Excellent again gents. Any kid complaining they don’t like history should just have a look. Brilliantly presented by two knowledgeable blokes making a fascinating event so accessible. Well done
The blockhouse was on the other side to the left in the middle of the lock. You can see that on the old maps of 1940. And the electric pump house was the building they just passed on the left, although I doubt a little if that that brickwork was that old. And in 1944 the canal was much smaller, it was widened in more recent years So walking the ground is very important, but you need temporal maps that makes things clear. Which buildings and structures were there, which roads, canals etc. Even the position of small forest and trees are on these maps and they make things much more clear.
@@ce17ec Would you mind sharing links to those maps? As we walk the ground we are discovering things before, during and after our visits. Always insightful.
@@WW2WalkingTheGround i tried to put in a link but it seems RUclips doesn't like that. But when you put the dot nl after topotijdreis , you are at the right website. Then you can find any place in the Netherlands. Choose the year and zoom in on the map to the desired location. The site is filled with as many maps as there are available in different scales and periodes. Most detailed maps are called "stafkaart", those were semi military maps of the Netherlands. But to be clear they are not ww2 military maps.
@@WW2WalkingTheGround - guys, the contemporary Allied Map Service GSGS maps are in the Library of Congress and accessible online. I could find the 1943 Groesbeek map of this area by searching Google images with "map groesbeek library of congress" and it was the first hit in the results. Page the left and right arrows to find other maps in the series - Arnhem, Nijmegen, etc.. You can download them using the button below the map with with a choice of image files and resolution. Map references used in the after action reports also relate to these maps, so you can get exact locations from any six digit map ref or four digit grid square location in original documents.
Brilliant episode again lads. It's so cool as a Dutchman to see these episodes. I can't wait for the episodes closer to Arnhem, Oosterbeek, Renkum, Wolfheze and Ede since I live in the area.
I've watched all this series and I'm blown away by the shear amount of knowledge these two guys have how the heck they managed to remember all the fine detail I don't. Concidering Al Murry is not my kind of comedian his passion for war history is second to non, never judge a book by its cover. Thanks Al & James together with everyone else who put this series together.
Of the four Canal bridges, designated no. 7, 8, 9 and 10. Bridge 8 was destroyed by the Germans at 16:15; Bridge 9 near Hatert was blown up at 20:15 as well; but at 20:00, Bridge 7 near Heumen was captured by the Americans.
Yes! I’ve been waiting on the video on bridge number seven ever since you teased it on a previous video. Made my day when I saw it pop up! Your videos give such great perspective of the actual events and it is really cool to watch you guys walk the actual ground where these battles took place. I learn so much from watching your videos. I’m in America so I can’t just pop over there to see these battlefields. This is the next best thing. Thanks for the great job and please keep it up.
Around 7:30 pm a jeep patrol from the headquarters division arrived from the other side, followed a moment later by a group from the 2nd Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment. With these troops, the bridge could eventually be taken intact. So he didn't manage to get soldiers across the lock. It was paras who landed Groesbeek on the other DZ
James and Al, you should start doing a guided tours company together. We have ways of making you tour - walking the ground of Normandy, Arnhem etc would be very popular
I could be wrong (not often like 😋) but I remember talking to some old boy from North Wales I was doing a job for, must've been early 00's. One thing that has stuck in my mind ever since is that he told me he was part of the group which plotted the glider routes for Market Garden, true that 👍
The “island” the boys are referring to wasn’t an island in 1944. It only became an island in 2010 when the second lock was build. So there was only one bridge.
