Part 5 of our Operation Market Garden series follows the units already on the ground at Arnhem through Monday, September 18th, 1944, from midnight until midnight.

At the northern end of the road bridge, Lieutenant-Colonel John Frost holds on with a mixed force of paratroopers, sappers, anti-tank gunners and glider pilots. Around them, SS-Sturmbannführer Ludwig Spindler builds a blocking line across the western approaches to the town. Brinkmann’s reconnaissance troops probe the perimeter, and SS-Hauptsturmführer Gräbner leads an armoured column at the bridge. West of the perimeter, the 1st and 3rd Parachute Battalions fight along the river road to reach Frost. Brigadier Lathbury and Major-General Urquhart, the divisional commander, go missing in the streets of Arnhem.

Part 5 draws on the war diaries, battalion accounts and eyewitness testimony of the men who were there.

Welcome back to The Special Forces in World War II Podcast, hosted by Maikel Weyers.

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It has no engine. It is built almost entirely of wood, by furniture makers. It carries 25 soldiers, or a jeep, or a gun, into the dark behind enemy lines.

The Airspeed Horsa is Britain’s main assault glider of the Second World War. In this episode, Michael Weyers follows it from the first British reaction to Eben Emael in 1940, through the specification, the design team and the first flight, to the factories that build it in 30 sub-assemblies. He looks inside the glider, from the cockpit to the tail, and explains how the Mark 2 gets a hinged nose for vehicles and guns.

Then the Horsa goes to war. The episode covers its operations from Norway in 1942 to the crossing of the Rhine in 1945: the British and American missions in Sicily, Normandy, southern France and the Netherlands, with the numbers and the results of each. It also covers the modifications made to the six gliders of the coup de main on D-Day.

Part of The Special Forces in World War II Podcast. Visit worldwar2-sof.com for more.

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The first lift is down. The bridge is eleven kilometres away. And the clock is already running.

This episode covers the afternoon and evening of Sunday, September 17th, 1944, as the British 1st Airborne Division sets out for the road bridge at Arnhem.

Major Freddie Gough's Reconnaissance Squadron is to get there first, by Jeep, and hold the bridge until the infantry arrive. Instead, his lead vehicle drives into an ambush on a sandy track east of Wolfheze, set minutes earlier by a German training battalion that happens to be in the right woods at the right hour.

Behind him, three parachute battalions take three roads into the town. We follow each in turn. Frost's battalion along the river, through cheering Dutch crowds in Oosterbeek, to a railway bridge that blows up with his men standing on it. Fitch's battalion on the middle road, where a camouflaged Citroën carrying the German garrison commander of Arnhem drives into the leading platoon's sights. Dobie's battalion to the north, swallowed by the woods and the darkness.

And we follow the Germans: Krafft's blocking line, Spindler's defences hardening east of the landing zones, and von Tettau in the west, preparing a dawn assault on the ground where the second lift is due.

By midnight, part of one battalion is at the bridge. The rest of the division is scattered across eleven kilometres of Dutch countryside, and the divisional commander cannot be found.

Part Four of our Operation Market Garden series. Start with Part Three if you haven't heard it. This is the corected 1.2 version without the double section that was previously released.

For maps, photographs and the full source base: worldwar2-sof.com

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