Sgt Peter Robinson, Guards Armoured Division, whose tank led the advance over the Nijmegen road bridge, stated:We reached the far end of the bridge and immediately there was a [German] roadblock. So the troop sergeant covered me through and then I got to the other side and covered the rest of the troop through. We were still being engaged; there was a gun in front of the church three or four hundred yards in front of us. We knocked him out. We got down the road to the railway bridge; we cruised round there very steady. We were being engaged all the time. Initially, four tanks crossed the bridge with a high probability some of the German explosive charges for demolition would activate. British engineers had cut some charges on the south of the bridge. As the tanks moved over the bridge they were fired on by single-shot, disposable anti-tank Panzerfausts, and had grenades dropped on them by German troops in the bridge girders – 180 German bodies were recovered from the girders with some unaccounted falling into the river below. Once across the bridge only a few 82nd troops met the first tanks as they crossed the bridge. After crossing the bridge one tank was destroyed and another badly damaged, yet moving, and was driven to the village of Lent on the north side of the bridge by the only survivor of the attack – a Sgt Knight – who had survived by feigning to be dead. The rest of the crews were killed, injured, or taken prisoner. One tank destroyed a German Sturmgeschütz assault gun lying in wait. The Guards tanks met the bulk of the 82nd troops north of the bridge in the village of Lent, north of the bridge and in darkness, after clearing out SS troops from the village and setting the church ablaze. It was dark by the time (19:30) the Irish Guards tanks linked up with the 504th PIR, north of the Nijmegen bridge. Moreover, on the road out of Lent, on the northern side of the railway bridge, the leading tank met two hidden German anti-tank guns in darkness. Even if the guns were located and destroyed, German troops with Panzerfausts were on the road and four available Guards tanks were low on ammunition. Only one of the four available tanks was a Firefly, mounting a gun capable of destroying a Tiger tank. Three Tiger tanks were heading south to Lent, unbeknownst to the Guards tank crews. Unable to locate the anti-tank guns, the tanks stopped.
