20 BBC Stanley Maxted cut off with airborn

the fighter cover showed up and right behind them came those lovely supply planes which 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 brought them right, they're over.

Everybody is cheering and tapping, and they just can't give into 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. There are such fighters that if they can only get this stuff to fight with, it's a wonderful thing. Shame, it's a shame when they can't get this stuff to fight with.

You can hear the kind of flames of 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, they've seen any of them hit.

But the bundles are coming down. The parachutes are coming down. That's all that these men ask.