Company, clearing the Chateau. "B" Company then swept through the village, driving the Germans into a strongpoint. Both companies were then ordered to hold the ground they'd taken while the remainder of the Battalion prepared to assault the strongpoint. They were stopped from doing this, however, by orders redirecting the Battalion to the Area of St. Aubin D'Arquenay. There, they took up defensive positions to prevent a German counterattack, with one "D" Company guarding the famous 'Pegasus Bridge', crossing the River Orne at Benouville, which had been captured the previous morning by a special Company of the Parachute Regiment in the first action of the invasion.
The immediate objective of the Division was Caen, and it had been envisaged that they would advance quickly upon it. In fact, after three days the Division had only penetrated five miles from the beaches. German forces proved to be stronger than expected, and well supported by armour. Bad weather also prevented their receiving resupply or reinforcement for three days. This forced the British forces to concentrate on defending the ground they'd already taken from a German counter attack, and the advance had to be temporarily abandoned. It would take another six weeks, and many casualties, before Caen was finally reached, and fell to an attack by two British and one Canadian Division. The final assault, on the 8th July, proved to be something of an anti-climax. It was preceded by an aerial and naval bombardment of epic proportions, with 16" shells hurtling over the heads of the Allied troops to pound the city.
Unfortunately, the 2 Lincolns had been positioned to guard the left and open flank of the 185th Brigade which was tasked with seizing Le Bisey, its wood and the high ground beyond. The 3 Division, of which the 185th was a part, had been tasked with the left side of the attack on Caen. Although Caen itself was taken with relative ease, the left flank, between the River Orne and the high ground, turned into a charnel house, with the 2 Lincolns fighting 'practically unsupported, and scarcely remembered in the flush of victory elsewhere'. They succeeded in driving back the German defenders in the ost savage part of the battle for Caen, only to remain under heavy fire from German mortars and guns on the far side of the river that 'added considerably to the Battalions list of casualties'. Twice that day, the Germans attempted to counter attack, using tanks, but were thrown back each time. Glyn's Company was in the thick of it, with one of his men, Private J. Thompson, distinguishing himself, firing upon three German tanks with a PIAT ('Projector Infantry Anti-Tank'; a shoulder-fired mortar that launches armour-piercing bombs horizontally, and which is normally fired from the prone position).
From Caen, the 2 Lincolns took their part in the northward Allied advance, across the Great War battlegrounds of Mons, and the Somme, where Glyn's father had had his baptism of fire in 1916. The BVRC, serving with 1 Lincolns, had taken part in that same battle, and then fought there again in 1918. From the landings in Normandy, France and Belgium were liberated as they had been in the previous War, then the Allies pushed into the Netherlands.
In September, 1944, the Allies hoped to ensure a quick end to the War in Europe by siezing a series of 8 bridges, leading across the Rivers Meuse (or Maal), Waal, and Rhine, thereby laying Northern Germany and Denmark open to a powerful, piercing thrust by the Allied armies. The first stage of this epic action, to be known as Operation Market Garden, was the simultaneous seizure of the widely-seperated bridges by 30,000 soldiers of the 1st. Allied Airborne Army. The furthest bridge, across the Rhine at Arnhem, was to be seized by the British 1 Airborne Division. The two American airborne divisions would capture the bridges leading up to it. Ten Bermudian Paratroopers, who had joined the the Parachute Regiment from the BVRC's second draft to the Lincolns, narrowly missed out on landing at Arnhem when they were posted to the 1 Airborne, but arrived after it had left for Arnhem. Reposted to the 5 Airborne, they would first fight as infantry, aiding the Americans that winter at the Battle of the Bulge, before being dropped several miles behind German lines on the far side of the Rhine to prevent German re-inforcements reaching the Front. At least one Bermudian would take part in the Airborne assault on the Arnhem bridge, however. Captain Gordon Welch, MC, would land in a glider before being captured by the Germans and held as a Prisoner of War.
The Airborne forces seizing the bridges would be unsupported by artillery or armour, and were counting, for success, on the element of surprise and upon an expected lightness of German defenses, so far behind the lines. Even so, they could not be expected to hold the bridges for long, as the Germans marshalled forces to recapture or destroy them. Rapid relief by ground forces was essential to the plan.
Glyn Gilbert was, at about this time, in Belgium, near the town of Lille St. Hubert, just south of the Dutch border, where 3rd Division, of which the 2 Lincolns was a part, was being married to the 11th Armoured Division to create the 8th Corp. They were placed at the right of 30th. Corp, which had already made a small bridgehead across the River Meuse and Escaut Canal. 30th Corp was to advance north to relieve the Airborne forces holding the bridges at Eindhoven, Nijmegen and Arnhem, before rolling into Northern Germany.
The 8th Corp was to force their way across the Meuse-Escaut Canal, the 3rd Division securing a bridgehead, allowing engineers to erect a bridge to allow the 11th Armoured to cross and letting their deprivations fall upon the German forces occupying the Netherlands.
