Orders, Decorations and Medals

A superb Arnhem M.M. group of four awarded to Sergeant Lewis Haig, Army Air Corps, attached Glider Pilot Regiment, who published his own account “Arnhem Lift” under his real name Louis Hagen
Military Medal, G.VI.R. (14623981 Sjt., A.A.C.); 1939-45 Star; France and Germany Star; War Medal, these last three privately named, good very fine (4)

M.M. London Gazette 9 November, 1944: ‘Throughout the action at ARNHEM September 19th - 25th 1944, Sergeant Haig showed outstanding leadership and example to the men. He volunteered continuously for patrolling and after hard fighting each day carried ammunition through enemey fire during the hours of darkness. In spite of being injured whilst firing a Bren gun he refused to leave his post. At all times he was a fine example by his complete disregard for his personal safety. He instilled great confidence to the other ranks and he was in a large measure responsible for keeping the enemy away from the positions held.’

Sergeant Louis Hagen M.M. flew into his designated L.Z. north west Arnhem with Operation Market Garden’s second lift on D-Day plus 1 (Monday 18 September, 1944). Serving under the name of Lewis Haig to disguise his Jewish ancestry, this former inmate of Torgau Concentration Camp, suffered none of the compassion for the enemy felt by some airborne men making the sudden transition from billets in England to the theatre of war. Having piloted his Horsa glider, loaded with a jeep, petrol carrying trailer and three apprehensive members of Brigadier ‘Shan’ Hackett’s 4th Parachute Brigade Group, through the flak thrown up from the Dutch coast, he effected a successful landing and made his way to the Glider Pilot rendezvous at Wolfheze station before joining the general advance towards Arnhem. The movement, however, ran up against the blocking line established north of Oosterbeek by the 9th S.S. Panzer Division. Accordingly progress was slow and intermittent, and after being orderd to re-cover some ground, Hagen, near the rear of the column, found himself next morning in a wood close to his original R.V.

He had his first brush with the enemy a few hours later when his Flight was ordered to clear the wood of some Germans a few hundred yards away. Seized with an urge to do something dramatic when the centre of the advance was held up, Hagen rushed forward alone. Machine gun fire however forced him to rapidly review the wisdom of his would-be heroics and he dropped down between the opposing sides. His attempts to retreat then drew fire from both sides and, wishing that he carried a recognition flag, only issued to first pilots of each crew, he sat tight. At length a Parachute officer realised something was wrong and shouted to him to give the password and stand up with his arms raised. Hagen complied, but forgot that he was holding a grenade. He was again fired on by his own side, who only permitted him to join them after stating exactly who he was. That afternoon Hagen joined a disorganised retreat to Wolfheze and, in the absence of orders, decided to get away from the main cross roads where puzzled troops were bunched together, looking at their maps uncertain of what to do next. Striking out on his own initiative, he made for the river close to Arnhem, and fortuitously met some jeeps of the Reconnaissance Squadron, which having lost a number of men invited him and his companion, Dodd, to join. Supplied with a sten gun, plenty of ‘mags’, tins of food and blankets he passed a fitful night in a slit trench dug earlier by the members of Recce Squadron.

Next morning he joined a reconnaissance towards the Arnhem railway bridge, but the patrol came up against Mark III and IV tanks and was scattered. Hagen and Dodd were forced to hide in a rubbish pit at the back of a house while the Germans searched it. Later, after a long wait in a thicket surrounded by Germans, a Glider Pilot patrol came along. Hagen and Dodd immediately attached themselves and, after another firefight with a party of Germans in a wooded area, reached the Arnhem suburb of Oosterbeek which, containing the Hackett’s brigade HQ and that of 1st Airborne Division in the Hartenstein Hotel, was to become the main area of defence for the rest of the operation. On Thursday morning after a creeping mortar bombardment had passed, Hagen joined another patrol, made up of members of D Squadron, G.P.R., which was sent to secure two rows of houses, one of which, lining the Stationsweg, formed the north east side of the perimeter. Advancing through the gardens and listening for signs of life, Hagen grew impatient and started to knock on doors, thereby speeding things up considerably. According to the recent account of Sander Kremer, the son of a retired colonial planter, who at the time of the Arnhem battle was eleven years old and living in the Stationsweg, Hagen appeared in his father’s garden and said: “Sprechen Sie deutsch?” ‘It was a very dangerous moment.’ writes Kremer, ‘Father didn’t know what to answer; anything could have happened. Eventually he said in English, “No, that is a language I hate.” Then the soldier said, “Then your’re OK.” They told us they were going to occupy our side of the street.’ It was here, in the Stationsweg, that Hagen remained until the survivors of the 1st Airborne were withdrawn across the Rhine on the night of Monday, the 25th.

Germans were found in one house: ‘There seemed to be about six of them, who bolted into the house opposite’, wrote Hagen, ‘We lobbed hand grenades after them before they could take cover, and one of them was laid out. I had run upstairs and could see them inside a trench and behind hedges, trying to crawl away. I fired, and hit another of them and went on lobbing hand grenades from my position overlooking their trench. Captain Z sent me along the road to try to link up with a party which the colonel had led, to report Jerry’s position. It was a pity we couldn’t drive them out of more of the houses, but we were not supposed to get into a serious fight. We had to await orders ... That night I stayed in the lower corner house firing magazine after magazine up the road with our Bren gun to prevent Jerry crossing over from the wood.’

Hagen’s subsequent and more violent experiences in Oosterbeek Perimeter, or ‘Der Hexenkessel’ (the Witches Cauldron), over the next four days are all comprehensively described in his book Arnhem Lift, which, written immediately after the ill-fated Arnhem operation, was one of the earliest first-hand accounts to appear in book form. Suffice to say he was one of only 1,892 men out of a total of 8,969 men belonging to the 1st Airborne Division and its attached units to reach the lines of the British Second Army, fighting its way up to Nijmegen. A copy of Arnhem Lift is sold with the lot.