Crossing The Waal

Confusingly the bridge the British Airborne attempted to seize at Arnhem went over what the Dutch call the Rhine River.  In reality, it's a smaller branch of the Rhine, which splits off a few miles before the main channel reaches Nijmegen.  For some reason the Dutch call the bigger and broader channel, which passes Nijmegen, the Waal instead of the Rhine. 

Depicted above is the Nijmegen Bridge, the target of the 82nd Airborne which had been scheduled to seize it the day of, or day after, the drop on Sept. 17.  However, due to intense German counterattacks on the Groesbeek Heights and stubborn resistance on the southern approaches, the Germans still held the bridge on the morning of Sept. 20.  

While XXX Corps had finally reached Nijmegen, the plight of the increasingly beleaguered British 1st Airborne at Arnhem, ten miles north of the Waal, required desperate measures by the 82nd.  The 1st Airborne had failed to take the bridge at Arnhem and was being pushed back towards its landing zones several miles west of the town.  Unless the 82nd and XXX Corps could reach them very soon Market Garden would fail.

It was decided the 82nd would attempt a crossing by boat about a mile downstream of the Nijmegen Bridge.  After landing, the paratroopers would advance along the north shore of the river and take the bridge from that direction while XXX Corps attacked from the south.  The plan called for the crossing to be attempted early in the morning of Sept. 20.

(Site of the boat crossing.  The Nijmegen Bridge is the further of the two in the photo.)

 

Unfortunately, the boats were late in arriving.  They were also made of canvas instead of wood or metal and thus very vulnerable to enemy fire.  But the need to get to Arnhem as quickly as possible was paramount so the crossing began at 3PM on a sunny day under enemy fire. The crossing was a success and the bridge seized but 48 soldiers died in the crossing. Today a memorial stands on the north shore with the names of each of those who died.

The most moving part of our trip was centered on the Waal crossing.  In 2013, the Dutch built a new bridge across the Waal to carry the circular road around the city.  The bridge was in the very location where the 82nd crossed on canvas boats. The planners placed 48 pairs of lights on the structure, one for each American soldier who perished in the crossing with a stairway on the north end allowing pedestrians to walk down to the memorial.

In conjunction with the opening of the bridge, a volunteer group of Dutch military veterans began conducting sunset walks across the bridge every day of the week.  On October 2 we joined the walkers at the south end of the bridge (my friend served in the 82nd during the 1980s).  We set off promptly at sunset with about 15 walkers that evening, with us as the only Americans.  The walk is made in complete silence.  The veteran set off at a military marching pace and as he came to each pair of lights they would go on in perfect coordination with his pace. On the north side he led us down the steps to the memorial, said a few words about the sacrifice of those who died and then we stood in silence in remembrance and honor.

(Starting our walk, led by Dutch veteran)

 

 

 (At the memorial, with the bridge in background)

 

(Plaque on bridge.  Inscription reads "From this spot, paratroopers from the 3rd and 1st Battalion,504th Regiment of the 82nd Airborne Division, with  the aid of C Co. 307th AEB and forward observers of the 376th PFAB, fearlessly crossed the Waal river in vulnerable boats on September 20, 1944.  Many did not reach the other side.  The survivors succeeded in securing the bridges on the north bank.  Nijmegen could now be liberated.  We salute their heroism.") 

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Earlier that day, while visiting the Freedom Museum, I became aware of two aspects of what happened at Nijmegen during the war that I had been unaware of.

Though the Nijmegen bridges were finally seized it was too late for the British at Arnhem.  Fierce German resistance slowed down the Allied advance and finally stopped the British and Americans south of the Rhine, and most of the survivors of the 1st Airborne went into German captivity.

The result was the Nijmegen remained on the front lines until April 1945, subject to frequent German artillery fire which destroyed more of the city causing many civilian deaths and injuries. One of the stories told in the museum was of a young Jewish women who had successfully survived the German deportations by hiding in a Nijmegen attic, only to be killed by a German barrage after emerging when the occupation ended.  

There is larger story about what the failure of Market Garden meant for the Dutch people as instead of the country being liberated it remained under German occupation until the end of the war seven months later.  Nazi reprisals against those suspected of helping the Resistance during Market Garden were brutal and up to 250,000 Dutch may have starved to death that winter. 

The other aspect was about the Dutch reaction to the Allies.  On May 10, 1940 the Germans invaded the Netherlands.  Dutch resistance continued until May 14 when the German air force launched a terror raid on downtown Rotterdam, killing 800 to 900 civilians and destroying the city center, an event still remembered with horror and a marker of German brutality by the populace.  The Netherlands surrendered the following day.

