Operation Market Garden (Arnhem, September 1944)
On 17 September 1944, Syme parachuted into Holland as part of
Operation Market, the airborne component of Market Garden, with
the objective of capturing bridges across the Rhine. His unit worked
alongside combat troops in Arnhem, performing reconnaissance,
interrogating prisoners, and managing intelligence ow under extreme
battleeld conditions.
In his wartime diary (later published in part in the Intelligence Corps
Journal), Robert Syme gives a vivid account of the chaos and intensity
of Arnhem. He described the anticipation during nal checks at an
English farmhouse, the tense ight across the Channel, the ak bursts
as they neared Holland, and the erce resistance that soon turned the
operation into a desperate battle for survival.
Capture and POW Ordeal
Although records on his POW card (National Archives WO 416/352/263)
state that he was captured on 17 October 1944, his diary suggests he
was taken prisoner towards the end of the battle, as he attempted to
cross the Rhine during the withdrawal.
After capture, Syme endured an arduous journey to Stalag VIIIC
(Sagan). He and other prisoners were rst marched 2.5 hours east
from Arnhem, then subjected to a brutal transport in sealed boxcars for
10 days. During this time, they had little or no food and were forced to
collect rainwater in their helmets or depend on slave workers passing
water through gaps when the train halted.
His diary recounts the rest of the journey to his nal camp:
We stretched our cramped limbs at Frankfurt, received more ersatz
coffee, bread and sausage. Our seven days of starvation had made
several people very ill but the only medical treatment they had was
aspirin tablets. The Stalag we were to go to was full up, so we
were locked up again for two days until we reached Limburg, near
Coblenz.