A premature landing

En route to Arnhem
On the morning of Sunday, Sept. 17, 1944, 45 Airspeed Horsa type gliders set off from Manston in the UK, bound for Wolfheze near Arnhem. One of the aircraft will never arrive there. Instead of fighting in the front line, a nerve-racking adventure in occupied territory awaits the 28 occupants. First lieutenant and glider pilot Roland Gerrard ‘Dusty’ Millar later recalls the moment on Sunday, Sept. 17, when things go wrong. 'The cable pulled tight with a tremendous crash against the glider and at the same time the left rope snapped due to the tension. (...) That was it. The tow plane disappeared with a loose piece of cable trailing behind it. (....) The whole incident lasted less than a minute (...) Except for the rustling of the wind, it had become dead silent. We pulled the lever to disconnect the cables (they were not working) and then looked for a suitable place to land.'

Landed
Millar's co-pilot, Jimmie Barclay, safely lands the Airspeed Horsa in a potato field a mile and a half north of De Moer. The group of soldiers gathers in the nearby woodland. Soon the first civilians arrive to welcome the soldiers. But these have other ideas. 'We wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. Setting the glider on fire would only attract attention. (...) This great reception was very painful. Both Jimmie and I tried to explain that they were not yet liberated and that we had come down in the wrong place. Someone shouted ‘Moofa’ or something like that.’ The Germans were indeed not far away.

 On the run
The guards at the nearby ammunition depot, Munitions Ausgabe Stelle 8/VI, also saw the glider come down and quickly set out to find the landing spot. Meanwhile, the British have left, accompanied by two members of the André resistance group. The entire group hide in a haystack, 500 meters from the landing site. They are only just in time. 'Fifteen Krauts were looking for us. They shot in the direction of the forest. Searching the fields. (...) The shooting of the Germans was quite close. (...) They set fire to our brand new glider and that made me sad.' The men hide until it gets dark and then head for the Overdiepse Polder. The group have a long road ahead. It will lead via Elshout to the Kampina near Boxtel. Only on October 25 can they shake hands with comrades of the Second Army, five weeks after the crash landing.