Extract from ‘Wings Of The Wind’, by Lieut. Peter Stainforth. 1st Parachute Squadron, R.E.

Page 212.

been captured the night before, but that the enemy had now interposed a force between the 2nd Battalion and themselves. He could tell me nothing of brigade or our squadron head quarter!!.

Outside I passed on this disquieting news, and we went on up the hill again, with the railway sidings on our left and on the right the steep escarpment overlooking the Rhine. The noise of the battle in front was now terrific, and there was heavy traffic moving in the town on the other side of the railway.

When we came to houses again we got into the back gardens on the edge of the escarpment and worked forward cautiously to the top of the rise. Here I was wriggling over a high stone wall when a burst of Spandau crashed out just above my head, and I half fell and was half pulled back on top of Clarkson who was giving me a leg-up. We withdrew quickly a couple of gardens back.

Now we heard a heavy armoured vehicle grinding up the street towards us, so we took up positions and waited. The engine stopped. There was firing further along the road. While I thought out our next move Chepstowe rummaged in his pack and with complete unconcern brought out a loaf of bread and his big tin of spam. He divided them up and the others ate ravenously. ‘Come on, have a bite, sir!’ he coaxed, but I could not look at it - the very thought of food was repugnant at such a moment. .

I had a hurried glance at my plan of the city. We were a quarter of a mile beyond the hospital and still about a mile from the bridge, with the enemy holding the bottleneck in front of us between the railway and the river and evidently watching for us to appear again. Our small party would get no farther by this route. I saw that by retracing our steps we might cross the railway line and gain the more open part of the city beyond by a chain of woods, starting with Den Brink park, half a mile west of the St. Elizabeth hospital. Here we might link up with the 1st Battalion - for fighting was going on to the north of us in the region of the Amsterdam road - or we might fall in with the 3rd Battalion. I explained the plan to the rest and we set off briskly the way we had come.

We turned north after passing the hospital and entered the chessboard of back streets to the west of it. We were making for the railway near the end of the sidings when we narrowly escaped disaster. An armoured car stood half-concealed in a side road a

Page 213.

hundred yards away with a crowd of German infantry in the nearby gardens, fortunately looking in the opposite direction. We ducked back under cover and continued westwards again towards Den Brink.

We reached it about twenty minutes later. This park had at sometime been a flak site for a heavy battery. The great square sandbagged pits were still there, and the undergrowth had been allowed to advance unchecked. Rhododendron bushes straggled in dark green islands among tall copper beech trees, and bracken and smaller bushes had grown up thickly, reducing visibility to fifty yards at most.

We spread out and moved into the wood rapidly but carefully, with weapons cocked. We had not gone more than twenty yards when things happened. Someone fired on us from a few yards’ range with a Schmeisser machine carbine, then leapt up and ran. His burst missed all of us, and instinctively I fired a long burst at the green figure in peaked hat before he dived into a large patch of rhododendron. My shot hit him; the man gasped but plunged on, making rasping noises between his teeth. My blood was up, and without further thought I gave chase. I imagined that the German was a lone sniper hiding up in the wood. I knew that I had winged him, but he still had a Schmeisser slung round his neck and we could not go on in safety with him at large. Chepstowe and I ran to the right of the rhododendron clump, while I shouted to the others to go round the left.

Of course it all happened in a flash. The German and I fired almost simultaneously, and then I was sprinting round the clump to catch him as he reappeared. I ran on for about a hundred yards, across a road and into a clearing, then dropped down on one knee to see where he had gone. I saw him lying behind a tree and two other men bending over him. These two were wearing mottled camouflaged smocks and scrimmed helmets and looked not unlike British paratroopers. I peered for a second undecided, but then one raised his rifle and fired in our direction. He was wearing black leather equipment, and as he turned his head I saw the shape of his helmet. I shouted, ‘Hande hoch!’ but when he swung his rifle towards me I gave them a couple of eight-round bursts. They rolled over without making a sound and lay huddled together.

Page 214.