5:24 - there was only one island there in 1944. The original lock has had a second one created beside it more recently, creating a second slim island in between the two locks. The canal has also been widened, presumably to accommodate more traffic, and the new lock is also wider than the original so it can take larger barges. It really behoves historians (James Holland!) to study contemporary maps instead of flying a drone over the area in 2024 and spending 5 minutes of the video trying to work out where you are. Sorry guys, but this is an own goal here. The large island between the sluice channel and the original lock had at least a couple buildings (marked on the 1943 map) an air raid shelter or bunker according to accounts, all occupied by Germans. The long building James and Al just walked past is the sluice house, also there in 1944, like the one at Grave in the previous video that often gets called a 'power station', but it controls the sluice that regulates the level of the water in the canal between the two rivers, Maas and Waal. This was painful to watch. Love the fact Al doesn't sound entirely convinced. My suggestion is that Al navigates back to the UK and James just does the driving. 10:50 - there were six crossings on the canal in 1944, but only four targeted by MARKET: - Heumen lock bridge ('Bridge 7') - captured intact. - Blankenburg-Malden bridge ('Bridge 8') - demolished on 17 September. - Hatert bridge ('Bridge 9') - demolished on 17 September. - Honinghutje road and double rail spans ('Bridge 10') - rail spans demolished 18 September, road span damaged, deemed safe for light traffic only. This was on the Club Route main road to Nijmegen and the Heumen bridge was a 'Heart Route' alternative to carry the tanks to Nijmegen. - Neerbosch bridge - shown demolished in 19 September aerial photos, not targeted by 82nd Airborne. - Weurt lock bridge, used by Household Cavalry to enter Nijmegen from west, also not targeted by Airborne.
Yes, it's a pity they didn't show a period map, which would have made things clearer. But I suppose this is more "light entertainment" than documentary.
@@jrd33 - it does have that feel, particularly having comedian Al Murray along with James Holland, but Al is genuinely interested in this stuff and I could sense some frustration on his part as James was getting himself confused.
@@davemac1197 There was basically about 5 minutes of interesting information and the rest was idle chat. They said very little about how the bridge was captured, very little about the size of the forces involved or how they were armed, nothing about casualties or what impact the capture of the bridge had on Market Garden. An opportunity wasted.
@@jrd33 - yes, a bit frustrating. I always hope to see or read something that advances the research frontier, but this was some way behind it. Dutch researcher Frank van Lunteren published a book on the 504th PIR in Operation MARKET GARDEN called The Battle of the Bridges (2014) that gave a good account of the capture of this bridge and the actions against those further up the canal. Also, 82nd Airborne historian Phil Nordyke's regimental history of the 504th, More Than Courage (2008), does the same. Frank van Lunteren identified the defenders of the Hatert and Blankenburg-Malden bridges as 166 men of 4.Kompanie (Hauptmann Ernst Sieger) and 5.Kompanie (Rümmele) of Landesschützen-Ausbildungs-Bataillon I./6 respectively, although he actually incorrectly called the battallion "Landesschützen Bataillon II/6" which was a sister battalion in Division 406 (from Wehrkreis VI across the border) and in fact sent to Aachen along with battalion III./6, so I wrote to Frank to offer some corrections to his German unit IDs with German source references, which he graciously acknowledged, but the 2017 paperback edition just reprinted the original text unfortunately. There are no clues in either book on the identity of the Heumen bridge garrison and it remains a bit of a mystery. Frank was unable to offer any help on this, although we did have a good email discussion about Grave, and I posted what I know about that on the Grave video from these guys. The account in Nordyke says the occupants of the dugout or air raid shelter on the Heumen lock bridge 'island' that were persuaded to surrender contained "two officers and ten or twelve noncoms, plus five civilians in the dugout." They were persuaded to come out and also call on their men in the houses further north to surrender, which they did and they got between thirty-five and forty prisoners. The time was 2300 hours on D-Day. I also have the 82nd Airborne G-2 (Intel) and G-3 (Ops) Section documents from PaperlessArchives online that contains the raw data of messages and reports, and for 18 September, when the first prisoners were recorded going into the divisional cage and interrogated, they identified a total of 52 men from "Landesschutzen Bn I/6, 2nd Co", which I would correct to "2./Landesschützen-Ausbildungs-Bataillon I./6" using the German style (which I find avoids any ambiguity in translation). This battalion apparently had three companies on the canal defence line and two (presumably companies 1 and 3) in the Reichswald or Groesbeek-Kranenburg areas. The battalion HQ (Major Ahlemeyer) was in the Haus Kreuzfuhrt on the German border, which you can find on Google maps by searching for 'Kreuzfurth Kranenburg, Germany' and that is the minor road going right past the Kreuzfuhrt house or farm. The "ten or twelve noncoms" with no private soldiers is odd, unless they are paratroopers (enlisted men were all NCO grades for the higher pay) or they were NCO candidates for officer training, which are both possibilities here as there were troops from the training unit Fallschirm-Panzer-Ersatz-und-Ausbildungs-Regiment 'Hermann Göring', specifically the 21.Unter-Lehr-Kommando (NCO training company) and Kompanie 'Runge', which I believe is a stamm (reception) company for the regiment. There was also an attempt to establish a paratroop training school for the 1.Fallschirm-Armee at Nijmegen with a few officer candidates under a training staff led by an Oberst (Colonel) Günther Hartung called the Fallschirm-Armee-Oberkommando Ausbildungsstelle, located in the Nebo monastery (search 'Neboklooster, Nijmegen'). Hartung was in command of the Maas-Waal canal defence line, which linked the river Maas line to the south under Korps Feldt (Wehrkreis VI), with the Waal defence line to the west under Division von Tettau of the WBN staff (Wehrmacht HQ Netherlands). The river Maas at Grave was the forward outpost line to this MLR with some forward platoons located there. Co-located with Hartung in the Nebo monastery seems to be some men from the Fallschirm-Ausbildungs-Regiment 1, officially disbanded in France since it was broken up and had its two battalions fighting separately in Festungs Cherbourg and in Belgium, but some surivivors and regiment HQ people were collected at Nijmegen according to the 82nd Airborne intel reports on prisoners taken here, specifically 120-170 men in a "Rgt HQ" and some men from 3., 5., 10., 11., 13.Kompanie. It appears to be part of the parachute school idea presumably to rebuild the training regiment. There is no mention in the American sources for an Oberst Hencke to be in command of this regiment, it may be an ad hoc appointment if he was a spare officer in the Fallschirm-Armee at the 's-Hertogenbosch collection centre. A paper written by Heinz Harmel (10.SS-Panzer-Division) after the war in the Foreign Military Studies series for the Pentagon seems to be the source for the name Hencke (often spelled 'Henke' but presumably Fallschirm Oberst Friedrich Hencke) connected with the Fallschirm troopers at Nijmegen, as distinct from the 'Herman Göring' unit, but I have not seen anything from German records actually verifying Harmel's own recollection. The 21.ULK ('Hermann Göring' Regiment NCO company) seems to have been camped in the Jonkerbos woods behind the canal, later occupied by the 504th PIR when they were in 82nd Division reserve while Gavin planned to have them cross the Waal. It's my impression the canal bridges were defended primarily by the three companies of Landesschützen-Ausbildungs-Bataillon I./6, originally based at Grave before mobilised in early September. The bridges further north on the canal were also covered by two naval cadet companies, 4 and 5./Schiffsstammabteilung 14., which was a battalion on the Waal defence line headquartered at Zetten on the 'island'. I don't know if these two companies were already positioned on the canal or whether they moved into these positions after the landings and they were sent in response to the attack. Frank van Lunteren has the 21.ULK defending the Honinghutje road and rail bridges carrying the main road ('Club Route') over the canal, but I don't know if they were always responsible for it or reinforced it. 4./Schiffsstammabteilung 14 were also in action here. Also along the canal line was an engineer construction company working on anti-tank ditches and trenches, this was 1./Bau-Pionier-Bataillon 434 under Hauptmann Zyrus. The actual company number I only recently determined by a detailed study of PWs reported taken by 82nd Airborne, Frank van Lunteren only got the battalion number 434. Most of the battalion was behind the Westwall further south with 2 and 3.Kompanie, and another detached Kompanie at the ferry site on the Maas at Afferden, so it was alway between 1 and 4.Kompanaie for the unit detached to Nijmegen. Another unit that seems to be present is a number of anti-tank guns, which are indicated on the Allied defence overprint maps dated before the operation, and the first break in identifying them were 82nd Airborne documents that identified some of the prisoners taken at the Grave bridge as belonging to a platoon of 2./SS-Panzerjäger-Ausbildungs-und-Ersatz-Abteilung 2, a training unit from Hilversum. Confusingly, some of the PWs taken were from army Panzerjäger (anti-tank) units, so I suspect they were stragglers from army units shattered in Normandy that were collected into the SS training unit in the Netherlands and then deployed to defend the river and canal lines. There was one 7.5cm and two 5cm PaK guns at Overasselt on the north end of the Maasbrug, so I suspect the rest of the 2.Kompanie were covering the canal bridges. As these defence forces aong the canal were dispossessed of their bridges by capture of blowing them up and retreated, the survivors withdrew into Nijmegen and became incorporated into the defence of the Waal rail bridge, allegedly as 'Kampfgruppe Hencke', although Hartung also seems to have taken over some militia on the north bank in Lent. The SS units from Harmel's 10.SS-Panzer-Division were concentrated on defending the highway bridge, with Euling (II./SS-PGR.19) in command of the bridgehead and Reinhold (II.SS-Pz.Rgt.10) in overall command from Lent. Five 5cm PaK guns were in Hunner Park defending the highway bridge approaches at the time it was taken, and one of these guns is on display there to this day, but I think originally they were from the canal defences. All in all it's a confused picture, and that's just to establish the 'start' positions at the moment the landings began. Some of the movements or timelines are even more difficult to establish, but it is a common misperception that Nijmegen was occupied with combat troops right from the start - it wasn't, only rear echelon units were in the city and evacuated as soon as the landings started, and most of the defenders came from the Maas-Waal defence line or SS panzer troops coming from beyond Arnhem. Hope that helps add a bit of texture to the blank canvas.
