and already had some patients – German, British and Dutch, men and women regardless of sex. The first floor was sited on all sided of the square house. The second floors were unoccupied, but furnished similarly and above again were some attic rooms. We arranged with the Dutch doctors which rooms we should take over – they are numbered 1 and 2 on the plan. (Team 1 and Team 2) for the operating theatres. The “Main Room” was formerly the hotel dining room and had large plate glass windows. I have called it thus for the sake of simplicity.

After preliminary discussion Peter Griffin and I adjourned with the Dutch doctors and nurses for a celebrationary drink of Schnapps. They were most interest in our “invasion” money and in reply to my question whether the Dutch people would accept it, insisted on exchanging money on the spot so I had some occupation money issued by the Germans. We found English was the best language for conversation, I could speak a little German but they preferred to air their English in preparation for freedom. What a welcome we had! Peter and I had great difficulty in extracting ourselves but we had work to do and I am quite sure we should shortly have been very drunk if we had not torn ourselves away.

We drove back to the M.D.S. and reported. By this time, it was completely dark and collecting my team, Peter and I drove back with our surgical equipment to Tafelberg. The M.D.S was filling with casualties and it looked as though they would need the next door houses rather earlier than had been anticipated.

Back at Tafelberg

We arranged for mattresses to be brought from the Annex next to the hotel which was across the grass plot outside the front door and these were laid on the floor in the Main Room, which was completely blacked out and of a very good size. It had a counter separating the room from the service doorway and we found this very useful at mealtimes and for laying out dressing materials, syringes and odd instruments.

We started straight in at 10pm on operating on the British already present in the hotel and slow work we made of it. The Dutch were most intrigued by our filed methods and came and watched me for a time. They had some blood which they made available for us and I gave a little of it to a man who’s leg I had to amputate. I am not used to an audience and they were so interested in everything and asking questions which made my normal speed of working cut down considerably. It was two months since I had operated at Lincoln and I felt rather stiff from lack of practice and manhandling a broken up glider.

The continental transfusion methods were very antiquated, Germany having retarded (unintentionally I should think) all advances in medicine and surgery. The blood arrived in a peculiar shaped glass container which had to be held throughout although, with a little ingenuity, it could be hung up from a hook or a nail. The method used on the Continent seemed to be only fast transfusion and the Dutch were interested when we gave it by the drip method.

In theory, Capt. Bruce Jeffrey was our transfusion Officer and he had done resuscitation at our previous M.D.S. but now, we were separated from him as he remained at the M.D.S.

Surgical Team 1 arrived about the time we were starting operating and having set up, went to bed. We went on working, patients arriving meantime, until No 1Team took over from us and we went to bed at 6:00am. Barry Scott had arrived and gave anaesthetics for Rigby Jones for a time and the next day, he and Peter Griffin changed over.

At this time, water and electricity were in normal supply, a very remarkable thing to contemplate! The invading enemy enjoying the amenities of the invaded’s municipality without paying rates! The pleasure of using a proper functioning water closet after only 36 hours deprivation, is a thing to be wondered at.

The operations I performed this night, were for wound fractures of the arms and legs, one of the later requiring amputation.

TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 19TH, 1944

I slept in a bed in the downstairs ward and got up at 7:30 am, woken by noise and daylight. The noise was the start of what continued from now until the end of the battle, with short intervals of peace, the sound of mortar bombs exploding in the proximity.

From now onwards, one day was much like another and for the most part, it is difficult to associate incidents as having occurred on any definite day.

No. 1 Team were operating when I go up so I did a round of all patients. It was not possible to change dressings since we had to economise and in any case, this agreed with my own ideas that dressings should be touched as rarely as possible, but I was able to go round and say something to each individual if only to ask him if he was alright. New patients arrived at intervals. Tafelberg was a surgical centre and we only received patients from the M.D.S. unless they came straight to us obviously requiring surgery. The first floor had a small Dutch nursing staff and their patients were actually in bed between sheets. I arranged to send up post-operatively those patients who particularly required nursing care and they received first class attention and on the whole were fairly comfortable.

Two nursing orderlies were sent to us to help do the nursing so our personnel now consisted of four officers and twelve men. Our patients numbered about 50.