I have only the very vaguest impression of what followed. I saw the whole wood running with figures in green and mottled clothing, men jumping from half-dug trenches and throwing away picks and shovels, men scrambling for rifles propped against trees: the place was alive with Germans dodging and scurrying for the shelter of solid trunks. It was too late to run for cover myself so I just hosed with the Sten at anything and everything that moved. There was no time nor need to aim: they were in a semicircle from twenty to thirty yards away. Two men with a machine-gun, a Spandau, tried to swing it round at me but died over their gun before they ever fired a burst. Two others fell as they dived for trees, another looked out from behind his cover and then crumpled up. I saw the dust fly up in the faces of two others peering over a bank twenty yards to my right, and they disappeared backwards: a single boot came up over the top and stayed there.

I kept thinking to myself, ‘Why haven’t I been killed yet? Another second perhaps ... why on earth am I still alive?’ A long splinter of wood flew from the tree to my right; a twig kicked up by my knee; the bullets were cracking very near. The Germans were rattled and were loosing off anywhere in my direction. As long as my own miniature blizzard lasted I stood a chance; when my ammunition had gone ... ! I clipped on the fifth and last magazine and almost gave up hope. Then I heard my own Bren thundering away quite close, so leapt to my feet and raced for cover, spraying the Sten in an arc behind me. Clarkson finished off his second magazine and then ran too as I came level with him. Of course he saved my life.

We made that thirty yards in record time. We went over the road and towards a red brick house, then dived for a clump of thickly planted trees. I had two yards to go, then felt the bullet smack into my side. I did the last couple of steps and flopped down gasping. Corporal Dory and the rest of the party were close by, so we crawled over and joined them. I had great difficulty in breathing and knew that as far as I was concerned the battle of Arnhem was just about over.

‘Are you all right, sir?’ Dory enquired.

‘Bullet in the side,’ I gasped. ‘Are the rest O.K. ?’

‘Stewart’s been hit, sir. He’s very bad!’

Sapper Stewart was lying beneath a tree, breathing heavily. He

Page 215.

had been shot through the upper chest, his face was grey and he was dying fast.

‘Corporal Dory!’ I hissed. The woods were treacherously silent again. ‘You’ve got to get out of here quickly. Beat it, do you understand? Try and get away without being seen but shoot your way out if you have to. Go on, get out of it!’

He and the others looked at me doubtfully, then got to their knees and set off running, bent double. They did thirty yards, then a rifle cracked and the 2nd Battalion corporal who was with us dropped in his tracks. Clarkson turned and hosed around with the Bren the others dropped down behind a fold in the ground and were gone. A moment later Clarkson had joined them. I began to feel very much alone. Then I saw the medical orderly a yard to my left.

‘What are you doing here?’ I enquired angrily.

‘You’re wounded, sir, and the other man needs medical help. My job is to stay with the wounded.’

We crawled over to Stewart. There was nothing we could do: he was dead. The body of the infantry corporal lay exactly as it had fallen thirty yards away.

‘Best get away from here, sir,’ the orderly exclaimed after a moment. ‘They might try letting us have a few potato-mashers to finish us off!’

We looked around for a suitable hiding-place. Forty yards away to the north was a derelict brick barn covered with ivy. We wormed our way over laboriously, rolled into a ditch beneath the wall and pulled the ivy down on top of us. We were quite comfortable camouflaged and in fairly good cover. The Germans opened up with a Spandau a moment or two later and sprayed that part of the wood we had just left. Two rifle-grenades landed a little later. But the enemy made no attempt to come and investigate. After a little while half a dozen camouflaged forms crawled out and pulled in their wounded. Their own dead they left where they lay.

As soon as all the commotion had died down the medical orderly came and had a look at my wound. After slitting up my smock and shirt he eased away the blood-soaked garments. There was a neat hole in the middle of my chest. That apparently was the exit wound. He felt gingerly with his hand round the side, then gave a grunt of satisfaction and wiped the blood off his fingers.

The identities of the men are:

Chepstowe = 1912650. Spr. C.F. Plunton.

Cpl. Dory = 2144443. Cpl. J. Simpkins.

Stewart = 1941992. Spr. W. Madden.

Clarkson = 2182781. Spr. J.H. Wright.