1 Airlanding Recce Squadron, less one troop, was to have attempted a 'coup-de-main' on the main brid

From AAR 1 Airborne Division:

"1 Airlanding Recce squadron, less one troop, was to have attempted a 'coup-de-main' on the main bridge at Arnhem, but found difficulty in assembling and this plan was abandoned".

I am no expert, so my question: Is there somebody who can elaborate on this?

 

Krafts ambush of the Recce Sqn at Wolfheze had a lot to do with it. See this link

http://ww2talk.com/forums/topic/27721-duitskampweg-9-trooper-leslie-percy-goulding/

Cheers
Paul

 

From page 41 of the excellent book "Remember Arnhem" by John Fairley.

"Taking the squadron as a whole, the situation was that, not only were the figures for initial casualties well below the acceptable level, but the non-arrival of two Recce Squadron gliders from an allotment of 22 was statistically compatible with total divisional losses (30 out of 358) on the whole first lift. Certainly, as far as the coup de main was concerned 28 out of the 31 jeeps earmarked for it were mustered."

"At 1540 hours the Squadron was ready to go..."

I don't think "difficulty in assembling" had anything to do with the coup de main plan not working. Krafft's actions were the main reason I feel.

All the best ..................

 

No problem assembling, problem was as said, and more information will be out soon By Scott, but id say it was those pesky Germans who had a hand in it.

 

1 Airlanding Recce squadron's gliders landed at 1335.

Frost and his 2 Para jumped between 1353 and 1408, and left the RV point at 1530. About one hour, 30 minutes for assembling.

Still wondering, no assembling difficulties? Why mention this in a very accurate AAR?

 

Found it!

Cornelius Ryan: "Quickly Gough located his second in command, Captain David Allsop, on the landing zone and received some bad news. The entire transport for one of the four units - approximately twenty-two vehicles - had failed to arrive, Allsop reported."

If this is true, a serious blow for the coup-de-main plan.

 

No that is not true, only two gliders out of 22 failed to arrive. Id read John Fairleys Book,Remember Arnhem, their were a couple of missing jeeps, due to being stuck in gliders, but that was expected statistically. Regardless of a coup de main, you cannot just all drive off, you have to form up, liase etc, The fact that 2 Para moved off first is irrelevant, they had to WALK to the bridge, it was deemed a 20 minute drive for the Recce. Again the fact the Germans didnt play ball and fought back, stopped this. BUT their wasnt a problem with the Recce at all.

 

Some interesting Recce Information at Arnhem.

http://www.pegasusarchive.org/arnhem/war_recce.htm

Regards
Tom

 

Unfortunately the makers of the film "A Bridge Too Far" went with this version of events as well. It's a shame Fairley's book hadn't come out a few years earlier! :frown:

 

I have a copy of the war diary somewhere. I will see what the official version was


TTFN


Lawrence

 

One of the major problems was that the gliders contained the jeeps and a couple of men each, but other Recce men came by parachute! So we have the following chain of events:

1300 - Pathfinders land.
1335 - Glider element lands. Some gliders make rough landings and take up to 90 minutes to unload.
1410 - Parachute personnel land on a different DZ.
Both glider party and parachute party make way to the unit rendezvous until...
1540 - Tac HQ under command Major Gough moves out, preceded by ‘C’ Troop and followed by ‘D’ Troop and Support Troop.

From 'A' Troop's war diary: "Troop unlucky on landing. No.2 Section Gliders are not located and it is presumed that they had to cast off. No.3 Section unable to remove jeeps from Glider which has had a bad crash landing."

So the problem was not that the "gliders did not arrive" but that the Divisional plan was for a Coup-de-Main to be accomplished by a unit that could not assemble until at least two and a half hours after the first paratroops had dropped (the Pathfinders at 1300).

Please, please, please do not rely on Cornelius Ryan's book for historical accuracy. It gives a brilliant impression of the experience of Market Garden (and one that has inspired a life long interest in the battle on my part) but should be treated with great caution by historians.

Regards

Tom

 

Oops,

I forget to post that the difficult questin which must be faced up to is why the Squadron did not try another route on the evening of 17 September?