James and AL dont seem to be aware of the fact that the canal was widened from 60 to 90 meters in the 80s. I am not sure that applies to the area in front of the lock that we see, but certainly on the other side. I rowed around that area a lot in my student days in the 90s..... ;)
Yes, I don't know what they are on about: a puzzle what the layout was? It is easy to research. We have very good maps and pictures from the era, incl. What bunkers/blockhouses were built, with what function/type were built and where. I guess the puzzle is what the American meant with "the island" although there is/was only one real, man-made island: the one in the middle of the river.
@@sixpackpilot There was no island here. Only a sort of peninsula. And it's a canal, not a river (Maas-Waal kanaal). The real "island" after Marker Garden was of course the land between the river Waal and Pannerdens canal / NederRijn. There was front line from September 1944 until April 1945. In Dutch it was called "Mannen-eiland" (Man Island).
@@sixpackpilot Can you share links to these maps and pictures for this area? Part of the joy of walking the ground is that we learn things not only before and during our visits to these places, but also after. Appreciate you watching and can’t wait to see them.
the thing I'm not clear on from this is was the bridge raised or down? - they snipped the wires which beggars the question of the field of fire of the German bunker with the bridge structure and wether or not the germans had a full field of view and what possibilities if any there were on the 82nd crossing it - I say that as an armchair warrior but also remembering how the paras charged Pegasus Bridge - highly risky but a short bridge like this one could be crossed in seconds
@@tedbellWRV There was only one lock in 1944. The bridge crossed the part of the canal which didn’t have a lock present, and beyond that there was a lock system.
@@tedbellWRV Which means there was still a peninsula/ island in the middle of the canal. The lock in 1944 was the other side of the peninsula from where we filmed. The second lock nearest us was added in 2010.
@@WW2WalkingTheGround Thanks for clarifying. I was trying to figure out how many bridges (and locks) would need to be preserved and crossed (back in the 1944 field report) to get all the way across the waterway.
@@JanvanGinkel95 Correct. There was only one bridge. And despite the lack of a second lock in 1944, the ‘island’ we mention and point out existed as a peninsula.
The only thing I don’t like about this series are the gaps between posting. We’re all addicted to your videos and need more of them! Thanks guys!
The podcasts are fantastic 👌
Excellent again gents. Any kid complaining they don’t like history should just have a look. Brilliantly presented by two knowledgeable blokes making a fascinating event so accessible. Well done
The blockhouse was on the other side to the left in the middle of the lock. You can see that on the old maps of 1940. And the electric pump house was the building they just passed on the left, although I doubt a little if that that brickwork was that old. And in 1944 the canal was much smaller, it was widened in more recent years
So walking the ground is very important, but you need temporal maps that makes things clear. Which buildings and structures were there, which roads, canals etc. Even the position of small forest and trees are on these maps and they make things much more clear.
@@ce17ec Would you mind sharing links to those maps? As we walk the ground we are discovering things before, during and after our visits. Always insightful.
@@WW2WalkingTheGround i tried to put in a link but it seems RUclips doesn't like that. But when you put the dot nl after topotijdreis , you are at the right website. Then you can find any place in the Netherlands. Choose the year and zoom in on the map to the desired location. The site is filled with as many maps as there are available in different scales and periodes. Most detailed maps are called "stafkaart", those were semi military maps of the Netherlands. But to be clear they are not ww2 military maps.