We ate our breakfast at about 9:30am. It was not a very large one but although I did not feel hungry and had little appetite, I felt very much better for having something inside me.

In the early afternoon, some aeroplanes flew over and investigations showed that they were Messerschmitts and when they started flying in our direction, we were very careful to stand where we had a good solid stone wall between us and them. They did some machine gunning in our neighbourhood and shortly after a runner arrived asking for the attentions of a Medical Officer for some men of a Glider Pilot Unit who had been shot up. We had first aid equipment and I took with me an orderly and some shell dressings having left a message as to where I had gone. Major Rigby Jones was still operating and Barry and Peter were there to carry on in my absence.

We had to go down the road towards the river and I felt vaguely anxious, it was a quiet period as far as mortaring was concerned but although some bombs had come near me, I still had not learnt to be really frightened of them. The German fighters were still in the neighbourhood but somehow I felt they were not concerned with us as I and my Orderly walked brazenly down the middle of the road hoping that the snipers in the vicinity (and there were several) would perceive our Red Cross armbands (how small and insignificant they were and how totally insufficient for their purpose of identification. We were not wearing anything on our heads, and had no equipment of any sort, not even airborne smocks, so that we thought we would be sufficiently non-combatant in appearance to any bloodthirst sniper. We hurried to the spot we had been told about and found several men just beginning to suffer from shock and pain; superficially those who were still alive had small wounds, but I knew what might be underneath such seemingly innocent little wounds. 4 were killed and 7 wounded. They were all in the bushes when the planes fired on them. The target which ironically was not touched was probably a truck standing in the drive to the house whose garden they were in and these men were unfortunately in a direct line when the plane fired short of its objective. They were on a patrol and consequently had no foxholes.

Having finished doing the dressings and morphia injections, I provided them with field medical cards and instructed the major in command how to dispose of them. It may seem morbid but I wanted to examine the dead to see where they had been hit and why they had died but my job was not to stay out in the open attending to those who did not need my ministrations. On quick examination of three of the dead I could find no hole in the clothes to show where a bullet had entered, it is usually so small that one would easily miss it.

I did not go straight back but turned down the hill towards the river for about ten yards and through a gap in the hedge. I could see the railway bridge with its southernmost span collapsed; someone told me later, it had been blown by the Dutch on Sunday morning just before we arrived. I did not stop more than a moment because I did not wish to cast doubts in anyone’s mind that perhaps I was gathering information instead of being a non-combatant acting in the performance of my proper duties.

We had just arrived back in Tafelberg when every gun in creation seemed to burst into action. The third lift was coming in and also a supply drop.

On Sunday and Monday, the lifts and the supply drops had had little interference owing to previous bombing by our Airforce, so the Dutch said, but today, the Germans were fully organised and we witnessed for the first time, a performance repeated almost every afternoon hereafter.

It was an awful sight that is the only word that fits the occasion. How often in a lifetime does one experience awe? In the woods close to us, to our west, smoke flares were going up to indicate the dropping zone, but obviously something was going wrong because little if any supplies, were being dropped in our neighbourhood. The sky was full of planes flying low and so very slowly, with containers falling out of them, some with and some without, parachutes. Those planes seemed painfully slow to us as we watched, they were surrounded with little smoke blotches of exploding flak. Several planes although burning, continued their low, slow steady flight whilst their load was delivered the pilots knowing they had little chance of survival. They were too low for the occupants to have any chance of a parachute jump. Such and exhibition of courage I never wish to see again, nor do I wish to be so awe-inspired.

The Dutch produced a wireless and we turned it on, it was a mains set and listened in for a bit but at about 6 o’clock the current failed. The water also stopped during the day so life was complicated in many ways. However, all the baths had been filled and the hot water and central heating plants were full.

Very shortly after 6pm, I started operating again and with an interval for food, work continued until Surgical Team 1 came on again at 5:00am. We did not require electricity for our work as we had paraffin lamps, but shortage of water would be a serious deficiency. We relied principally on boiling for sterilisation and with mortar bombs exploding around the place, there was constantly a lot of dirt and dust flying about so we required a lot of scrubbing to get clean.

