villagehorse
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No doubt about it Kevin, you are still the master of Arnhem. Robin.
Battle for Arnhem.... (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter panda1gen
- Start date
panda1gen
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Louis Badolato
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I loved that photo shoot, Kevin!:smile2: Now we are both old cripples limping around with canes, but back then I could "sit on my @ss up and down the stairs all day, and you could lay around in the 95 degree heat setting up and photographing dioramas.{sm4}
panda1gen
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wayne556517
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Great picture.
PanzerAce1944
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Kevin, Some really terrific photos that you have going on here in this thread. Need to drop in more often !
Wayne
Wayne
panda1gen
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Wraith
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They're taking their bl00dy time! This thread has been going on nearly twice as long as WW2 and they're still 10 miles short. {sm5}
Good to see you posting (setting you up massively for a MP retort :rolleyes2
villagehorse
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Good to see you have not given up on this series and as Andy has stated recently, neither has he. So some new MG in the coming months will freshen up this fantastic thread. Robin.
Louis Badolato
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Kevin! Amazing to see you posting!! Small I Skype you at the new contact number your son set up?
panda1gen
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They're taking their bl00dy time! This thread has been going on nearly twice as long as WW2 and they're still 10 miles short. {sm5}
Good to see you posting (setting you up massively for a MP retort :rolleyes2
If I knew what an MP retort was ??????????????????
10 miles short - you were lucky
this was from 2007 .... bit longer than the whole of ww2
panda1gen
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panda1gen
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Kevin! Amazing to see you posting!! Small I Skype you at the new contact number your son set up?
Sent you an email. I am sick of your arguing.
US jeep in 'operation market' in Njimegen
panda1gen
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To Return a Favour: Friendship Through D-Day and Arnhem
by Gavin Nixon
You are browsing in:Archive List > British Army
Archive List > Arnhem 1944
Archive List > World > Belgium
Contributed by Gavin NixonArticle ID: A2089307Contributed on: 28 November 2003 During the months leading up to 6 June 1944 (D-Day), my great grandfather John was a sergeant in the Paras. About three months before D-Day, John and a few of his friends were having a quiet drink in a pub called The Royal Oak. It was about 7:30, when a bunch of heavies started a fight with three American GIs from the 101st Airborne.
The GIs just did their best to calm the situation - after all they had only come in for a quiet drink. My grandfather John intervened, to help out the Americans, and after about five minutes the police arrived and took the heavies away. They turned out to be local farmers, who had hired out their land to the army - one of them was particularly angry that the army had accidently killed one of his cattle.
The GIs were grateful, and spent the rest of the night hanging around with my uncle and his friends. Once lockdown came, John and the GIs - among them one Lieutenant David Masters - thought they would never see each other again.
Unexpected meeting
Not long afterwards my uncle took part in the D-Day airdrops
, and in the afternoon of D-Day was captured by the Germans.
The GIs from the 101st Airborne also took part in the airdrops
, and David Masters and his platoon ended up far away from his mission area, due to miss drops. The lost platoon came across a small farm house, which looked like a staging area for POWs and also enemy communications. Masters and his men attacked the farm house, and destroyed the communications array there.
And then, when he came to investigate the farm house a bit closer, he found John, my great grandad!
After D-Day, they both met up yet again - this time during operation Market Garden - my great grandfather luckily narrowly escaped the slaughter at Arnhem.
After the war, both stayed good friends, and David Masters even moved to England, and became my great grandfather's next door neighbour.
© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.
by Gavin Nixon
You are browsing in:Archive List > British Army
Archive List > Arnhem 1944
Archive List > World > Belgium
Contributed by Gavin NixonArticle ID: A2089307Contributed on: 28 November 2003 During the months leading up to 6 June 1944 (D-Day), my great grandfather John was a sergeant in the Paras. About three months before D-Day, John and a few of his friends were having a quiet drink in a pub called The Royal Oak. It was about 7:30, when a bunch of heavies started a fight with three American GIs from the 101st Airborne.
The GIs just did their best to calm the situation - after all they had only come in for a quiet drink. My grandfather John intervened, to help out the Americans, and after about five minutes the police arrived and took the heavies away. They turned out to be local farmers, who had hired out their land to the army - one of them was particularly angry that the army had accidently killed one of his cattle.
The GIs were grateful, and spent the rest of the night hanging around with my uncle and his friends. Once lockdown came, John and the GIs - among them one Lieutenant David Masters - thought they would never see each other again.
Unexpected meeting
Not long afterwards my uncle took part in the D-Day airdrops
, and in the afternoon of D-Day was captured by the Germans.
The GIs from the 101st Airborne also took part in the airdrops
, and David Masters and his platoon ended up far away from his mission area, due to miss drops. The lost platoon came across a small farm house, which looked like a staging area for POWs and also enemy communications. Masters and his men attacked the farm house, and destroyed the communications array there.
