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Captured at Arnhem: Men's Experiences in Their Own Words
For the British 1st Airborne Division Operation Market Garden in September 1944 was a disaster. The Division was eliminated as a fighting force with around a half of its men were captured.
The Germans were faced with dealing with 6,000 prisoners in a fortnight; many of them seriously wounded. Somehow the men were processed and dispatched to camps around Germany and German occupied eastern Europe. Here the men experienced the reality of the collapsing regime – little food and shrinking frontiers.
Once liberated in 1945, returning former prisoners were required to complete liberation questionnaires. Some refused. Others returned before ’Operation Endor’ to handle released men and their repatriation to Britain was in place. Around a third did. However the questionnaires that do exist give an picture of every day experience for the 2,357 of these elite troops’ time in captivity from capture to release.
They show that German procedures still operating, but that men were often treated inhumanely, when moved to camps by closed box cars and when camps were evacuated. Although their interrogators were interested in Allied aircraft and airfields, their interrogators were also concerned the effect of the new miracle weapons and with politics, how Germany would be treated after an Allied victory?
Nevertheless the airborne men’s morale remained high; carrying out sabotage at artificial oil plants, railway repairs, factories and mines. Some overcame their guards when being evacuated at the end of the War, in some cases joining the Resistance. They record help received from Dutch, French and German civilians.
The Germans were faced with dealing with 6,000 prisoners in a fortnight; many of them seriously wounded. Somehow the men were processed and dispatched to camps around Germany and German occupied eastern Europe. Here the men experienced the reality of the collapsing regime – little food and shrinking frontiers.
Once liberated in 1945, returning former prisoners were required to complete liberation questionnaires. Some refused. Others returned before ’Operation Endor’ to handle released men and their repatriation to Britain was in place. Around a third did. However the questionnaires that do exist give an picture of every day experience for the 2,357 of these elite troops’ time in captivity from capture to release.
They show that German procedures still operating, but that men were often treated inhumanely, when moved to camps by closed box cars and when camps were evacuated. Although their interrogators were interested in Allied aircraft and airfields, their interrogators were also concerned the effect of the new miracle weapons and with politics, how Germany would be treated after an Allied victory?
Nevertheless the airborne men’s morale remained high; carrying out sabotage at artificial oil plants, railway repairs, factories and mines. Some overcame their guards when being evacuated at the end of the War, in some cases joining the Resistance. They record help received from Dutch, French and German civilians.
592 pages, Hardcover
Published July 29, 2022
About the author
Peter Green
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
March 30, 2023
A most unusual book. Weighing in at 564 pages, Captured at Arnhem seems like a daunting read even for the most avid reader of Operation Market Garden literature. There’s a catch, however, but a good one as we shall see. Peter Green’s mission was to uncover the experiences of the Allied soldiers captured at Arnhem gleaned from questionnaires given to them on their return to England. Not only does he throw the kitchen sink at it, Green also gives you the sink to see for yourself.
If you don’t know, Operation Market Garden was an ill-fated attempt by the Allies to shorten the war in September 1944 by capturing the Dutch town of Arnhem to open a bridge across the Rhine and drive a stake into the heart of Nazi Germany. It didn’t go well, and 6,000 Allied soldiers entered German captivity as Prisoners of War. On their release at the end of the war, MI9 gave them questionnaires to complete; 2,357 did so, and Green dredges through them to find out what happened to those men. In Green’s prelude to his findings, he outlines the questionnaire, the problems with locating those missing, and the general findings. Then we are into the tables.
The first table is Prisoner’s Details, 168 pages of listings of name, rank, unit, numbers for service and PoW, wounded status, and camps in which they were initially interned. How men became prisoners and where comes next with brief descriptions of the camps. Interrogation methods follow, with Green highlighting specific answers to quote as he does throughout his book. Table 3, of 62 pages, lists the men’s answers to the question if they were interrogated, where, and how. Chapter 4 surveys some of the camps the men would call home for the remaining months of the war, and the subsequent chapter examines camp life, complete with another 161 pages of tables. Attempted escapes (fewer than you might expect because these were deterred with the war’s end so close), evacuation marches, and liberation conclude Green’s book, including another table.
Somewhere in Captured at Arnhem there is a very good book waiting to break out. Green does well enough, teasing out a useful text from his main sources, but you’re left thinking he could have dumped the tables into his research folder and written a more fluent book. There is, however, something to be said for the pleasure of reading through all the entries, particularly the various attempts to escape by the intrepid soldiers; some of them are quite remarkable. Those that enjoy reading about Arnhem or PoWs will enjoy this text and rummaging through the tables, I did, but it’s not a book I would give to open someone’s Arnhem reading account.
If you don’t know, Operation Market Garden was an ill-fated attempt by the Allies to shorten the war in September 1944 by capturing the Dutch town of Arnhem to open a bridge across the Rhine and drive a stake into the heart of Nazi Germany. It didn’t go well, and 6,000 Allied soldiers entered German captivity as Prisoners of War. On their release at the end of the war, MI9 gave them questionnaires to complete; 2,357 did so, and Green dredges through them to find out what happened to those men. In Green’s prelude to his findings, he outlines the questionnaire, the problems with locating those missing, and the general findings. Then we are into the tables.
The first table is Prisoner’s Details, 168 pages of listings of name, rank, unit, numbers for service and PoW, wounded status, and camps in which they were initially interned. How men became prisoners and where comes next with brief descriptions of the camps. Interrogation methods follow, with Green highlighting specific answers to quote as he does throughout his book. Table 3, of 62 pages, lists the men’s answers to the question if they were interrogated, where, and how. Chapter 4 surveys some of the camps the men would call home for the remaining months of the war, and the subsequent chapter examines camp life, complete with another 161 pages of tables. Attempted escapes (fewer than you might expect because these were deterred with the war’s end so close), evacuation marches, and liberation conclude Green’s book, including another table.
Somewhere in Captured at Arnhem there is a very good book waiting to break out. Green does well enough, teasing out a useful text from his main sources, but you’re left thinking he could have dumped the tables into his research folder and written a more fluent book. There is, however, something to be said for the pleasure of reading through all the entries, particularly the various attempts to escape by the intrepid soldiers; some of them are quite remarkable. Those that enjoy reading about Arnhem or PoWs will enjoy this text and rummaging through the tables, I did, but it’s not a book I would give to open someone’s Arnhem reading account.
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