"after only a slight hesitation, taking a single deep breath, he leapt out into the warn afternoon Holland sunshine..."

Twenty minutes later his platoon had already sustained 20% casualties.... and they hadn't even warmed up yet...

Sir Grappler Truth Teller OAM wrote on Sep 17^th, 2025 at 7:38pm:

"after only a slight hesitation, taking a single deep breath, he leapt out into the warn afternoon Holland sunshine..." Twenty minutes later his platoon had already sustained 20% casualties.... and they hadn't even warmed up yet...

In fact one fifth of them were starting to cool down. Those that remained knew the hot and humid jungle air would only delay the inevitable cool down but also bring on rapid putrefaction, they were not looking forward to that again.

Edit: Sorry Graps, should have male it less jungley and more euro.

Day 2:-

4th Parachute Brigade is overdue... and what about the Poles?  Troops entering Arnhem have encountered heavy resistance and high casualty rates and the two northern axes are stalled ... the Recon Troop has been shot up and lost a lot of their transport so that's that.... 2 Para and a few elements of 3 and some engineers have reached the Northern side of the bridge ...  the landing zones are under attack... but we need reinforcements in the town - so we're sending two companies of the South Staffs in, which will leave the landing zones a bit short, but not for long I hope....... when 4 Para Brigade arrive...  communications are shot to hell... Deane-Drummond - you're going to have to take those two companies in... just get to the bridge and support Johnny Frost until 30 Corps get here...

Yes they were unfortunate enough to land almost on top of an SS panzer division refitting in Holland

It was a cockup!

Because it failed the part of Holland where Mum lived was still occupied and the Germans were shipping anything not nailed down to the Fatherland—my Mum (and her Mum and sisters) were literally starving.

Heh, posted about some tulips I picked in my garden. Mum survived, partially, on tulip bulbs. She said they burned her throat.

She also said a couple of times that cat is sweeter than rabbit, then quickly said she had been told that. When you are starving Fido and Puss end up in the pot real quick. Rats too but Mum never said anything about rat so. . .dunno.

Jovial Monk wrote on Sep 19^th, 2025 at 10:44am:

Heh, posted about some tulips I picked in my garden. Mum survived, partially, on tulip bulbs. She said they burned her throat. She also said a couple of times that cat is sweeter than rabbit, then quickly said she had been told that. When you are starving Fido and Puss end up in the pot real quick. Rats too but Mum never said anything about rat so. . .dunno.

Ah - Dutch lady.  They had it tough.  Rafter rabbit...

aquascoot wrote on Sep 19^th, 2025 at 9:17am:

Yes they were unfortunate enough to land almost on top of an SS panzer division refitting in Holland

II SS Panzer CORPS - 9th and 10th SS Panzer Divisions.

"What's worse is we seem to have landed on top of two SS Panzer Divisions."

"Good God!  Does anyone outside of Arnhem know?"

"I'm afraid all communications outside Arnhem are still down, but we do know the 82nd failed to capture Nijmegen Bridge..... and I'm sorry to say .... we no longer hold the designated drop zones... they've been over-run."

"Well - we're making no headway in the town... we're going to have to pull back and form a perimeter with what we've got left.  I'll break the news to Johnny Frost that he's on his own..... and where the hell are the Poles?"

"We don't know - they simply haven't arrived yet..."

Yes - it was a cock-up.  Terribly sad - Monty gave Market Garden two lines in his bio .... didn't want to discuss it.

.. and when the Poles arrived they dropped into a hailstorm of fire... same as 4th Parachute Brigade... which lost all its transport trying to withdraw over the railway line at Den Brink after being unable to take its assigned axes of advance ...and at that time the GC was missing in town ... so two Brigadiers were arguing over command ... and John Hackett - greatly respected - would not be dissuaded from trying to follow his assigned axes of advance despite the clear disaster developing.

"I am just going to deal with this tank outside," declared his Batman, upset as more cinders fell down the Chimney into his officer's tea, picking up a handy PIAT and stalking outside to tackle a Panzer shelling his hideout.  He fired two rounds at it and machine gunned the abandoning crew as they vacated their knocked out Tank.