Bowman - So Near and Yet So Far

During the morning of September 17th the front line had been quiet, but in the late hours of the morning, the enemy air activity suddenly increased considerably, particularly that of fighter bombers. From my command post at Vught I was able to observe numerous enemy planes and to hear the sounds of bombardments and the firing of aircraft, machine-guns and flak quite nearby... At about noon I was disturbed at my desk by a roaring in the air which increased in intensity so that finally I left my desk and went on to the balcony. Wherever I looked I could see aircraft, troop-transports and large aircraft towing gliders. They flew both in formation and singly. It was an immense stream which passed quite low over the house. I was greatly impressed by the spectacle and I must confess that during these minutes the danger of the situation never occurred to me. I merely recalled with some regret my own earlier airborne operations and when my Chief of Staff joined me on the balcony I could only remark, Oh, how I wish that I had ever had such a powerful force at my disposal.

Generalfeldmarschal Kurt Student. were all so overtaxed and under such severe strain in the face of our difficult and many-sided mission that we thought only in terms of ground operations.

As Bill Tucker looked down at the coast of Holland the first thing he saw was two twin guns firing up towards them. There were thousands of planes in the sky, including lots of fighter-bombers for protection. Skimming the ground, they led the way to the drop zones, attempting to clear everything ahead of the formations. Even though the intense bombing preceding the airborne assault had knocked out many 88 and 20 mm anti-aircraft batteries, camouflaged nettings suddenly swung back to reveal hidden enemy positions, some hidden in haystacks open to disclose nests of guns. It was not possible to silence all enemy opposition. Tucker saw an RAF Typhoon swoop down. It was good to see the flame of his rockets exploding on or near the gun positions. Strangely enough there was ack-ack, but no German fighters. Tucker kept yelling to the men that if they got hit, he would go through the door like at shot, so they had better get ready. Most were sitting on the edge of their seats with the static line in their hands. The new men were sitting down the ramp in the plane sweating out their first combat jump. Several new paratroop innovations - leg packs for machine guns, quick-release harness on some chutes and combat instead of jump boots-made him and many other men nervous. In particular, the troopers were concerned that their shroud lines might catch on the buckles of their new combat boots.

Their first sight of Holland below showed that the land was flooded. In some places the water seemed to be up to the middle of the first floor windows of each house. First Lieutenant James Coyle had prayed that there would be no flooded areas near the 550th PIR drop zone because some of the men in Normandy had landed in areas which the Germans had flooded and they drowned before they could get out of their chutes. For a long time since they crossed the coast all he could see was that the areas below were flooded, miles of fields covered with water with the cattle crowding on any high ground that was available to them. But as they flew nearer to Groesbeek he was relieved to see that there was no sign of water. We were flying at only 1,000 feet and shortly before we came to our DZ we flew over an isolated Convent in the countryside. The nuns had all come out in the courtyard and were waving to us as we flew by. As I waved back, I wondered what they would think if they knew that we would be jumping not too many miles away and the war was about to catch up with them. They made such a peaceful picture as they waved their aprons until I could no longer see them.