September 2025
- Phil Hadley
- Sep 2
- 10 min read
The month of September sees a raft of commemorations for Operation Market Garden – General Montgomery’s ill-fated plan to seize the key bridges in an attempt to drive deep into Nazi-occupied Netherlands and cross the River Rhine. It failed in its final and key objective – securing and holding the vital Rhine crossing at Arnhem and so is often portrayed in history books, documentaries and films as an epic failure. However, it liberated one fifth of the Netherlands including the key towns of Eindhoven and Nijmegen; it put the Germans on the back foot after the broad offensive favoured by Eisenhower and Bradley had slowed; while Montgomery claimed it was 90% successful capturing strategic terrain that protected Antwerp from counter-attack, without the final crossing on the Rhine the Allies were unable to really exploit the success of crossing the Maas and Waal. The debate still rages amongst historians and military strategists. What is not in doubt is the bravery of the forces that secured the crossings and the airborne troops that managed to capture and hold the bridge at Arnhem for a number of days against overwhelming and superior forces. A number of Cornishmen, or those who lived in the county, were involved in the events of Operation Market Garden.
Gen Frederick ‘Boy’ Browning was educated at Eton and Sandhurst before serving in the First World War with distinction winning the D.S.O. He narrowly missed out in representing Britain at the 1924 Olympics as a hurdler but became an Olympian in 1928 as part of the five man bobsleigh team at the Winter Olympics. He was also a keen yachtsman and when he read the debut novel by a young Daphne du Maurier describing the rugged beauty of the Cornish coast he sailed to investigate for himself. He eventually met the author, and after a brief romance married her at the church at Lanteglos near Fowey. During the Second World War he was promoted and eventually tasked with forming the newly created 1st Airborne Division. After D-Day he was positioned under Lt Gen Bereton in the First Allied Airborne Army. It was his arguments with Bereton that exposed differences of opinion over the plans for Operation Market Garden. When informed that his airborne troops would have to hold the bridge for two days, Browning responded that they could hold it for four and added: "But I think we might be going a bridge too far.” He was also concerned about the distance of the drop zones from the Arnhem bridge. History was to prove him right on both counts, although he does bear some responsibility for downplaying the Ultra intelligence on the Panzer divisions which had been moved into the Arnhem area. Browning landed by glider with his HQ group with the Americans at Nijmegen taking in his pack a framed print of Albrecht Durer’s ‘The Praying Hands’ which had accompanied him since the trenches of the Western Front in 1917. However, he was not a religious man, allowing no memorial service following his death in 1965. On Sunday 24th September 1944 he wrote to his wife back in Cornwall: "We have had a very tragic time the last few days, as we've been unable to reach the 1st Division in time to prevent their annihilation - it's been a combination of weather, stiffening resistance and appalling country. I've got a major battle on me hands to keep the corridor open and hold the Boche on me southern flank... worried as hell about the 1st Division although the latter is not now my battle but a matter for 30 Corps who are trying to reach them. Apart from the latter the thing has been a great success, but the whole thing is overshadowed by the tragedy in the north." The British press reported that Browning had been captured, even phoning his wife in the middle of the night for comment. It was in fact a lie put out by the Germans. Browning was safe and sound and he and his staff returned to England on the 9th October and he remained in post for the next two months. After Arnhem, he was given a short leave in December 1944 when he visited his wife and children on the Menabilly Estate at Fowey they had rented from 1943, before going to the Far East to serve as Mountbatten’s Chief of Staff through to the Japanese surrender. For his services at SEAC he was knighted in 1946. He served in the War Office for a while before going to the Palace to serve Princess Elizabeth and then when she became Queen her husband Prince Philip. In 1959, with failing health and a drinking problem, he retired to the Menabilly Estate taking up various community positions in Cornwall until his death in 1965.
