Nelson Evening Mail FRIDAY. SEPTEMBER 29, 1944 THE EPIC OF ARNHEM

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 79, 29 September 1944, Page 4

Nelson Evening Mail FRIDAY. SEPTEMBER 29, 1944 THE EPIC OF ARNHEM

NOW that the story of the men of Arnhem has been told it is seen to possess in full measure those qualities of high courage, supreme sacrifice and selfless devotion of which epics are made. Using the most appropriate vehicle of poetry, some twentieth century Homer, Vergil or Tennyson may enshrine Arnhem among the epics of our race, for that is where it belongs. Nothing so stirs the human imagination as the tale of a heroic fight against great odds. Such deeds light the way down the ages, especially where they have found a worthy chronicler. Their very nature as factual military failures oftens turns them into inspirational successes. In a very literal success so far as New Zealand is concerned it is true to say that this war has had its Thermopylae which time will invest with additional lustre. Nearly a century ago Tennyson, in his funeral ode to the Great Duke, was moved to write, Not once or twice in our rough island-story The path of duty was the way to glory. In this war the stern voice of duty has been heard not only on land and sea but in the newest sphere of human conflict—the air. Now the troops of Britain’s First Airborne Army have answered the call gloriously in the twin elements of sky and ground to provide a fresh medium for human achievement. These were not ordinary men who were projected into space and dropped in the camp of the enemy on the wooded ground of Arnhem in a bold bid to reap the maximum advantages of the new three-dimensional strategy. They were hand-picked warriors, superbly equipped and trained to the minute to fight and endure. Yet, militarily, they did not fully succeed though neither did they fail to add something valuable to the progress of the campaign in the West. Paying tribute to this superb feat of arms, Mr Churchill suggests that ■‘Not in Vain” may be the pride of those who survive and a suitable epitaph for those who fell. It is not rating the aim behind the airborne operation too harshly to describe it as something of a gamble in which risks had to be taken if big prizes were to be won. At Arnhem luck in the shape of capricious weather intervened and design in the form of a quick and vigorous enemy reaction to a major threat.

Striving with all their might and main to hold their forest citadel until the British Second Army could come to join them, these airborne troops, apparently nearly 8000 strong, were harried continuously and relentlessly by every weapon the elite German troops could bring to bear. After three days the prime objective—one of the bridges over the Rhine water barrier—was denied them. Then the defence perimeter had to be progressively reduced under the intense pressure of the enemy onslaught. Undaunted, they fought on while all the world wondered. On the eighth day they had little else with which to fight save bare hands and the order came to withdraw. It was a relief accepted with regret for the job was not finished despite their heroism. Ingenious plans were laid for slipping

through the German lines and crossing the Rhine to the main elements of the British Second Army on the south bank. And so, in the cold drizzle of Monday night, they came back—but not the 8000.