M A R C H ! F O L L O W THE S O U N D S O F S H O O T I N G

cles had been purloined from the Dutch atpistol point. 'Es geht wieder los!' ('Here wego again') had been the sigh upon receipt ofthe inevitable order to get going followingthe awesome fly-pass over Deventer. Withadrenalin in their stomachs, they ate up themiles. As they progressed, their spiritssoared; as Trapp remembers, they wereyoung and therefore 'had less fear'. Andwhat was more:

'It was wonderful weather, a sunnyday. Morale was high. There were no"Jabos" like there were in Normandy- we felt we could win!'

1

panies of 3 and 2 PARA attempting to fighttheir way through to the road bridge. Pin-ned down a few hundred metres west of thehospital in a park area, Den Brink, Moellerwas anxious to proceed, but was destined toremain in these same houses for days as thebattle for Arnhem raged around him. Forthe moment he tried to disperse his com-panies into assault formation and advance.Dombrowski's section, expanded now to11 or 12 men, moved to the left of Utrech-tseweg. As he recalled:

'This was just like a wild west shoot-out. There was no front. Sections andhalf-sections fought scattered actionsagainst similar size, British groups.There was no discernible line on theEnglish side either.'

3

By the middle of the afternoon the dis-persed quick-reaction 'alarm' companies ofthe 9SS began to collect together. Theyarrived on foot, bicycles, horse-drawn carts,or in ramshackle cars. Twenty lorries fromthe Hohenstaufen's transport resourcesoperated a shuttle service, moving com-panies through Arnhem city centre and outinto the western suburbs. They reacted to asimple slogan: 'Follow the sounds of shoot-ing; that is where the front is!' SS-CaptainMoeller's Kampfgruppe had arrived in thenorthern outskirts of Arnhem by 1630.

'There was a lot of confused shoutingand running around. Nobody knewwhat was going on. We were told thatthe enemy was where we drew firefrom.'

2

SS-Corporal Dombrowski's assault pioneersection was already aware of this. Havingpassed the St Elizabeth's Hospital on theUtrechtseweg towards Oosterbeek, theyhad drawn such a volume of fire that theywere obliged to take cover. Trucks and half-tracks pulled up sharply and became jam-med in the road as the occupants baled out;some, struck by small arms fire, tumbledinto the street. Between arrival and dusk theKampfgruppe Moeller fought with com-

Further on, to the right, scores of Englishparatroopers lay dead in a harvested field,some still wearing parachute harnesses.Dombrowski did not know how they hadgot there. 'Maybe a glider broke up underfire, or they were more likely caught byGerman flak.' But he managed to pick up aMark II sten-gun. 'I only had a pistol at thisstage. I clutched at the sten frantically andthought "Thank God I've got a gun!".' Itproved unfortunately unreliable during hisfirst actual contact with the enemy, a sur-prise confrontation with a group of Britishparatroopers in a garage. Damaged by shellsplinters, the cocking mechanism jammed.Luckily he was able to bluff his way. TheBritish, equally aghast, dispirited and tired,surrendered. They were led off to the rear.He recalled the significance of the incidentbecause

'. . . after two or three days it was nolonger possible to identify friend orfoe from the firing of weapons. Oursfired faster generally than the British.But both sides used each others.'

91