On Thursday 21 September, Feldmarschall Model issued orders for concerted attacks on the Allied Corridor that now reached fifty miles into the rear area. With growing numbers of troops, who had escaped the Allied trap on the Channel Coast, now arriving, he believed that he could cut-off and destroy the four Allied divisions now fighting in the Nijmegen / Arnhem area. In contrast to the Allied view of the battle, the Germans were optimistic that they could administer a bloody check on Montgomery.

An entry in LXXXVIII Korps war diary summarizes the orders given to Generaloberst Student’s First Fallchirmjäger Army:

‘Feldmarschall Model has ordered that the enemy columns marching on Nijmegen are to be attacked at the Veghel bottleneck on 22 September from the west and east. This is to be helped by a panzer brigade from Heeresgruppe B from the east and through a Kampfgruppe of the 59th Division from the west, consisting of two battalions strongly supported by artillery and Panzerjäger [assault guns].’

With the towns of St Oedenrode and Veghel secured by 502 and 501 PIR respectively, 101st Airborne was mounting a mobile defence of the Corridor. Their aim was to keep the enemy away from Hell’s Highway and information was soon coming in from Dutch civilians that the Germans were concentrating for an attack at Schijndel. This was 59th Division that was arriving from western Holland via s’Hertogenbosch. At 17.00 hours, the significance of Schijndel was confirmed by a report of the arrival in the town of trucks carrying 2,000 German troops. This was Kampfgruppe Huber, a part of 59th Division, supported by four extremely potent Jagdpanthers of 1st Company, 559 Panzerjäger Battalion, arriving to join the battle. The force built around two battalions of Wehrmacht infantry, was well supported by artillery. Colonel Johnson, however, saw their arrival as another opportunity to destroy a significant enemy force. By advancing, with 1/501 PIR from positions on the Canal near Heeswijk and with 3/501 PIR from Eerde, he planned to drive the enemy into the guns of 502 PIR north of St Oedenrode. Squadrons of British tanks from 44/Royal Tank Regiment (RTR), detached from 4 Armoured Brigade, were to support the two American Regiments; B Squadron with 501 PIR and A Squadron with 502 PIR. C Squadron 15/19 Hussars was divisional reserve. If successful, Colonel Johnson would repeat his previous day’s success by enveloping the enemy on a grander scale.

Night 21 - 22 September 1944

The advance began at 19.00 hours, just as Lieutenant Colonel Kinnard was about to conduct a route recce, when he was unexpectedly ordered to ‘Move now’. Despite the prospect of a ‘night assault on a strange city, filled with an unknown number of enemy’, 1/501 PIR set off in column of companies along the road. This was by far the quickest way of covering ground, as a more circumspect advance across country would have bogged down as infantry tried to cross drainage ditches in the darkness. However, in the gathering gloom they were engaged by a vehicle mounted multiple 20mm anti-aircraft gun, supported by a machine gun in a nearby group of houses. The paratroopers took to the drainage ditches and manoeuvred into positions from where, after a sharp firefight, they forced the Germans to withdraw. Private First Class Beckerman remembered that: