LEST WE FORGET - ARNHEM

Had it come off, it would have shortened WW2 by a year.
At the Oosterbeek Airborne War cemetery more than 1,750 Allied soldiers are buried.
They fell in battle during the Battle of Arnhem.
On the first Sunday after September 17, which is today, they are commemorated with solemn homage in the presence of veterans, their relatives and thousands of people.
As with tradition ‘flower children’- schoolchildren from Renkum municipality – lay flowers at every gravestone. A very moving ceremony whilst Last Post is played.
Yesterday saw 800 Paratroopers from several nations drop on Ginkel Heath.
RIP to all nations who took part total respect on the 72nd Anniversary of the Battle

A cousin of my mother was a founder member of the parachute regiment who fought at the battle of Arnhem amounts other places. We know very little of what happened to him there because he wouldn't talk about it much after the war and most of what happened went with him to the grave. What I do know is that he parachuted in, fought in the battle of Arnhem and then when the order came to pull out, swam across the river. When swimming across the river he had to swim part of the way underwater because the Germans were shooting at him. He got out of the battle of Arnhem without a scratch but must have lost many friends. He left the army at the end of the war and went back to the firm where he had worked briefly before the war and he he was thought so highly of because of his actions at Arnhem he was given a top job with the firm. He wouldn't go near an aeroplane for a long time after the because he found it too upsetting but eventually had to because he needed to go somewhere in connection with his work.

It took a long while for the powers that be to recognize how the face of battle changed people, how many poor beggars were shot for cowardice in WWI suffering from shell shock, hopefully our govt's will open up the funds to help those from suffering from past and present conflicts along the road to a better life. Like so many my dad never spoke of his 4 years away just took it to his grave nor does my brother in law talk about his Asian excursion we who have never gone away and faced or experienced what they have will never understand we can only give them our support and respect as best we can.
Thanks for your input U.K and Gil for reminding us.

The chap I referred to in post 2, we also know fought some kind of action in Norway prior to Arnhem but that's all we know. He wouldn't discuss the matter further and heaven knows what he went through there.

Flying10UK,
If it helps in any way, I hold the records of the 11532 men that dropped at Arnhem something compiled as a Trustee of the Parachute Regiment and Airborne Forces Museum at IWM Duxford and can supply you with what I have for your family, it is a definitive record in a folder 3" thick.....just ask:thup:

72 years on. Hard to believe...

Thanks Gil for that. I'll ask mother for all the information that we know about him and then P.M. you.

Flyin10UK,
No worries glad to help, might be some missing stuff for you;)

I have P.Md you the details Gil, thanks.

My father was living in Essex during the war and during 1944/45 was living on the outskirts of Clacton on Sea. At the time of the Arnhem operation he remembered seeing the sky full of aircraft and aircraft towing gliders. This would make sense because the aircraft towing gliders which took off from airfields in the west of England and the Cotswolds such as RAF Fairford, Little Rissington, Lynham and others would take them over Clacton on the way to Holland. Clacton and the Essex coast must have been the last piece of England that many of the Airborne troops in the Aircraft and Gliders ever saw.

I believe that my father witnessed further large formations of aircraft and gliders pass over Clacton in early 1945 for the Rhine crossing drops.

Flying10uk,

PM received and will reply accordingly with his service record at Arnhem and anything else I have on him.

Yes Operation Varsity which took place on the 24th March 1945 was again an immense operation which was highly successful.

a friend of my fathers was at Arnhem, had his hand shot off when he was parachuting down