there be?” It is often asserted that 1st Airborne Division was an elite. Yet in truth even its own men had reservations about the quality of several units, and especially of their commanders.
Captain Julius Neave was adjutant of the 13th/18th Royal Hussars, one of Montgomery’s armoured units. Neave wrote in his diary: “There is no doubt in [our commanding officer’s] mind that the war will be over this year, and this is undoubtedly the prevalent view everywhere . . . Yesterday we were told that the present operation ‘Market Garden’ would be the last Corps battle, and it is anticipated that now we shall be split into Battle Groups to liquidate isolated resistance.”
Every man who parachutes into action faces a dramatic mental adjustment between the tranquillity of the world he quits on take-off and the white heat of battle which he encounters a few hours later. Captain John Killick found it unreal to sit among comrades reading the Sunday newspapers in their comfortable mess in England until trucks arrived to take them to the airfield. He felt little apprehension: “We were young. We were light-hearted.” Partly because so many transport aircraft were shifting fuel to the armies in France, the landings required three separate lifts, spread over three days. This badly weakened the fighting power of the Allied airborne divisions in the first vital hours. The shortage of capacity made it seem all the more grotesque that Browning used thirty-six aircraft to move his own headquarters in the first wave. He should have insisted that the Allied transport fleet make two trips, rather than one, on the first day. This would have been perfectly feasible, at the cost of some strain upon aircrew. The initial landings were overwhelmingly successful: 331 British aircraft and 319 gliders, together with 1,150 U.S. aircraft and 106 gliders, landed 20,000 men in good order between Eindhoven and Arnhem.
Lieutenant Jack Curtis Goldman was flying a Waco glider carrying a communications jeep of the U.S. 504th Regiment. Like so many of his generation “Goldie,” a twenty-one-year-old from San Angelo, Texas, had always yearned to fly: “More than life itself, I had wanted to be a fighter pilot.” Imperfect eyesight caused him to be rejected for combat pilot training, but the recruiting sergeant said he would overlook the problem if Goldman would sign up for gliders. He found the experience “like trying to ride a brahman bull at a rodeo. Anyone who has ever experienced turbulence in an aircraft, just multiply it by ten and you will have some idea what a glider was like. Yet most of us . . . were eager to fly into combat, particularly those who were single and had no responsibilities. For me, the war was a big adventure, and September 17th, 1944 , was to be one of the most fantastic adventures of my life.”
Above Holland that Sunday, on tow at 120 m.p.h., the young Texan found an 82nd Airborne jeep driver squeezing into the cockpit behind him. “I’m praying for you,” the soldier said. “Why?” “Because if you get hit, I don’t know how to fly this glider.” They cut the tow at 1,000 feet, and went into a steep, spiralling dive to avoid a stall. Goldman tried to align the glider with the plough lines he saw beneath him, but found the ground rushing up to meet him at right angles to the furrows. Bump, lurch, bump, they hurtled across the field in their flimsy vessel of plywood and canvas, already hearing explosions. Then they were down, just north of the Maas river, a mere six miles from the Dutch border with Germany. They flipped the nose hatches. The terrified jeep driver bore them full-tilt towards the shelter of a wood. Goldman met some fellow pilots. They exulted wildly in having done their job and survived: “We were really happy, happy campers at that moment.” Unlike British glider pilots, their American counterparts were not expected to fight in the ground battle. Their job was over once they had landed
Captain Julius Neave was adjutant of the 13th/18th Royal Hussars, one of Montgomery’s armoured units. Neave wrote in his diary: “There is no doubt in [our commanding officer’s] mind that the war will be over this year, and this is undoubtedly the prevalent view everywhere . . . Yesterday we were told that the present operation ‘Market Garden’ would be the last Corps battle, and it is anticipated that now we shall be split into Battle Groups to liquidate isolated resistance.”
Every man who parachutes into action faces a dramatic mental adjustment between the tranquillity of the world he quits on take-off and the white heat of battle which he encounters a few hours later. Captain John Killick found it unreal to sit among comrades reading the Sunday newspapers in their comfortable mess in England until trucks arrived to take them to the airfield. He felt little apprehension: “We were young. We were light-hearted.” Partly because so many transport aircraft were shifting fuel to the armies in France, the landings required three separate lifts, spread over three days. This badly weakened the fighting power of the Allied airborne divisions in the first vital hours. The shortage of capacity made it seem all the more grotesque that Browning used thirty-six aircraft to move his own headquarters in the first wave. He should have insisted that the Allied transport fleet make two trips, rather than one, on the first day. This would have been perfectly feasible, at the cost of some strain upon aircrew. The initial landings were overwhelmingly successful: 331 British aircraft and 319 gliders, together with 1,150 U.S. aircraft and 106 gliders, landed 20,000 men in good order between Eindhoven and Arnhem.
Lieutenant Jack Curtis Goldman was flying a Waco glider carrying a communications jeep of the U.S. 504th Regiment. Like so many of his generation “Goldie,” a twenty-one-year-old from San Angelo, Texas, had always yearned to fly: “More than life itself, I had wanted to be a fighter pilot.” Imperfect eyesight caused him to be rejected for combat pilot training, but the recruiting sergeant said he would overlook the problem if Goldman would sign up for gliders. He found the experience “like trying to ride a brahman bull at a rodeo. Anyone who has ever experienced turbulence in an aircraft, just multiply it by ten and you will have some idea what a glider was like. Yet most of us . . . were eager to fly into combat, particularly those who were single and had no responsibilities. For me, the war was a big adventure, and September 17th, 1944 , was to be one of the most fantastic adventures of my life.”
Above Holland that Sunday, on tow at 120 m.p.h., the young Texan found an 82nd Airborne jeep driver squeezing into the cockpit behind him. “I’m praying for you,” the soldier said. “Why?” “Because if you get hit, I don’t know how to fly this glider.” They cut the tow at 1,000 feet, and went into a steep, spiralling dive to avoid a stall. Goldman tried to align the glider with the plough lines he saw beneath him, but found the ground rushing up to meet him at right angles to the furrows. Bump, lurch, bump, they hurtled across the field in their flimsy vessel of plywood and canvas, already hearing explosions. Then they were down, just north of the Maas river, a mere six miles from the Dutch border with Germany. They flipped the nose hatches. The terrified jeep driver bore them full-tilt towards the shelter of a wood. Goldman met some fellow pilots. They exulted wildly in having done their job and survived: “We were really happy, happy campers at that moment.” Unlike British glider pilots, their American counterparts were not expected to fight in the ground battle. Their job was over once they had landed
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