B L A S T I N G THE BRITISH O U T

suicidal manner'. Both his men and the SS-Kampfgruppe Brinkmann kept up pressurein a steadily escalating battle of attrition towrest back control of the bridge. Kracht onthe mounting toll on both sides:

'As far as we were concerned, thisshooting lasted for two days untilnothing more stirred on the bridge.Panzer-grenadiers, also suffering mostof the casualties, had to do the dirtywork again. Even so we lost anothertank. All around the bridgehead was anightmare of buildings reduced torubble, shot-up vehicles and guns, andcorpses - of friend and foe alike.'

Constant fighting and casualties werebeginning to have a psychological impactupon the attackers. Chivalry there was, andoften the wounded were allowed to beevacuated, but this particular battle was attimes in its ferocity more intense even thanthe siege of Oosterbeek that was yet tocome. It produced a blood lust in the lessstable, and engendered a cynicism in others,who began to view the carnage through aveil of hardened emotion. Kracht recalledthe brutalising effect as initial 'apprehen-sion slowly gave away to sarcasm and thewill to survive'. He remembers hopelesslygazing skywards through it all:

'Viewing daily bombers formationsheading for Germany gave rise todoubts about Endsieg, or final victory.It made everything appear absolutelyuseless.'

8

Straat and the Eusebius-Plein, resignedhimself to the fact: 'Because of my age andexperience [19 years old], I got all the dirtyjobs.' He described one such task:

'We were told to get some woundedor dead SS men out of the enemy fieldof fire. To achieve this we got anarmoured half-track. Putting downcovering fire with two machine gunson it, we would race down the street,open the rear door, pull our mates in,and fire away as we sped back tocover. All the time we would hopethere would not be a stoppage on themachine guns because the British firedvery accurately. In one case they shota man in the heart straight through hismilitary record book.'

The problem now was that very fewarmoured vehicles were actually capable ofnegotiating the rubble-strewn streets.Trapp claims he saw no tanks at all in hisarea, 'only the one half-track we had, whichwas only just able to get through narrowpassages covered in wreckage'.Trapp was ordered to use this vehicle toestablish physical contact with Brink-mann's forces trying to break through fromthe opposite direction - the east - under thebridge ramp itself. Three of his unit madeup the crew of the half-track. Nobody wasenthusiastic because they knew a Britishanti-tank gun dominated the river-bankroad they would have to use. Trapp recallstheir misgivings:

'Bernd Schultze-Bernd was our driver,a farmer's son from Sendenhorst inMuensterland. He was one of the threeold company veterans. During theorders group there were tears in hiseyes. He told our company commanderthat this was not going to work. But anorder is an order. To be on the safe side,the other two of us stuffed the pockets

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And yet there was worse to come.

Do the 'Tommies' in! . . .

Collecting the wounded was increasinglybecoming a problem. SS-Machine-GunnerRudolf Trapp, fighting in the area of Lang