At the Freedom Museum we learned of an event in February 1944, seven months before Market Garden and four months before D-Day.  An American bombing raid into Germany was aborted because of bad weather.  Our bombers had standing orders if this occurred to find other targets to drop bombs.  However, bombing in the Netherlands was forbidden unless specific instructions to the contrary were given.  For some reason, the returning bombers dropped their ordnance on Nijmegen, only a few miles from the German border, with its rail yards as the intended target.  About 800 civilians were killed and much of the city destroyed.

The museum reports these events as part of Nijmegen's experience during the war, but there is no hint of censure or reproach for the American actions.  There is no sense of intended moral equivalency with the Rotterdam raid or deployment of 21st century post-modern irony.  The museum pays tribute to the people of Nijmegen and to its American liberators.  

Types Of Collectivism

I recently came across this piece on Substack which I found intriguing and provocative.  From Tibor Rutar of the University of Maribor in Slovenia it is on the differences between Americans and Chinese on collectivism and individualism.  I've linked to it here and it's also worth reading the comments as they add layers of 

Isn’t it the case that Americans (and Westerners more generally) are selfish, asocial individualists while the Chinese (and Easterners or people from the Global South) are altruistic, prosocial collectivists?

Rutar points out that most discussions of this subject confuse two things.  The first is "warm fuzzy collectivism" which he describes as having four elements:

Feeling warm emotions about other people

Expressing positive emotions and identifying with other people

Rejecting self-interest, competition and negative feelings about other people

Extending this positivity to everyone, without sharply distinguishing between close and distant relationships 

He then posits that "the described warm and fuzzy collectivism strongly clashes with another cultural dimension that many thought would go together with it. That one is called “responsibilism,” and it’s also one form of collectivism. It has to do with how much a culture emphasizes the responsibilities people have to those close to them . . . responsibilism simply refers to how strongly people feel that they have non-shirkable duties and responsibilities for those they’re in close relationship with, like their parents or the extended family."

Rutar goes on to assert:

In Asia (including East Asia!) and Africa, responsibilism tends to be very high. In the West, it tends to be low or very low.

What's this all mean?

The key thing you need to wrap your head around is that “individualist” Western countries exhibit higher levels of prosociality or generalized cooperation. In non-Western, “collectivist” societies, the reverse is true. This sounds weird and paradoxical at first, because individualism is stereotypically associated with selfishness, competitiveness, and asociality, while collectivism seems to represent altruism, helping behavior, and cooperation with the whole of society. 

The professor goes on to use several examples to illustrate his proposition.  What caught my attention is that his observations generally reflect my experiences with both societies.  I'm going to spend more time with the comments and thinking this through. 

Groesbeek Heights

Heading north from Eindhoven, we entered the area of the 82nd Airborne, driving across the John S Thompson Bridge spanning the Maas River.  The bridge was captured on the first day of Market Garden by 82nd Lt. John Thompson who led 16 men in an attack on the span.  In 2004 the bridge was renamed in honor of Thompson at a ceremony attended by his widow.

Though mis-dropped and understrength, Thompson decided to attack the bridge with his 16 man platoon rather than wait for additional troops. The bridge was defended by German forces supplemented by two 20 mm flak guns. Thompson's platoon destroyed "electrical equipment and cables that they expected were hooked up to demolitions", and their bazooka team destroyed the one of the flak guns, permitting the establishment of a roadblock on the bridge while waiting for reinforcements to arrive. 

Thompson also fought at the Bulge, was wounded twice, and a recipient of the Bronze and Silver Stars.  "Jocko"Thompson was also a pitcher for the Philadelphia Phillies from 1948 to 1951.  Thompson, a native of Beverly, MA started his professional career in the Boston Red Sox farm system in 1940 after graduating from Northeastern University. Volunteering immediately after Pearl Harbor, Thompson missed four seasons while in the military and did not make his major league debut until he was 31.

The 82nd landing zones were south of Nijmegen and the division's initial objectives were to seize the high ground of the Groesbeek Heights, southwest of the city, in order to block any German counterattack, and then seize the bridge across the wide Waal River on the north side of Nijmegen.

Groesbeek Heights contains the Freedom Museum, commemorating Market Garden, the Dutch Resistance, and the story of Nijmegen during the war as well as many memorials and markers. Below is the memorial to the 82nd and its commander, General James Gavin.

Notice the wreath and photo atop the memorial.  Here's what it looks like up close.

Placed there by the grand children of PFC Kenneth R Holden.  Turns out it was placed there only two weeks before our visit.  On the 82nd anniversary of the landings, September 17, 2026, American and Dutch speakers gathered at a Groesbeek church to honor and commemorate those events.  One of the speakers was Chief Warrant Officer Ken Holden, one of the grand children.

 

This is another memorial a couple of miles away, commemorating the American defense of a small town against German counterattacks. 

The Freedom Museum contained this striking piece showing the dead paratroopers who liberated Nijmegen emerging from their graves to reminisce.

