Operation Market Garden and Prisoner Experience

For the British 1st Airborne Division, Operation Market Garden in September 1944 was a disaster. The Division was eliminated as a fighting force with around half of its men captured. The Germans faced the challenge of dealing with 6,000 prisoners in a fortnight; many of them seriously wounded. Somehow, the men were processed and dispatched to camps around Germany and German-occupied eastern Europe. Here, the men experienced the reality of the collapsing regime – little food and shrinking frontiers.

Once liberated in 1945, returning former prisoners were required to complete liberation questionnaires. Some refused, while others returned before ’Operation Endor’ to handle released men and their repatriation to Britain was in place. Around a third did. However, the questionnaires that do exist give an image of everyday experience for the 2,357 of these elite troops’ time in captivity, from capture to release. They show that German procedures were still operating, but that men were often treated inhumanely, especially when moved to camps by closed box cars and when camps were evacuated.

Although their interrogators were interested in Allied aircraft and airfields, they were also concerned with the effect of the new miracle weapons and with politics—how Germany would be treated after an Allied victory. Nevertheless, the airborne men’s morale remained high; carrying out sabotage at artificial oil plants, railway repairs, factories, and mines. Some overcame their guards when being evacuated at the end of the War, in some cases joining the Resistance. They also record help received from Dutch, French, and German civilians.