During my operating session I was consulted about a Dutch boy aged about 12 who had a very unpleasant wound of the ankle region. The Dutch doctor wanted to know what I advised and I could only suggest amputation. I was asked to operate, so I returned the compliment by asking the doctor to give the anaesthetic and a Dutch nurse to stand by to console the boy while being anaesthetised. The operation was quickly performed and the boy became an object for spoiling by our orderlies during the following days. He was nursed upstairs by the Dutch staff and in spite of a very unpleasant atmosphere in which to get well, he survived all the trials of battle and a week his wound was very satisfactory.

This night, I slept on a mattress on the first floor in a recess leading to a corner room. I did not feel very safe but it was the safest place I could find at present. The mortaring had stopped for a short time.

WEDNESDAY 20TH SEPTEMBER 1944

I slept very soundly again, and on waking, made my morning visit around the whole hospital. Rigby was still operating, so the care of the patients and examination of new ones fell to the lot of my team and myself. The number of patients had increased and feeding became a serious difficulty. The Dutch so far had fed our patients very generously, but now they were short themselves owing to the continual mortaring and snipers it had been impossible for them to go and forage.  We collected up all available rations our patients had brought with them and together with those we carried, continued to cater for all.

During the afternoon which was warm, we had a visit from Captain Paddy Doyle, the officer who had photographed us on the aerodrome. He had come in the second lift on Monday and had rather warmer reception from the enemy than we had but the whole of his medical organisation had arrived safely and now he was with us again. He had taken over a schoolhouse and was using it for lightly wounded patients, mostly ambulant, as an annexe to the M.D.S. which apparently had expanded considerably.

Curing Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, we had had visits from our R.C. Padre, Father Benson, who had courageously walked from dressing station to dressing station, with a large Red Cross flag in his hands. This afternoon the M.D.S. suffered a direct shell hit and Benson and our chief clerk Sergeant Tiltman were wounded. I think they were very lucky, and only had one or two others hurt.

Up till now, I had no idea where the battle was being fought, or where the first lines were. Our aid posts were within our own defence perimeter and that was as much as I knew. From now onwards, I was in no doubt. During the early part of the day, some of our glider pilots dug themselves in on the other side of the wood to our west and that made us front line troops. A little later in the day, they disappeared. We had become no-man’s land. They may have disappeared on our account, because there had been a P.I.A.T. at this road junction on which we stood and we had remonstrated because if the Huns discovered this fact, we feared we would be involved in any action they took to neutralise this antitank weapon.

Up to now, we had assumed the mortar bombs exploding in our vicinity were German, but after this, they might be anyone’s.

I operated as usual during the evening hours and finished rather earlier. The mortaring was getting much closer and heavier and during the evening, the ceiling came down in Team 1’s operating theatre. Most of the bombs had been exploding on that side of the house and there had been one which fell almost in the window of the room on the N.W. corner of the building. The door out of the recess I slept in last night had a hole in it where a metal fragment had passed through and the ceiling in the room (corner on first floor) had come down making a shambles inside the room which fortunately was empty.

In spite of the crashes and bangs of mortar bombs around us, we had none of us thought of doing anything about the plate glass windows in the Main room. Upbringing and environment have a very powerful influence on one, I knew these windows were a danger, but it never occurred to me to break them and so remove a potential danger to our patients and ourselves. The inevitable happened at last and two windows cracked across and we were able to overcome our instincts and finish them properly. The uncracked ones of course we left intact.

Perhaps I had better point out here that I was not the Senior Officer in this place, although I think the Dutch regarded me as such, probably because they knew me from the beginning when I came to reconnoitre and my Superior Officer arrived later.

Before we went to bed this evening, we had a mild celebration. Peter Griffin and I and Major Harlow, the Senior divisional chaplain who had joined us this afternoon, sat up and drank Schnapps with a Red Cross sister and two Dutch helpers. We had a most amusing conversation and were offered pancakes, obviously an international dish, the Dutch word for them being something like pancooks. Unfortunately, the Red Cross Sister (Sister Hermione Puisman) spoke in English and by her literal translation from the Dutch, caused much amusement by addressing us individually and saying to each of us in tern “You will become a pancook”. Having said this, she disappeared and returned with these luscious things. What she really meant to say was “You will receive a pancook”