@@ce17ec Thank you very much. We really appreciate this. Every day walking history is about learning.
@@WW2WalkingTheGroundtype the year 1939 and not 1944 for actual Dutch built bridges on the maps. Then simply zoom in on Nijmegen.
@@WW2WalkingTheGround - guys, the contemporary Allied Map Service GSGS maps are in the Library of Congress and accessible online.
I could find the 1943 Groesbeek map of this area by searching Google images with "map groesbeek library of congress" and it was the first hit in the results. Page the left and right arrows to find other maps in the series - Arnhem, Nijmegen, etc..
You can download them using the button below the map with with a choice of image files and resolution.
Map references used in the after action reports also relate to these maps, so you can get exact locations from any six digit map ref or four digit grid square location in original documents.
Brilliant episode again lads. It's so cool as a Dutchman to see these episodes. I can't wait for the episodes closer to Arnhem, Oosterbeek, Renkum, Wolfheze and Ede since I live in the area.
I've watched all this series and I'm blown away by the shear amount of knowledge these two guys have how the heck they managed to remember all the fine detail I don't. Concidering Al Murry is not my kind of comedian his passion for war history is second to non, never judge a book by its cover. Thanks Al & James together with everyone else who put this series together.
Of the four Canal bridges, designated no. 7, 8, 9 and 10. Bridge 8 was destroyed by the Germans at 16:15; Bridge 9 near Hatert was blown up at 20:15 as well; but at 20:00, Bridge 7 near Heumen was captured by the Americans.
Just loving this series…. More please!!
Yes! I’ve been waiting on the video on bridge number seven ever since you teased it on a previous video. Made my day when I saw it pop up! Your videos give such great perspective of the actual events and it is really cool to watch you guys walk the actual ground where these battles took place. I learn so much from watching your videos. I’m in America so I can’t just pop over there to see these battlefields. This is the next best thing. Thanks for the great job and please keep it up.
Superb as ever guy's. Thank you so much 👍👍👍👍
This is soooo good.
Fantastic! Seeing that island really gives understanding!! The actual ground can be so different from my mental image!
Top notch as usual fantastic knowledge as always but the art is in the presentation and the humour
I heard Maas-Waal as the Mars Bar Canal... What a shame. Love the series chaps, keep it up!
Splendid work!
Great episode lads absolutely loving them 😊
Entertaining as always,great work.
Around 7:30 pm a jeep patrol from the headquarters division arrived from the other side, followed a moment later by a group from the 2nd Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment. With these troops, the bridge could eventually be taken intact. So he didn't manage to get soldiers across the lock. It was paras who landed Groesbeek on the other DZ
Yes!!!!
love this series
James and Al, you should start doing a guided tours company together. We have ways of making you tour - walking the ground of Normandy, Arnhem etc would be very popular
Really good video mate can't wait for the next one ❤
There’s a good aerial reconnaissance photo of the lock/island/bridge from September 10th in Tim Saunders’ Battleground title on Nijmegen
Crackin' series 👍👍👍
Nailed it again chaps
I could be wrong (not often like 😋) but I remember talking to some old boy from North Wales I was doing a job for, must've been early 00's.
One thing that has stuck in my mind ever since is that he told me he was part of the group which plotted the glider routes for Market Garden, true that 👍
Al I like this really really good spot on Can’t nock it I found it by accident though maybe advertise it more 👍
The “island” the boys are referring to wasn’t an island in 1944. It only became an island in 2010 when the second lock was build. So there was only one bridge.
And consequently only ONE waterline to pass…(having two lock door locations besides the actual bridge😊)
Dam! This is just the best ..
5:24 - there was only one island there in 1944. The original lock has had a second one created beside it more recently, creating a second slim island in between the two locks. The canal has also been widened, presumably to accommodate more traffic, and the new lock is also wider than the original so it can take larger barges. It really behoves historians (James Holland!) to study contemporary maps instead of flying a drone over the area in 2024 and spending 5 minutes of the video trying to work out where you are. Sorry guys, but this is an own goal here.
The large island between the sluice channel and the original lock had at least a couple buildings (marked on the 1943 map) an air raid shelter or bunker according to accounts, all occupied by Germans. The long building James and Al just walked past is the sluice house, also there in 1944, like the one at Grave in the previous video that often gets called a 'power station', but it controls the sluice that regulates the level of the water in the canal between the two rivers, Maas and Waal.