Another soldier who ‘retired’ to Cornwall after seeing action at Arnhem was Major Tony Hibbett. He had joined the army in 1935 after spending time working in Germany and realising they were re-arming for war. After seeing action at Dunkirk, North Africa and Italy, at Arnhem he led the 1st Parachute Brigade HQ which managed to make it to the bridge along with the 2nd Parachute Battalion led by Lt Col John Frost. Having held the northern end of the bridge for 3 days Hibbert was captured by the Germans whilst leading a remnant group towards Oosterbeek. Whilst being driven in a truck to a POW camp he jumped from the truck, escaped and made contact with the Dutch Resistance who hid him for 3 weeks until a withdrawal plan saw over 100 hiding troops transported across the Rhine and back into Allied hands. Tony as he was being driven away by jeep from the river crossing was involved in an accident and broke his leg necessitating five months in hospital. Hibbert was awarded the Military Cross for his bravery at Arnhem. Sadly in the truck two POWs were killed and 8 wounded when a German corporal opened fire on the vehicle in anger at Hibbert’s escape. He returned to the war in the spring of 1945 and led a T force in Operation Eclipse that seized Kiel denying the port and canal and a number of German scientific establishments right up to the Danish border to the Russians.
After the war, he took over the family merchant business where he was instrumental in bringing the ring pull can and Vimto to the British market. At the same time, he created a family home on the banks of the Solent where he set up the Salterns children’s sailing club. Following a short time in retirement in Devon, his restlessness found an outlet in1981 when he and his wife bought Trebah on the Helford Estuary. On learning it had once been a premier garden they set about restoring it and opening it to the public. Their land embraced the D-Day embarkation beach at Polgwidden and each year one of Tony’s proudest moments in later life was hosting the annual D-Day & Airborne Commemoration Day. I was privileged to be at the last one Tony attended before he died later in 2014 and my video record of the day can be found here: https://youtu.be/etIkK5SLIGA?si=UltumDXlKcgqaQtM
There were a good number of other Cornishmen who served in Operation Market Garden. The Dorrien-Smith family are known on Tresco in the Isles of Scilly as the leaseholders from the Crown since the 1830s. They also owned Greatwood House near Mylor (which later became a luxury hotel but was then converted into apartments). The family lost two sons (and three nephews – two on the same day in the retreat to Dunkirk in May 1940 and one in the Battle of Normandy 1944) in World War Two. Lt Horace Dorrien-Smith served with the DCLI and was then attached to the 3rd Battalion, Parachute Regiment, and died from wounds during an army exercise parachuting into New Milton near Bournemouth on 22nd April 1942 when the Type 69 grenade in his pocket exploded. He was aged 22. He is buried in Mylor Churchyard. His brother Captain Geoffery Dorrien-Smith served with the Royal East Kent Regiment and was then attached to the 3rd Parachute Battalion. He dropped into Arnhem and was killed in action on 21st September defending the perimeter near the Old Church. He was commanding a remnant group of about 60 men from 3rd Battalion. He is buried in Oosterbeek War Cemetery, Arnhem. He is also commemorated on his brother’s headstone in Mylor and the five cousins are honoured in the church on the island of Tresco.
One Cornishman who survived was Sgt Crispin F Alway from Flushing near Falmouth. He went into Arnhem by glider with the Airlanding Field Ambulance, Royal Army Medical Corps attached to the 1st Airlanding Brigade. It is thought he stayed with the wounded when the British withdrew back south of the river as he was captured and sent as POW number 53701 to Stalag IX C. Although this camp was located over a wide area serving the potassium mines it is thought Alway was part of the Ambulance team that arrived at the camp in October 1944 and were based at the camp hospital housed in a former Strength Through Joy hostel in a three storey building in the town of Obermaßfeld south-west of Erfurt. The hospital was liberated by the U.S. 11th Armoured Division and Sgt Always repatriated home to Flushing where he was given a hero’s welcome by the village and press photographs show him after the official ceremony having climbed on the roof of the air raid shelter on the quay (that became the public toilets after the war!) to wave to and address the assembled throng.