2 Lincolns part in the battle would go well, though not without cost. The ground forces launched their offensive on the night of the 18th September, with 2 Lincolns forcing their way across the Meuse-Escaut on the right side of the destroyed original bridge at Lille St. Hubert, while the Royal Ulster Rifles were to cross on the left. 2 Lincolns assault across the canal was to be carried out by two companies: "D" Company on the left, and and "C" Company under Glyn Gilbert on the right. "A" Company was to follow "C" Company, then fan out to the right. The remaining company, "B" Company was held in reserve.
The canal lay between two steep embankments that rose ten feet above gound level, with a drop of five feet down a concrete wall to the water. A novel use of searchlights was to be made, using the reflection of their beams to create 'artificial moonlight'. This proved unneccessary as the Germans had set fire to a cottage, which illuminated the scene throughout the night.
The Lincolns crept into position and the operation opened at 23:55 when the Division's artillery began to pound German positions on the other side of the canal. The Germans responded with mortar fire, but despite this the British infantry pushed out onto the water in boats at the stroke of midnight. The crossing proceeded as planned, if not uneventfully. As boats shuttled soldiers across, Pioneers assembled rafts with which to ferry anti-tank guns, as well as the Battalion's jeeps and Bren-carriers to the other side. By 2.15 am all of 2 Lincoln's rifle companies were across, with "A" Company still fighting Germans in the marshes while the others were digging in at the village of Broeck. A heavy price had been exacted for this success, however, particularly of the two assaulting companies.
Glyn Gilbert had lost all of his officers in the space of fifteen minutes. One of his Privates, L. Woolley, would receive the Military Medal for his subsequent actions, assuming 'command of a disorganized and leaderless section and [taking] it through to its objective'. Under fire from a German 20mm cannon as well as machine guns and mortars, Glyn took direct control of his leaderless platoons to complete the crossing. For their actions, he and the Officer Commanding the other Assault Company, Major P. H. W. Clarke, were awarded the Military Cross. As he put it, 'later that day [of the crossing], the ribbon was pinned on while we were still in the field. The next day we were relieved by a contingent of Bermudians'.
The contingent of Bermudians was part of a large draft of reinforcements. Composed primarily of volunteers who had come over with the BVRC's second draft to the Lincolns, it included Lieutenants A. R. Gosling and H. J. Smith, and had arrived under the command of Major Anthony W. F. 'Toby' Smith, who had actually come over from Bermuda in 1940 with the first contingent. 'Toby' Smith had left Bermuda to see some action, but like many soldiers found himself waiting four years in England without seeing the enemy. When Brigadier Maconochie, senior military officer in Bermuda visited England in August of 1944, he found him instructing an Officers Training Course at Aldershot. Major Smith asked the Brigadier to intercede on his behalf to gain him a transfer to the newly arrived second contingent, which the Brigadier was glad to do. Major Smith was killed in action shortly after joining the 2 Lincolns in Holland.
Operation Market Garden was not to proceed entirely according to plan, however. A serious misapprehension of the German forces at Arnhem saw 1 Airborne landing, not amid simply a handful of second-rate infantry, but also two Armoured Divisions which had been pulled back to there from the Front for a period of rest and reinforcement. Due to a shortage of aircraft, not all of the men and material which had to be landed could be delivered on the first day, the 17th., and their delivery had to be spread over three days. Believing that anti-aircraft defences around Arnhem were too heavy, the gliders of the British 1 Airborne had to be landed seven miles away.
Quickly blocked by the vastly superior German forces, only one Battalion was able to fight through, capturing the north end of the bridge. As the situation at Arnhem became desperate, the Polish Airborne, which had been held back for a proposed invasion of Poland, was quickly parachuted to 1 Airborne's aid, but to no avail.
The two American Airborne Divisions had little more success, though their luck would prove better. Most of the bridges they were tasked with were destroyed by the Germans before they reached them. Worse, the road along which 30 Corp had to advance to relieve each of the bridges was a narrow one, and German resistance along it proved to be tenacious, and well-organised. By the night of the 17th. they had advanced only seven miles without reaching a single bridge. When they managed to reach Nijmegen on the third day they found the American Airborne still engaged in heavy fighting, having failed to reach the bridge. With their arrival Nijmegen quickly fell, though not without more casualties. By then it was too late to come to save the day at Arnhem. The tanks of the two German Armour Divisions were levelling the buildings around the north end of the bridge and Market Garden had already failed. Short of ammunition and with 300 wounded, those who could finally crossed the river to make their way to 30 Corps. 2,500 men escaped, leaving behind 1,500 dead and 6,500 prisoners.
The cost of the failure was severe. Without the bridge at Arnhem, the Allies were not able to cross the Rhine for another four months, entering northern Germany in the middle of Winter. This likely delayed the end of the War in Europe, and ensured that Berlin fell to the Soviets, and not to the Western Allies. Furthermore, Dutch Resistance forces launched a popular uprising in the northern Nertherlands in the expectation that Allied troops would soon reach them. When help failed to appear, they were soon overcome by
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