This was painful to watch. Love the fact Al doesn't sound entirely convinced. My suggestion is that Al navigates back to the UK and James just does the driving.
10:50 - there were six crossings on the canal in 1944, but only four targeted by MARKET:
- Heumen lock bridge ('Bridge 7') - captured intact.
- Blankenburg-Malden bridge ('Bridge 8') - demolished on 17 September.
- Hatert bridge ('Bridge 9') - demolished on 17 September.
- Honinghutje road and double rail spans ('Bridge 10') - rail spans demolished 18 September, road span damaged, deemed safe for light traffic only. This was on the Club Route main road to Nijmegen and the Heumen bridge was a 'Heart Route' alternative to carry the tanks to Nijmegen.
- Neerbosch bridge - shown demolished in 19 September aerial photos, not targeted by 82nd Airborne.
- Weurt lock bridge, used by Household Cavalry to enter Nijmegen from west, also not targeted by Airborne.
Yes, it's a pity they didn't show a period map, which would have made things clearer. But I suppose this is more "light entertainment" than documentary.
@@jrd33 - it does have that feel, particularly having comedian Al Murray along with James Holland, but Al is genuinely interested in this stuff and I could sense some frustration on his part as James was getting himself confused.
@@davemac1197 There was basically about 5 minutes of interesting information and the rest was idle chat. They said very little about how the bridge was captured, very little about the size of the forces involved or how they were armed, nothing about casualties or what impact the capture of the bridge had on Market Garden. An opportunity wasted.
@@jrd33 - yes, a bit frustrating. I always hope to see or read something that advances the research frontier, but this was some way behind it. Dutch researcher Frank van Lunteren published a book on the 504th PIR in Operation MARKET GARDEN called The Battle of the Bridges (2014) that gave a good account of the capture of this bridge and the actions against those further up the canal. Also, 82nd Airborne historian Phil Nordyke's regimental history of the 504th, More Than Courage (2008), does the same.
Frank van Lunteren identified the defenders of the Hatert and Blankenburg-Malden bridges as 166 men of 4.Kompanie (Hauptmann Ernst Sieger) and 5.Kompanie (Rümmele) of Landesschützen-Ausbildungs-Bataillon I./6 respectively, although he actually incorrectly called the battallion "Landesschützen Bataillon II/6" which was a sister battalion in Division 406 (from Wehrkreis VI across the border) and in fact sent to Aachen along with battalion III./6, so I wrote to Frank to offer some corrections to his German unit IDs with German source references, which he graciously acknowledged, but the 2017 paperback edition just reprinted the original text unfortunately. There are no clues in either book on the identity of the Heumen bridge garrison and it remains a bit of a mystery. Frank was unable to offer any help on this, although we did have a good email discussion about Grave, and I posted what I know about that on the Grave video from these guys.
The account in Nordyke says the occupants of the dugout or air raid shelter on the Heumen lock bridge 'island' that were persuaded to surrender contained "two officers and ten or twelve noncoms, plus five civilians in the dugout." They were persuaded to come out and also call on their men in the houses further north to surrender, which they did and they got between thirty-five and forty prisoners. The time was 2300 hours on D-Day.
I also have the 82nd Airborne G-2 (Intel) and G-3 (Ops) Section documents from PaperlessArchives online that contains the raw data of messages and reports, and for 18 September, when the first prisoners were recorded going into the divisional cage and interrogated, they identified a total of 52 men from "Landesschutzen Bn I/6, 2nd Co", which I would correct to "2./Landesschützen-Ausbildungs-Bataillon I./6" using the German style (which I find avoids any ambiguity in translation). This battalion apparently had three companies on the canal defence line and two (presumably companies 1 and 3) in the Reichswald or Groesbeek-Kranenburg areas. The battalion HQ (Major Ahlemeyer) was in the Haus Kreuzfuhrt on the German border, which you can find on Google maps by searching for 'Kreuzfurth Kranenburg, Germany' and that is the minor road going right past the Kreuzfuhrt house or farm.