Another man from Cornwall who stayed with the wounded was the Rev Pare. Rev George Arnold Pare was curate at Merrymeet, near Liskeard, in 1939. He joined the Royal Army Chaplains in 1941 where he served in the Glider Pilot Department. He flew into Ranville on D-Day saving the life of pilot Eric Wilson who had been left in his glider for dead for 2½ days. In September 1944 he flew with General Urquhart into Arnhem. He never made it to the bridge but helped oversee the wounded and dying at the Schoonoord Hotel. He was mentioned in Dispatches for his service at Arnhem. When the remaining soldiers retreated back south of the river Rhine he stayed with the wounded where he led them in prayers & the singing of the hymn Abide With Me (a scene that is portrayed in the film of the Battle of Arnhem – A Bridge Too Far). The Germans moved the wounded to a converted barracks at Apeldoorn. When the number of wounded dropped as the men either died or recovered enough to be sent to POW Camps, the two padres were put on a train to Germany. George asked to go to the toilet & when out of sight of the guards jumped from the train. After several narrow escapes he was hidden by the Dutch Underground. Eventually as the Allies liberated that part of Holland he returned to the UK. He continued to minister until 1970 and was promoted to glory in March 1979.
Having mentioned the 1977 film A Bridge Too Far, I remember visiting as a youngster the Lamanva Military Vehicles Museum on the road between Mabe and Mawnan Smith. I can recall then reading in the newspaper in April 1976 how its founder Charlie Mann was taking 103 of his vehicles to the Netherlands to be used in the filming of A Bridge Too Far, shipping them out of Falmouth Docks. Indeed, he was the military vehicle adviser to the film. I still have my copy of Cornelius Ryan’s book purchased on Monday 11th June 1977 (I wrote the date inside the cover!) and went on a school trip organised by my history teacher Mike England to a special screening at Wadebridge Cinema on 8th July 1977. While I am aware of some artistic licence taken in the film and the debate over its portrayal of characters like Boy Browning, I still think it is one of the best films of its genre. I was then excited to go back and visit the Lamanva Museum again having heard Charlie Mann had brought back with him many props used in the making of the film such as the replica Horsa glider which you could walk through and the flat bottom boats used by actor Robert Redford when he rowed across the Rhine. Charlie Mann died in 1987 and the museum was eventually taken over by Flambards but they later closed it in 1993 claiming it was losing £30,000 a year and auctioned off the exhibits. Alas, even Flambards has now closed and been auctioned off.
However, Cornwall’s love of military vehicles was on display last month at the West of England Steam Engine Society Rally over three days at the Stithians Showground where the Military Vehicles Trust mounted a fine display along with Wave 44 – the Cornish based US 29th Infantry Division re-enactment group who had erected a marshalling camp. Part of the set up was a chaplain’s tent which came complete with re-enacted services led by Sil Rustenberg who heads up the Chaplains For Christ organisation. Sil is a Dutchman from Medemblik, north of Amsterdam, where his parents and siblings run a military museum. Sil re-enacts the role of a US Army Chaplain with the American forces as they move through north-west Europe. He has appeared at events in his homeland, at St Mere Eglise for D-Day 80 last year and this was his first visit to Cornwall. It was a pleasure to meet him and his wife Marieke and their new-born son and Sil was delighted to see my display boards on the Royal Netherlands Navy based at Enys House, Penryn, and on the work of padres, chaplains and other Christian organisations in Cornwall during the war. You can visit his website here: https://www.chaplainforchrist.com/ and hopefully your web browser can translate the Dutch or you can see some of his YouTube videos here: https://youtu.be/Ch71QvNEDew?si=XqXHTv1gt-QKBl5U or here: https://youtu.be/62FfSW1C9_c?si=2s0_JQ4SBjQIRM0a Sil’s inspiration for playing the role of chaplain as a re-enactor came from his discovering the story of Chaplain Delbert Kuehl who went with the men of the 82nd Airborne when they paddled across the Waal at Nijmegen on 20th September 1944.
So Cornwall’s links with the Netherlands and with the story of Operation Market Garden remain strong. In both countries the desire to honour the sacrifice of those who served and those who died fighting for the liberation of the Netherlands and the freedom of Europe is paramount, and all the more important in these days when it is once again under threat from an aggressive dictator.
If you or your family have any links with the stories told in this article do get in touch and add to my research. Until next month, Shalom.
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