The strain of this battle was beginning to tell on these people and she was having difficulty sleeping, but refused to accept anything in the way of treatment that we offered her. To her and the other sisters we ow a debt we can never repay. Whenever I endeavoured to thank the Senior Dutch Doctor, he would put his arm around my shoulders and say “It is for us to thank you”. In the days that followed, to many of us the tragedy was not in the losses that we suffered so much as the horror that we brought with us. This Dutch doctor said quite simply, “It is the price we must pay to regain our freedom – it is for us to thank you”. I have often wondered since what terrors the Germans may have visited on these courageous people for the assistance they gave to us. I should like to return to Arnhem to find out but the street where I was given an address was badly damaged and I should imagine that no one would be residing there now.

THURSDAY 21ST SEPTEMBER, 1944

I slept very well in a bed in a ward upstairs, being woken by the morning mortar as usual and did my rounds.

Shortly after breakfast, we had an influx of patients from various places and there was a complete reorganisation. I do not know how this all arose, but I presume that it became possible to evacuate various aid posts which had been grossly overcrowded; also, there had been a direct hit by a shell on a school nearby us where Paddy Doyle had been working and he was killed, the place was now unusable and his patients had to go elsewhere.

The A.D.M.S came along and told me about the reorganisation, and that Tefelberg must take more patients. We were very full already and obviously we could not take enough, so I suggested taking over the annexe to the hotel across the way. I went over there and started getting things straightened out, removing beds and finding mattresses to lay upon the floor. Every time I had had to take initiating action, I had been compensated. In going to the sanatorium I had collected the German rucksack. In coming to Tafelberg, I had been given some Schnapps and now I had a different compensation. I have already mentioned the shortage of water when we had gone so far, and in this Annexe, the storage and central heating plants were full; of far greater importance for me at that moment was that the sanitary arrangements were functioning. In Tafelberg the lavatories had been out of use for two days, and I had gone round thanking Heaven for the constipating effect of morphia so that the patients were not in need of attention in this respect. Tafelberg and the annexe had been used by German troops of some kind and their doors were marked with their names. The best room in the annexe was marked “Der Chef”. The Dutch seemed to think that Der Chef had been General Model but I think he is the modern counterpart of our own Good Queen Bess and lived in several different houses in Arnhem at the same moment.

Surgical Team No.1 took over the Annexe and stopped operating. Major Rigby Jones now seemed to have a variety of duties unconnected with his men, driving a jeep, collecting and distributing wounded, food and medical equipment. Every time he came to Tafelberg, his jeep showed a new bullet hole. He was in his element and obviously enjoying himself. If he had not been such a good surgeon I would have said he had found his vocation. I only saw him occasionally after this, so he may have been doing medical duties elsewhere as well. The A.D.M.S. and his D.A.D.M.S. took over medical charge of the annexe.

Barry Scott ceased to be my anaesthetist and took charge of another building close by in the weed. It was called the “Dependance” and as such, I shall refer to it later.

Peter Griffin and I were now in charge of Tafelberg and we had to help us my surgical team of five, the two nursing orderlies (Eagles and Phillips) who joined us on Tuesday, and Corporal Hollingsworth of the Army Dental Corps. My patients reorganised, some leaving me to go to the annexe or M.D.S. and others coming to me. I made more use of the beds upstairs which I had avoided as much as possible because I felt the Dutch bed a priority. Peter organised a ward for patients with jaw wounds. This was an excellent move because not only did they have a first class nurse to look after them and they were in comfortable beds, but also each man saw that he was not the only one with a facial wound and was in consequence made to realise that he was not unique and that other people did understand his suffering. To cater for all this number a cookhouse was started in Tafelberg under Ptes Maltby, Heath and Cuthill who were assisted by ambulant patients. Two meals were provided each day at 9.am and 5.pm made from Compo rations arriving in the day’s drop. Previously, we had eaten one good meal a day and kept going on tea brewed when occasion arose. I had found that we worked far better immediately after food or tea, and also that one’s morale was much better. On an empty stomach, it occasionally flashed across one’s mind “How much longer can this battle go on?”