And then, when he came to investigate the farm house a bit closer, he found John, my great grandad!
After D-Day, they both met up yet again - this time during operation Market Garden - my great grandfather luckily narrowly escaped the slaughter at Arnhem.
After the war, both stayed good friends, and David Masters even moved to England, and became my great grandfather's next door neighbour.
© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.
Louis Badolato
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Great story Kevin, perfectly illustrated!
panda1gen
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Great story Kevin, perfectly illustrated!
Thanks Louis
A firefight in a battered Arnhem
panda1gen
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https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/94/a4466694.shtml
Another veteran's history - a short extract but the whole is worth a visit at the link above.
I feel the contribution given by the R.A.S.C during the Battle of Arnhem went completely untold.Apart from the ground action,one only has to think that all the re-supply planes flown by the R.A.F and the American aircrew during the whole battle,were accompanied by 4 R.A.S.C air dispatch crews.Consequently their losses were gigantic too.
The actual role of 250 Company R.A.S.C was a rather complex one.
It consisted of 3 Parachute platoons,trained completely as infantry,these men were also fully trained drivers and also carried out R.A.S.C duties.Their 1st initial duty was to fight alongside an attached Para battalion (as an extra fighting platoon).All transport with the Transport Platoon were landed by glider and would immediately form a supply dump of food and ammunition,ready for distribution to troops when required.
During the course of the next few days during the Battle,we appeared to have been pinned down in a series of streets in the village of Oosterbeck.
Street fighting,sniping and continuous patrols were carried out under intense and continual mortar fire.We appeared also to be completely surrounded,because whichever we tried to go,we ran into enemy troops.
Food and water had to be scrounged wherever possible - we scrounged preservatives from the cellars of the houses left,reluctantly abandoned in the wake of the impending battle.
On what turned out to be the last day of the battle,and prior to being told by the German troops on a loudspeaker that our Division has surrendered,myself and other members of the Company,with L/Cpl Bell in charge,were ordered to take up positions in two houses overlooking the enemy positions to our front.Putting two and two together and wirh some experience we realised we had been placed as a rearguard.
We later found out that during the night the Div,H.Q tried to cross back over the river.
During the course of this day we were continuously attacked by enemy troops using tanks and S.P. guns.
Each house in the street was first shelled by enemy tanks and then finished by flame throwers.
By the middle of the day,we had completely run out of ammunition and we knew there was absolutely no way of holding the enemy up.So led by L/Cpl Bell,we tried to break out of the house we were in before it was fired on by flame throwers.On leaving the house we were faced by a whole platoon of German infantry,who immediately started firing.L/Cpl Bell was mortally wounded.On seeing the strength of the enemy troops,we immediately surrendered and were disarmed,not that we had any ammunition to use anyhow.
Another veteran's history - a short extract but the whole is worth a visit at the link above.
I feel the contribution given by the R.A.S.C during the Battle of Arnhem went completely untold.Apart from the ground action,one only has to think that all the re-supply planes flown by the R.A.F and the American aircrew during the whole battle,were accompanied by 4 R.A.S.C air dispatch crews.Consequently their losses were gigantic too.
The actual role of 250 Company R.A.S.C was a rather complex one.
It consisted of 3 Parachute platoons,trained completely as infantry,these men were also fully trained drivers and also carried out R.A.S.C duties.Their 1st initial duty was to fight alongside an attached Para battalion (as an extra fighting platoon).All transport with the Transport Platoon were landed by glider and would immediately form a supply dump of food and ammunition,ready for distribution to troops when required.
During the course of the next few days during the Battle,we appeared to have been pinned down in a series of streets in the village of Oosterbeck.
Street fighting,sniping and continuous patrols were carried out under intense and continual mortar fire.We appeared also to be completely surrounded,because whichever we tried to go,we ran into enemy troops.
Food and water had to be scrounged wherever possible - we scrounged preservatives from the cellars of the houses left,reluctantly abandoned in the wake of the impending battle.
On what turned out to be the last day of the battle,and prior to being told by the German troops on a loudspeaker that our Division has surrendered,myself and other members of the Company,with L/Cpl Bell in charge,were ordered to take up positions in two houses overlooking the enemy positions to our front.Putting two and two together and wirh some experience we realised we had been placed as a rearguard.
We later found out that during the night the Div,H.Q tried to cross back over the river.
During the course of this day we were continuously attacked by enemy troops using tanks and S.P. guns.
Each house in the street was first shelled by enemy tanks and then finished by flame throwers.
By the middle of the day,we had completely run out of ammunition and we knew there was absolutely no way of holding the enemy up.So led by L/Cpl Bell,we tried to break out of the house we were in before it was fired on by flame throwers.On leaving the house we were faced by a whole platoon of German infantry,who immediately started firing.L/Cpl Bell was mortally wounded.On seeing the strength of the enemy troops,we immediately surrendered and were disarmed,not that we had any ammunition to use anyhow.
panda1gen
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