Fields of Fire
A Rifle Squad In The Valley
The small, tightly bound collection of structures was known as Im Thal, and fewer names have been more forthright. It was here “in the valley” — Im Thal’s literal translation — that Operation Market Garden was fought. Visceral through the Nijmegen Bridge may be, the infantry squad’s relationship to Market Garden was in the dirt, in nondescript places like Im Thal. The small collection of agrarian homesteads was tucked against the base of a grassy low ridge, sparsely timbered at its apex by juvenile trees. The feature defined the name, Im Thal, given to the hamlet. On top of the ridge, on the other side of the trees, a plateau of silty soil thickened into a forest. It was here the bulk of the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment was harbored.
Im Thal is the setting of a suspenseful scene in Those Devils in Baggy Pants where Sergeant Ross Carter and his squad awaits a German attack.1 A probe of the conditions that sucked the regiment’s rifle squads into this small hamlet offers a revealing look at the larger campaign’s conduct. Chief among them was terrain. No factor was more decisive on how the regiment’s squads experienced Operation Market Garden. Fundamentally, it was a fight over fields of fire.
Chief among them was terrain. No factor was more decisive on how the regiment’s squads experienced Operation Market Garden.
For a general concerned, as James Gavin was, about his casualty numbers and their relation to an expansive front, the forest was a place to husband his troopers; it provided a safe harbor.2 Im Thal, then, was one of the two bottle necks of the harbor, the very spot where the forested highland gave way to low, wet farmland. Im Thal’s importance took root in its ability to give the paratroopers stand-off. It kept the Germans at bay, in the acreage away from the woods where they would be exposed in a broad, featureless field — a prime field of fire.
Im Thal had been contested for some days, but when intelligence of a German attack was received on September 30, Sergeant Ross Carter’s platoon launched an attack to secure the hamlet. Sgt. Carter’s squad was chosen by the toss of a coin to garrison Im Thal, where they would brace the attack. Occupying two houses with groups of three men, they dug in a triangular formation and waited. With the ridge at their backs, Sgt. Carter’s squad would have been looking out across the empty expanse towards Wyler, a German strongpoint. As the Germans crossed the field in attack, Carter’s men would have been able to sweep the Germans with fire. Pfc. Bethal Nix (“Nixon”) was armed with a Browning Automatic Rifle. To take full advantage of the division’s excellent fields of fire looking out from their harbor, Brigadier General Gavin procured an extra 25 BARs per regiment.
Im Thal was a place of constant fracas for the duration of the campaign. It was occupied off and on by the paratroopers, and German patrols traversed near it. The action focused at Im Thal, rather than the paratrooper’s main line, allowing them to dictate when they would fight for it. Broadly, the initiative rested with the paratroops. From their safe harbor, they could choose when and where to strike German outposts at night; often coming out to strike the German’s in Lagewald and in Vossendaal. One of their greatest successes occurred at Vossendaal on 25 October when F Company badly mauled a unit of the German 5th Parachute Regiment before withdrawing back into their forested harbor.
Although Im Thal was exposed to German artillery observation, for raids, it became a lily pad. For example, Sergeant William H. White (who would die on Im Thal ridge weeks later) took two men to scout towards Vossendaal. When flares flickered across the sky and cast their ominous shadows, Im Thal provided a place for White withdraw. C Company launched some patrols from Im Thal.
Market Garden’s signature is its daylight drop; but it was a campaign fought at night. Aggressive action cloaked in darkness was the regiment’s trademark.
Market Garden’s signature is its daylight drop; but it was a campaign fought at night.3 Aggressive action cloaked in darkness was the regiment’s trademark. Geography fixed Im Thal in the fracas, and ultimately led to its disappearance. Time has erased almost all trace of the broken walls which invested such human life. Vacant acreage now offers an unobstructed view of Im Thal ridge. The trees are now grown. If only they could speak of what they once saw In The Valley.
📚READ OF THE WEEK📚
See Chapter 37: “Six Men on Suicide Stand.”
By 3OCT, Gavin was writing Ridgway to release replacements to him in Holland.
It was after the Second Battle of Mook this transition took place.
I agree, Cornelius Ryan was my youthful introduction to a new form of history that included the ordinary average individual who often had done extraordinary things but probably didn’t think so. As to terrain analysis of the Market Garden fights I suspect that the absence reflects the intensity of the desire to answer again the question of whether or not it was a question of a bridge too far, or the one damned narrow road, or the failure to assess the intelligence indicators of a more significant German presence.....