ARNHEM. THE PENDULUM SWINGS BACK

men. Its effect was devastating, onlyone of the Tommies remainedstanding, the rest were rolling andmoaning in a heap on the ground.'

Slowly the lone surviving paratrooper ad-vanced menacingly towards Mueller. Onfiring two more bursts, Mueller discoveredhis machine gun had run out of ammu-nition. He called frantically for a new belt,only to realise that his comrades hadalready fled. Unable to find his rifle, hepicked up one of two 'egg' hand-grenadeslying on the parapet of his trench. 'Tommyseemed to discover me,' he fearfullyobserved, and threw the first grenade. Itwas a dud. This Englishman was indestruct-ible. There was a bang, and fire and dirt flewinto his face as he detected the throwingmovement from his opponent. 'I just hadenough strength to throw my pulled grenadeat the Tommy before I blacked out for afew moments.' Coming to after the explo-sion he could still see his assailant fivemetres in front of him. He remembersdesperately trying to pull himself togetherotherwise he was going to die. 'You've gotto get away fast now,' he thought, 'orTommy is going to do you in completely.'He then felt a sharp pain, 'as if somebodywas slashing a knife back and forth' on hisupper arm. Blinded by the blood on hisface, he groped around for the machinegun. It had been torn open at the breech.That was it; 'it was high time for me to getout of my hole,' he thought. As he vaultedout of the trench another hand-grenadeexploded within it, peppering his back withsmall pieces of shrapnel. Bleeding pro-fusely, he stumbled off into the night,pushing his now useless left arm into hisbelt for support, hastened by the crump ofhand-grenades behind him.

17

Dawn was now approaching, and with itthe mist began to rise. As it did so theremnants of Graebner's SS ReconnaissanceBattalion, positioned in the brickworks

across the Rhine, were presented with anunbelievable target. Strung out in a columnalong the Onderlangs were 1 and 3 PARA,concerned only with exchanges of firegoing on to their front by Moeller and totheir left. 20 and 37mm cannon were able tolay on at short range over open sights withan uninterrupted traverse up and down theroad. At 0600 the massacre began. Concen-trated bursts of high-velocity shot flailedthe ragged columns as they pushed on,unaware of the danger to their right flank.Bodies disintegrated and were dismem-bered by horizontal lines of tracer hammer-ing across the river on a flat trajectory,exploding and splintering on the batteredfaçades of houses beyond. The screams ofthe maimed were barely distinguishableabove the crescendo of sound magnified bythe surrounding buildings. Both battalionsvirtually ceased to exist. Spindler's men,occupying the houses and gardens border-ing the high ground to the left overlookingthe low road, grenaded and fired at any-thing that moved. Fire still continued fromthe front. Assailed from three sides, theattack collapsed in a withering concentra-tion of weapons of all calibres. There wasnowhere for the hapless paratroopers toturn, except to try and gain admittance tooccupied houses on their left. Shelter hadtherefore to be fought for. At 0730 theadvance elements of 1 PARA had reachedthe old harbour, barely 1,400 metres fromthe bridge. Sounds of battle were still ap-parent from that direction but they werefinished. Behind, the column was in ashambles. Decimated desperate groupsbegan now to flee or exfiltrate back to thestart line. Most of the officers and NCOswere already dead or wounded. This was tobe the nearest they would ever get to Frost;but 2 PARA, totally preoccupied with theirown battle at the bridge, did not hear athing.

Meanwhile, elements of WehrmachtAssault Gun Brigade 280 began to clatter

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