To be fair, one troop ('C') had run into serious trouble, comms were difficult, the fog of war had clearly descended, the unit CO had disappeared into the night but the following extracts from the Squadron's war diary do at least suggest a lack of urgency within Div HQ:

1645- Major Gough and Lt. McNabb leave Tac HQ and report to Div. HQ. Wireless control jeep of Tac HQ has to move repeatedly-reception bad owing to number of trees.
1830- Tac HQ is ordered back to Divisional area 6579. Proceed with ‘D’ and Support Troop under command. Capt. Allsop, in absence of Major Gough, has taken command of the Sqn.
2000- Tac HQ at KL Zwitsiland. Dark. Major Gough not contacted. Local inhabitants inform us that the British have been there some hours previously.
2045- Capt. Allsop withdraws to Div HQ.
2130- Div HQ has no more information regarding Major Gough. Wireless watch maintained throughout the night. No other casualties suffered that night.
Night quiet and dry.

It would be very interesting to discover how the conversation between the anonymous "Div HQ" and Capt. Allsop resulted in the decision to sit at Div HQ overnight. BTW I am not saying that any decision to "have a go" on the part of the Recce would have made any difference to the outcome, nor am I questioning the huge gallantry they subsequently showed during the rest of the operation, just that it seems surprising for a "Coup-de-Main" party to not try alternative routes during those few "Vital Hours" (I'm looking forward to my new book!).

Regards

Tom

 

Extraordinary is that, Major Gough, CO of Recce Squadron (destined to go for the bridge), acting on orders from the CO of 1 Airborne, Urquhart, went looking for his general (who had decided to go on a inspection tour, while communications were so "poor", and ultimately found himself trapped in the evening with 3 Para) and landed up with Frost at the bridge in Arnhem (leaving the rest of Recce Squadron without its CO).

Long sentence, I know.

 

Whilst the loss of Gough may have been felt at first, by the very essence of their job, Recce troops can work quite well on there own, I do not think by Gough being away, that the Recce were at a disadvantage.

Tom, im not sure what other route besides the Frost route they could have taken ? The others were under German control more or less, and after the 17th they lost any advantage they had, i too am waiting for the Krafft book So maybe some interesting answers in it for us.

 

B Troop is not mentioned in Recce Squadron's war diary. I wonder why.

Does anybody know how many jeeps there were in a troop?

 

B Troop were disbanded in Italy, due to casualties

 

So, "less one troop", means: without B Troop. So, three troops on 17 September.

According to AAR 1 Airborne Division - for 17 September - one troop, C Troop (who ran into Krafft's ambush at the culvert), was attached to 1 Parachute Brigade (1 Para) and the two other troops were patrolling the Amsterdamseweg, the road between Ede and Arnhem, to the west and the east (protecting 1 Airlanding Brigade? on order of 2 i/c Allsop?)

 

Echoes at Arnhem has an interesting summary of the situation: Urqhart hears the rumour that most of the Recce jeeps have failed to arrive and decides to talk to Gough to revise the plan. Recce are not on the Divisional radio net (by design; there was supposed to be a Div liaison officer with Recce but he failed to meet up with them), so Urqhart drops off the Div net to try the Recce frequency with no success, compounding the problems.

In the absence of orders to the contrary, Recce ought to have proceeded with their plan. EaH goes on to imply that Gough was not told why Urqhart wanted to see him, presumably because the messenger didn't know. Had he been told, Gough ought to have been able to contradict the Div myth that most Recce jeeps had been lost and make a case to continue the mission. Instead, Gough must have put the mission on hold in the belief that there was some big issue that justified scrapping the coup de main, handed over to Allsop, then went off to find Urqhart.

The mystery is why Urqhart thought it necessary to talk to Gough - if he believed they had no jeeps, what was he expecting them to do instead? If he'd written them off in his mind, and directed his efforts at 1 Para Bde, Recce might still have pulled off the coup.

 

According to Cornelius Ryan : "At the precise moment [1630] that General Urquhart set out to find Lathbury, Gough was speeding back to Division to report to Urquhart."

(alas, all due to the failure in the wireless communication; a lot of bad luck, one can say)

 

Hi,

The route the recce were ambushed on was special to them as far as I know - 1 Para were going further north, 3 Para further south along the main road and 2 Para along the river road. No doubt if the Recce Sqn had tried to go north they would have been blocked again, but as one Coy of 3 Para and most of 2 Para plus Bde HQ managed to slip through if they had tried one of the southern routes there must be a chance that some at least might have got through.

It's not really important whether there was or was not much chance of getting through, I just find it odd that they didn't try and were not ordered to attempt to "bash through" by Div HQ. After all they were the "Coup-de-Main party"!

Regards

Tom

Tom, im not sure what other route besides the Frost route they could have taken ?