An 80th anniversary talk by military historian Christopher Jary and battlefield guide Lt-Col James Porter in Dorchester on 27th September will tell the proud story of our local Regiments’ involvement in the Battle of Arnhem. It begins at 6.30pm and will be held at the Army Reserve Centre, Poundbury Road, Dorchester DT1 1TA. Tickets (which include a glass of wine on arrival) cost £15 and are available from the Keep Military Museum. Tickets available here!
In the autumn of 1944 the Battle of Arnhem, or Operation Market Garden as it was called, was an unsuccessful attempt to break into Germany, encircle the Ruhr and end the war in 1944. The plan had two simultaneous parts: Market, in which British and American airborne troops dropped and seized crossings over six waterways between Eindhoven and Arnhem, and Garden, in which British tanks and infantry raced up the road to relieve the Airborne forces and finally to cross the bridge at Arnhem and to push into Germany.
Operation Market included two Dorset Regiment officers serving away from their Regiment. As a staff officer, Major Brian Urquhart warned General Boy Browning (commanding the Airborne Corps) of the dangers of the operation but was sent away. Lieutenant Raymond Bussell dropped with the 3rd Parachute Battalion and was wounded and captured; he then escaped but was recaptured only to be murdered by a member of the German secret police.
Operation Garden involved three fighting battalions of the Dorsetshire Regiment and the Dorset Yeomanry, who fought as the 94th Field Regiment of the Royal Artillery.
The 1st Dorsets (who with the 1st Hampshires had been the first British infantry to land on the Normandy beaches on D-Day) were involved in the first day of the advance and then fought the last bloody battle of the entire Arnhem operation at Heuvel. The 4th Dorsets (the pre-war Territorial unit based on Dorchester) were destroyed when they were sent across the river at Arnhem to rescue the surrounded British Airborne at Oosterbeek. The 5th Dorsets manned the boats ferrying the Airborne survivors back across the river and then fought some vicious battles preventing the Germans recapturing Nijmegen.
Meanwhile, the 94th Field Regiment (Dorset Yeomanry) provided magnificent artillery support for another brigade of the 43rd Wessex Division around Elst, south of Arnhem. Here their guns were required to be able to engage targets 360 degrees around them – their enemy were all around – and they played a great part in fighting off German counter attacks.
Friday evening’s talk will describe the background to Operation Market Garden and then focus on the experience of the Dorsets and Dorset Yeoman who were there.