| Original caption: “British four-engine Stirlings dropping supplied by parachute to the Airborne Forces.” The supply drop coming in at 15.00 hours on Tuesday, 19th September 1944. These are Stirlings from No 38 Group, Royal Air Force, and they are heading north towards the original Supply Dropping Point ‘V’, but it is now firmly in German hands. The photo is taken from the back garden of Number 25, Cronjeweg, Oosterbeek; about 5 kilometers (3 miles) from Arnhem. On September 19, 1944, weather finally cleared to attempt a resupply mission. Short Stirlings, converted heavy bombers of Number 38 Group, Royal Air Force, did not receive the news that Landing Zone “V” was firmly in German hands. Stanley Maxted (August 21, 1895 – May 10, 1963) arrived by glider and reported from Oosterbeek during a resupply drop for the United Kingdom Royal Army 1st Airborne Infantry Division during Operation Market Garden. He reported over radio later, “Just a few minutes ago the fighter cover showed up and right behind them came those lovely supply planes that you can hear up above us now. Yesterday and this morning our supplies came and they were dropped in the wrong place. The enemy got them. But now these planes have come over and they’ve dropped them right dead over us. Everybody is cheering and clapping and they just can’t give in to their feelings about what a wonderful sight this is. All these bundles and parachuted packages and ammunition are coming down here all around us through the trees, bouncing on the ground, the men are running out to get them and you have no idea what this means to us to see this ammunition and this food coming down here where the men can get it. They’re such fighters that if they can only get the stuff to fight with it’s a wonderful sight. It’s a shame when they can’t get the stuff to fight with. You can hear the kind of flames that those planes are flying through. It’s absolutely like hail up there. These enemy guns all around us are just simply hammering at those planes but so far I haven’t seen anything, I haven’t seen any of them hit. But the bundles are coming down, the parachutes are coming down, that’s all that these men have.” This was 1 of 4 recordings MAxted made that survived a Nazi German shelling while he was in Arnhem. Maxted, writing in Maclean’s Magazine November 15, 1944, issue, lay still in the mud of the Lower Rhine River before walking to Allied lines at Nijmegen. He, with about 2,000 men of 1st Airborne Division, broke out of the Nazi German encirclement and escaped capture. | |
| Image Filename | wwii0534.jpg |
| Image Size | 211.06 KB |
| Image Dimensions | 1596 x 1500 |
| Photographer | Dennis M. Smith |
| Photographer Title | Number Five United Kingdom Royal Army Film and Photo Section, Army Film and Photographic Unit |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | September 19, 1944 |
| Location | |
| City | Arnhem |
| State or Province | Gelderland |
| Country | Netherlands |
| Archive | |
| Record Number | BU 1092 |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
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