The Highway

The start point for Operation Market Garden is less than a two hour drive from the northern part of the Battle of the Bulge.  The plan for Market Garden (Sept 17-25, 1944) was for three airborne landings - 101st in the area of Eindhoven to seize bridges over rivers and canals in the area; 82nd near Nijmegen to seize bridges over the Meuse and Waal, and for the British 1st Airborne to take the Rhine bridge at Arnhem.  British XXX Corps was to drive up the highway from Lommel on the Belgian/Dutch border to reinforce the lightly armed paratroopers.  Once the Rhine bridge was secure the Allies would have outflanked the Siegfried Line/Westwall and could race into Germany.

We retraced the XXX Corps route from its start, stopping at markers and memorials along the way.  As in the Bulge battle area, local citizens and towns have erected and maintained these along the entire route.  I wanted to highlight two.

 

This is the memorial to Medal of Honor recipient Private First Class Joe Eugene Mann, located on a path near the Wilhelmina Canal near Best, north of Eindhoven.  The drop zones for the 101st were in the Best area and one of their goals were to seize the bridges over the canal.  After landing on Sept. 17, the following day Joe Mann knocked out a German 88 mm gun and an ammo dump.  His MOH citation goes on to read:

Completely disregarding the great danger involved, he remained in his exposed position, and, with his M1 rifle, killed the enemy one by one until he was wounded four times. Taken to a covered position, he insisted on returning to a forward position to stand guard during the night.

The wounds to his arms required they be strapped to his torso, making them unusable.  The following morning he was in a crater with several other wounded when the Germans counterattacked and a grenade landed in the crater.  Unable to use his arms to toss it away, Joe called "grenade!" and fell on it, saving his fellow troopers.  He received the MOH posthumously.  Joe Mann was 22 years old.  As you can see in the photo, the marker is well maintained and surrounded by fresh flowers and American flags.

 (Joe Mann)

This is a memorial at St Anthony's Mill in the town of Eerde, north of Best.  Much of the Eindhoven and Nijmegen areas seized by the Americans was under constant German counterattack for a week.  St Anthony's Mill, an actual windmill, was the site of prolonged fighting.  This memorial, which today sits next to a modest neighborhood of small well-kept homes, is maintained locally.  A few feet away is another memorial with the names of 75 men from the 101st who perished in the area around the mill. 

Highly recommended for a visit in this area is the Wings of Liberation Museum in Best.  It can be a little difficult to find, located within what is primarily a children's park.  The museum is directly adjacent to the 101st landing zones which, for the most part, remain open fields, and boasts an excellent collection of military equipment and an accompanying audio tour that highlights the bravery of the Dutch resistance.

Summer Soft

It's been a while since we've featured Stevie Wonder.  Time to remedy that.  Summer Soft is from his 1976 double album Songs In The Key of Life, the capstone of the remarkable five album run Stevie had in the 1970s; Music Of My Mind and Talking Book (1972), Innervisions (1973), and Fulfillingness' First Finale (1974), containing tunes like Superstition, You Are The Sunshine of My Life, I Believe (When I Fall in Love It Will be Forever, Living For The City, Higher Ground, Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing, Boogie On Raggae Woman, and You Haven't Done Nothin', being the predecessors.  Songs In The Key of Life also contained Sir Duke, Isn't She Lovely, I Wish, and Pastime Paradise.

Summer Soft, one of the album's lesser known songs is simply amazing.  From the gorgeous piano opening, multiple and complex chord, key, and rhythmic changes, layered intricate instrumentation, topped by one of Stevie's finest vocal performances (which is really saying something!), this is a masterpiece.  And from what I could find out that's Stevie on piano, synthesizer, bass, and drums.

Nuts

Bastogne is surrounded by monuments, memorials, and museums. of which we visited two.  The Bastogne War Rooms museum was disappointing.  Located in the downtown barracks that served as General McAuliffe's HQ it seemed rather thin on materials.  However, the Bastogne War Museum, located just outside the town was well worth a visit.  Artifacts, displays, and explanatory materials were all outstanding.  The audiophones also present a coherent and well-designed explanation of the events from four perspectives; American and German soldiers, a young schoolteacher who is part of the Resistance, and a young boy of 10 sent by his family in a small village to find shelter in Bastogne.

North of the town we visited Bois Jacques and the village of Foy, scene of two memorable episodes in Band of Brothers.  The Bois Jacques is where Easy Company was stationed for three weeks.  You can still see the foxholes in the forest.  Foy was the village just downhill from the forest attacked by Easy on January 13, 1945.  You can see the village from the edge of Easy's position.

Bois Jacques

 Foy from the edge of Easy Company position.

Memorials at the church in Foy.  The church was repaired after the war but still bares scars from the battle.  First photo is of church after the Americans took Foy.

 

  

 

This last photo tells the story of the return of treasured church artifacts returned by American soldiers many years after the war.