The "ten or twelve noncoms" with no private soldiers is odd, unless they are paratroopers (enlisted men were all NCO grades for the higher pay) or they were NCO candidates for officer training, which are both possibilities here as there were troops from the training unit Fallschirm-Panzer-Ersatz-und-Ausbildungs-Regiment 'Hermann Göring', specifically the 21.Unter-Lehr-Kommando (NCO training company) and Kompanie 'Runge', which I believe is a stamm (reception) company for the regiment. There was also an attempt to establish a paratroop training school for the 1.Fallschirm-Armee at Nijmegen with a few officer candidates under a training staff led by an Oberst (Colonel) Günther Hartung called the Fallschirm-Armee-Oberkommando Ausbildungsstelle, located in the Nebo monastery (search 'Neboklooster, Nijmegen').
Hartung was in command of the Maas-Waal canal defence line, which linked the river Maas line to the south under Korps Feldt (Wehrkreis VI), with the Waal defence line to the west under Division von Tettau of the WBN staff (Wehrmacht HQ Netherlands). The river Maas at Grave was the forward outpost line to this MLR with some forward platoons located there. Co-located with Hartung in the Nebo monastery seems to be some men from the Fallschirm-Ausbildungs-Regiment 1, officially disbanded in France since it was broken up and had its two battalions fighting separately in Festungs Cherbourg and in Belgium, but some surivivors and regiment HQ people were collected at Nijmegen according to the 82nd Airborne intel reports on prisoners taken here, specifically 120-170 men in a "Rgt HQ" and some men from 3., 5., 10., 11., 13.Kompanie. It appears to be part of the parachute school idea presumably to rebuild the training regiment.
There is no mention in the American sources for an Oberst Hencke to be in command of this regiment, it may be an ad hoc appointment if he was a spare officer in the Fallschirm-Armee at the 's-Hertogenbosch collection centre. A paper written by Heinz Harmel (10.SS-Panzer-Division) after the war in the Foreign Military Studies series for the Pentagon seems to be the source for the name Hencke (often spelled 'Henke' but presumably Fallschirm Oberst Friedrich Hencke) connected with the Fallschirm troopers at Nijmegen, as distinct from the 'Herman Göring' unit, but I have not seen anything from German records actually verifying Harmel's own recollection.
The 21.ULK ('Hermann Göring' Regiment NCO company) seems to have been camped in the Jonkerbos woods behind the canal, later occupied by the 504th PIR when they were in 82nd Division reserve while Gavin planned to have them cross the Waal. It's my impression the canal bridges were defended primarily by the three companies of Landesschützen-Ausbildungs-Bataillon I./6, originally based at Grave before mobilised in early September. The bridges further north on the canal were also covered by two naval cadet companies, 4 and 5./Schiffsstammabteilung 14., which was a battalion on the Waal defence line headquartered at Zetten on the 'island'. I don't know if these two companies were already positioned on the canal or whether they moved into these positions after the landings and they were sent in response to the attack. Frank van Lunteren has the 21.ULK defending the Honinghutje road and rail bridges carrying the main road ('Club Route') over the canal, but I don't know if they were always responsible for it or reinforced it. 4./Schiffsstammabteilung 14 were also in action here.
Also along the canal line was an engineer construction company working on anti-tank ditches and trenches, this was 1./Bau-Pionier-Bataillon 434 under Hauptmann Zyrus. The actual company number I only recently determined by a detailed study of PWs reported taken by 82nd Airborne, Frank van Lunteren only got the battalion number 434. Most of the battalion was behind the Westwall further south with 2 and 3.Kompanie, and another detached Kompanie at the ferry site on the Maas at Afferden, so it was alway between 1 and 4.Kompanaie for the unit detached to Nijmegen.
Another unit that seems to be present is a number of anti-tank guns, which are indicated on the Allied defence overprint maps dated before the operation, and the first break in identifying them were 82nd Airborne documents that identified some of the prisoners taken at the Grave bridge as belonging to a platoon of 2./SS-Panzerjäger-Ausbildungs-und-Ersatz-Abteilung 2, a training unit from Hilversum. Confusingly, some of the PWs taken were from army Panzerjäger (anti-tank) units, so I suspect they were stragglers from army units shattered in Normandy that were collected into the SS training unit in the Netherlands and then deployed to defend the river and canal lines. There was one 7.5cm and two 5cm PaK guns at Overasselt on the north end of the Maasbrug, so I suspect the rest of the 2.Kompanie were covering the canal bridges.