The supply drops continued to go astray, and the food question was very uncertain, but two sheep strayed near us and they were killed by Sten gun fire from our window. The marksman responsible had to be careful not to expose himself or his gun because being under the Red Cross we should not have weapons of such calibre, and snipers might change their attitude to us and start taking pot shots at our medical personnel. Two of our orderlies and a Dutchman braved snipers and fetched in the carcasses which the Dutchman butchered and they were hung for future reference.

Medical Supplies came in the supply drops but we could never be sure when we would receive any. Occasionally, we were very short of dressings, and at one time our Morphia position caused me much anxiety. Part of our reserve supply was smashed when I was wounded by a fragment of shell passing through the hip pocket in which I was keeping a bottle. We had started out with some Penicillin which lasted us very well. WE gave it to a few men only, as we wished to be certain that is should not be wasted by giving too little. My priority case was a man with severe burns who also was number one priority for my supply of blood plasma and Glucose Saline transfusions. We received more of these valuable fluids by the supply drops, so we did not have to bleed ourselves or our orderlies for which I was thankful. I do not agree with those who use their own personnel or fighting troops as sources of blood except in absolute necessity. The only legitimate source in my opinion is the lightly wounded who are not going to be fit to return to their own unit at once.

One of our Dutchmen had the day before done a bicycle tour covering about fifteen miles. He brought information about guns which had moved to different sites and was able to pinpoint their positions on a map.

The Dutch moved about regardless of the firing going on. They conducted water parties and carried messages for their own people.

During the early part of the morning three of our fighting men came to Tafelberg with very depressing news. They said their line had been completely broken, they had had to run for their lives from tanks and flame throwers and had to jettison their weapons and equipment. They were in a mild state of panic and wanted to join up with Brigade Headquarters as their Battalion H.Q. no longer existed. I satisfied myself that their identities were as they described themselves and put them on the right road – vaguely because I did not know myself exactly. They took what weapons and ammunition we had with them.

We always made a dump of arms and ammunition which patients brought in with them. So that they could be collected and redistributed.

When we had settled down I started operating again, and continued into the early hours. I slept the night in a bed next to one of the patients I had just operated on; doing so saved my orderlies from keeping watch with him, they had each to do an hours night duty while the others slept. The other patients had had shorter anaesthetics and had already sufficiently recovered to be left, but this one had had an abdominal wound and his anaesthetic was therefore much deeper.

During the evenings and the middle of the night the Germans did not seem to indulge in much mortaring, and I found this quieter period much better for operating, and fewer patients seemed to come in to distract my team from their work in the operating theatre. If we were lucky, this quiet period lasted until after we had gone to bed, so we fell asleep very quickly and our state of fatigue was such that only close explosions disturbed us. In spite of this heavy sleep we were all very quick in responding to anything abnormal in our vicinity, and it was rare for any of us to get unbroken sleep. On several occasions I was forced to get up because I thought my night orderly might have been injured by a near bomb and be unable to draw our attention as he was alone on duty, but always I was worrying unnecessarily.

FRIDAY 22ND SEPTEMBER 1944

My patients numbered about seventy at 6:am this morning. I was up early so as to cunt numbers and inform the A.D.M.S. From now onwards, we were part of the battle, mortaring being much closer and during the day, we received at least one direct hit, several others being so close as to cause casualties among our own patients.

The bomb that hit us ruined our water supply finally. All the tanks emptying themselves into one end of the Main Room. It had hit between the ground and first floors, two patients downstairs were killed and several wounded again.

We shifted the patients to clear them from the water coming through the roof and our sense of proportion at last arriving; we finished off the remaining windows, knocked down the plaster from the damaged ceiling and removed the electric light pendants. The lust of destruction developed very rapidly in us and we might have continued to look for more things to break up had not more casualties arrived.

As can be imagined, this direct hit frightened our patients considerably and the explosion was followed by a panic, some patients getting up in spite of splints etc., and an attempt to run away. The most controlled man in the room was a badly burnt officer who could not open his eyes because his lids were so swollen; he shouted out at the top of his voice telling everyone to lie down and be quiet as they were quite alright.

