Today's extract is from Arnhem Lyft by Louis Hargan.

Louis Hargan was a German Jew who'd escaped Nazi Germany in the late 30s.

He became a glider pilot and fought at Arnhem.

Here he is on the Friday in Usterbeek.

Friday.

During the morning, the first German SP gun started moving around the top crossroad.

We heard the engine revving in the Jerry shouting before the attack started.

The immediate job was to put our peer to gun in a position where it could dominate the

road and prevent the SP gun from moving down.

We found an ideal place which Jerry never spotted the whole time we were there.

We decided to fire the bomb through a little hole in the roof of the attic.

The noise of the tank got louder.

We could hear the tracks squealing and grinding along the road.

Then the first shots were fired and tore away some bricks from the front of the houses.

From the wood opposite came the splutter of a heavy, spanned-out machine gun and a hail

of light machine gun and rifle bullets came across the road.

Jerry was also using small arm-appearsing shells which could penetrate clean through

our house.

This was all preparation for the SP.

Until we could see the tank coming, we used the Bren gun from our high lookout and

sprayed the crossroads and the wood opposite us with continuous fire.

Germans were moving about unaware that they could be seen and many of our bullets found

...