My shadowbox diorama for this Campaign will be based upon the story below.
In the cellar, as the conference assembled, I glanced around the tired faces. Hicks, Iain Murray, Loder-Symonds, Mackenzie and Myers were there. I said: “We are to clear out tonight”. I explained that units would withdraw on a time program by two routes. “In general, those farthest from the river will start first. I don’t expect that either of the routes will be free from enemy interest, but they are the best available to us.”
The plan included the posting of guides on both east and west routes as far as the open marshy land alongside the river. The glider pilots were to be used for this task. In difficult places the routes would be marked with parachute tapes. Guides from each unit would make themselves familiar with the routes during the day. Myers’s sappers would look after the last stretches to the embarkation points. Men would move in boatload parties of fourteen with their boots muffled and would take evasive action if engaged and only retaliate
if it was vital.
On Myers fell the dual responsibility of selecting the routes and fixing the ferry service. He had hardly recovered from his ordeal of crossing the river in both directions only a little time before. Yet he managed to look extremely alert and he was, as usual, full of ideas. There was no need to underline just how vital were his technical experience and his qualities of character to the division’s survival. I turned to Robert Loder-Symonds and said that we would expect much from the gunners shooting from “the island”.
“I’m sure we’ll get all we want,” he replied. Finally I ordered that news of the evacuation should not be broken until it was absolutely necessary to do so. We still had another day’s fight ahead and there was always the likelyhood of exhausted men falling into German hands and coming under interrogation. Further, when once men start to look over their
shoulders, their effectiveness is reduced.
Only those who had to know were told of the plan. I realized only too well that the cost of pulling out the remnants of my division through a riverside bottleneck already reduced to between six and seven hundred yards might be high - very high. There was no better way.
The night was made for clandestine exits. It was very dark with an inky sky and there was a strong wind and persistent heavy rain. In their muddy ditches and foxholes
and slit trenches, saturated men found themselves glad of the rain which would deaden the noise and help our chances. They ticked off the minutes until
it was their time to move.
From miles away across the river, the guns of XXX Corps opened up. Someone came into the Hartenstein cellar and said: “It seems to be going all right.” We blackened our faces with ashes and mud and muffled our boots and any equipment which might rattle, such
as bayonets. Hancock produced some curtain material and helped me to wrap it round my boots.
In Hartenstein House, the padre entered the congested cellars from which we would soon depart. Like all the other padres and doctors, he was staying behind. We knelt in silent disarray where we had been standing, as he said a prayer.
At the river, Myers was marshalling the parties of fourteen into the boats. An anti-aircraft battery of the 43rd was firing red tracer shells over the two river routes as a further guide to the parties of men who were now making their hazardous and uncomfortable way down
the escape lines.
The immense artillery programme had started, and small-arms fire also covered the waters. Downstream beyond our perimeter the Dorsets who had crossed the night before to help us, were still in action. In the fastrunning river the storm boats were caught by the
strong current and some were taken off course and drifted too far down. Others stalled, and the men used their rifles as oars. But already some boats had reached the far bank and were now returning for more men. In spite of the men being exhausted by now, everthing
went quietly and in good order, they were in good spirits.
from: “The Battle of Arnhem”
by Major-General R.E. Urquhart
The diorama will show the conference of general Urquhart and his remaining staff. The picture below, a diorama from the Airborne Museum, will be my guide for this shadowbox diorama.
About the location the Airborne Museum wrote :
Major-General Urquhart’s command post was situated in the cellar of his Headquarters, here in Hartenstein House. At first, the general had chosen one of the rooms in the large house, but when the situation got too dangerous, he moved his command post into one
of the many cellars. It was from here that “Sunray” led the division in this difficult period.
Contact with the various units was kept mainly by telephone and radio. Messages were sent and received by day and by night and the general did his utmost to find a satisfying solution for the many desperate questions he received for help and reinforcement. sometimes it was impossible to reach people and one had to fear the worst for those units which had become cut off. But the staff of the division did all it could to help the soldiers
in their desperate fight against the German superior forces.
from: “Student Letter "D”
by the Hartenstein Airborne Museum, Oosterbeek The Netherlands
Well,
what do you think of it so far..... can you taste the atmosphere a bit ?