The ceiling in my operating theatre had fallen and all our equipment was covered in debris. It was out of the question now to operate, mortar bombs were continually falling all around, and one just kept moving from patient to patient, hoping to miss any splinters flying in that area. One Dutch nurse was wounded by a splinter during the day and our dental corporal also while out fetching water. I thought it too great a risk to have five orderlies, a surgeon and an anaesthetist all grouped together in one place, when our total Medical personnel totalled ten, one of whom was wounded.

One patient of mine replying to my remark – that I was thankful I was not a fighting soldier sitting in a foxhole with all this explosive matter being thrown at me, said he wished he WAS in his foxhole which he thought far safer than his present predicament. Unfortunately, there was nothing one could do. The patients were safer lying on the floor, they obtained some protection from the low walls, but the windows were so large they could not be barricaded and there was nowhere else to move them to, even if it had not been so dangerous while being moved.

The number of my patients being wounded a second time while under my care increased daily, so that in the end, it must have been almost 50% after the final catastrophe just before we evacuated.

This first direct hit caused a panic not only among our patients but also among the Dutch, one of whom proceeded with a white flag to a local German H.Q. to give him information as to the loation of aid posts to prevent our being hit again. This S.S. battalion H.Q. said they had no means of communication with the headquarters of the troops mortaring us two or three miles away, but offered to convey an officer G.H.Q. in Arnhem. I believe the A.D.M.S. went off on the hazardous trip and made arrangements for the evacuation of our wounded to the German lines, but as far as my surgical centre was concerned, my patients were not evacuated for a day or two, although more room was found for them in the annexe.

APPROXIMATE LIST OF OPERATIONS PERFORMED IN THIS ACTION

2 Amputation of leg

1 Amputation of thigh

1 Disarticulation at elbow joint

3 Simple Potts fractures

2 Abdominal wounds (1 died after 5 days) (1 died after 12 hours)

3 Compound Femurs

4 or 5 Compound Tibias

1 or 2 Compound Humerus

1 G.S.W. of hand with haemorrhage

1 Ankle wound with haemorrhage from Post. Tib. Art.

1 Cystotomy for wound of penis

3 or 4 Wounds round buttocks and hips

1 Suspected abdo.  With multiple wounds

1 Penetrating wound of chest.

25   27 There were about 36 altogether

SATURDAY 23RD SEPTEMBER 1944

Nothing outstanding happened today except that I paid a short visit to the Dependance.

Two more hits were registered on the building, but no one was seriously hurt. The Dutch were very worried, poor things, they were not getting any more patients, but they were not able to go to a quieter spot. We were beginning to feel like Bruce Bairnsfather’s  famous “Better ‘Ole” of the last war. There was a small cellar and the Dutch occupied this.

I noted in my diary that the most trying thing about the business of this continued mortaring, was the noise. The blast had stopped affecting us, we had grown used to it.

The nights were now the worst part because one was unoccupied, and although very fatigued, it was difficult to sleep; one had one ear open all the time, and the Germans mortared occasionally during the darkest hours. It is difficult to explain the feeling experienced when one hears the faint bang of a mortar being fired and waits for the bomb to arrive. One only heard this at night because everything was so much quieter.

There was one type of projectile which was rather frightening; it whistled through the air getting louder and then the noise suddenly stopped, one waited for the explosion but nothing happened except that the whistle started again on the other side of the house, gradually getting quieter, the explosion being heard in the distance. I believe now that they were our own shells being fired from South of the river.

SUNDAY 24TH SEPTEMBER 1944

After about Tuesday, on going to bed, I had wondered to myself how much longer this battle could continue. I would think to myself “This has gone on four days already, I suppose it can go on a fifth” etc. We knew the M.D.S. was already in German hands, because Rigby had nearly been captured there one day when he had left one of our sheep there for them to eat. He had apparently walked in with the carcass through the back door, and our R.S.M. had warned him to beat it with the jeep in double quick time. When Rigby had had more food to deliver at a later date, he had been able to only push it in a back window of the kitchen and bolt.

An amusing story was told us later of the Germans occupying the M.D.S. Our R.S.M. wanting to attend the calls of nature explained to the backdoor sentry in sign language and was allowed to go outside. While outside, a German officer saw him, and the sentry was harangued in no uncertain terms. The Officer was carrying a hand grenade (the German type has a wooden-stick handle and explode after pulling a cord) and snatched the sentry’s helmet off his head delivere