As these defence forces aong the canal were dispossessed of their bridges by capture of blowing them up and retreated, the survivors withdrew into Nijmegen and became incorporated into the defence of the Waal rail bridge, allegedly as 'Kampfgruppe Hencke', although Hartung also seems to have taken over some militia on the north bank in Lent. The SS units from Harmel's 10.SS-Panzer-Division were concentrated on defending the highway bridge, with Euling (II./SS-PGR.19) in command of the bridgehead and Reinhold (II.SS-Pz.Rgt.10) in overall command from Lent. Five 5cm PaK guns were in Hunner Park defending the highway bridge approaches at the time it was taken, and one of these guns is on display there to this day, but I think originally they were from the canal defences.
All in all it's a confused picture, and that's just to establish the 'start' positions at the moment the landings began. Some of the movements or timelines are even more difficult to establish, but it is a common misperception that Nijmegen was occupied with combat troops right from the start - it wasn't, only rear echelon units were in the city and evacuated as soon as the landings started, and most of the defenders came from the Maas-Waal defence line or SS panzer troops coming from beyond Arnhem.
Hope that helps add a bit of texture to the blank canvas.
Keep it going chaps😊
loved this❤
James and AL dont seem to be aware of the fact that the canal was widened from 60 to 90 meters in the 80s. I am not sure that applies to the area in front of the lock that we see, but certainly on the other side. I rowed around that area a lot in my student days in the 90s..... ;)
I'm really looking forward to the walking the ground you do for the Italian campaign...You are doing that, right?
massive cliffhanger.
Surely there are Dutch maps from the period available to confirm the bridge layout
Yes, I don't know what they are on about: a puzzle what the layout was? It is easy to research. We have very good maps and pictures from the era, incl. What bunkers/blockhouses were built, with what function/type were built and where. I guess the puzzle is what the American meant with "the island" although there is/was only one real, man-made island: the one in the middle of the river.
@@sixpackpilot There was no island here. Only a sort of peninsula. And it's a canal, not a river (Maas-Waal kanaal). The real "island" after Marker Garden was of course the land between the river Waal and Pannerdens canal / NederRijn. There was front line from September 1944 until April 1945. In Dutch it was called "Mannen-eiland" (Man Island).
@@sixpackpilot Can you share links to these maps and pictures for this area? Part of the joy of walking the ground is that we learn things not only before and during our visits to these places, but also after. Appreciate you watching and can’t wait to see them.
the thing I'm not clear on from this is was the bridge raised or down? - they snipped the wires which beggars the question of the field of fire of the German bunker with the bridge structure and wether or not the germans had a full field of view and what possibilities if any there were on the 82nd crossing it - I say that as an armchair warrior but also remembering how the paras charged Pegasus Bridge - highly risky but a short bridge like this one could be crossed in seconds
The gap may be easy to bridge. The gap and surrounds filled with the debris of the blown bridge structure, a touch more difficult.
It used to be a single lock until about 2012 so the Island used to be much bigger.
Did Airborne Infantry have lightweight assault bridges in WW2?
No. The Airborne engineers could have taken folding or inflatable boats in by glider for river crossings, but apparently this was not considered.
How do we know there were two locks in 1944? Could a second lock been added at a later date?
One lock in 1944
Simply because the bunker was on the "island" between both locks.
@@tedbellWRV There was only one lock in 1944. The bridge crossed the part of the canal which didn’t have a lock present, and beyond that there was a lock system.
@@tedbellWRV Which means there was still a peninsula/ island in the middle of the canal. The lock in 1944 was the other side of the peninsula from where we filmed. The second lock nearest us was added in 2010.
@@WW2WalkingTheGround Thanks for clarifying. I was trying to figure out how many bridges (and locks) would need to be preserved and crossed (back in the 1944 field report) to get all the way across the waterway.
The second lock was build in 2010 so when market garden happend in 1944 there was only one bridge over the brickwork lock i guess?!
@@JanvanGinkel95 Correct. There was only one bridge. And despite the lack of a second lock in 1944, the ‘island’ we mention and point out existed as a peninsula.
In instances such as this, if there is no photos of the area; should you not grab a local old enough to relate how it looked during or just postwar?
Al. Al
Don’t interupt.
Did no one shout out in German, slot your officers and enjoy the rest of the war in brightly?
Woohoo! First view!!
So what you are saying is the Americans did their jobs but the Brit’s didn’t Oh wait for it.
I love there podcast on Spotify.