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Exactly 70 years ago this weekend, the largest airborne operation in history and one of the most momentous of the Allied offensives in World War Two, Operation Market Garden, was underway. 

Right now, the Big Lottery Fund, through its Heroes Return scheme, is making sure WW2 veterans can make the journey back to Arnhem in the Netherlands to remember the many who fell in this pivotal battlefront.

The Allied assault in September 1944 was initially successful, but at Arnhem they faced overwhelming odds and took heavy casualties, but held out for nine days. A force of over 86,000 men comprising paratroopers, air and ground units, were involved in the operation miles behind enemy lines to capture the bridges that spanned the river crossings between the Netherlands and Germany.

Des’ story  -  Glider Pilot/Staff Sergeant

It would be a baptism of fire for plucky 21 year-old Des Page, Glider Pilot/Staff Sergeant in the Glider Pilot Regiment, as he landed the first Horsa Glider at Wolfheze near Oosterbeek on day two of the operation.

Now 91 years old, Des recalls: “I was a fully operational glider pilot two months before D-day. Arnhem came up six months later and I was on it. We took off with a full load, jeep, trailer and motor bike.  Three and a half hours later we landed and the co-pilot poked his head outside and said, ‘Give me my rifle Des, we’re being fired at! Anyway, we unloaded and weren’t hit at all.

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Some 67 miles behind enemy lines the glider pilots were mustered as infantryman with the
1st Airborne Division. Under constant sniper fire the troops embarked on an eight mile trek  towards Oosterbeek, near Arnhem where they were to hold and defend an allied Headquarters, which had been set up by earlier divisions.

He said: “I was overloaded with 12 magazines of ammunition plus extra boxes in my knapsack and I was soon weary. As we got towards Oosterbeek we came across British dead on the verges at the side of the road. The Dutch people had crossed their hands and laid flowers on them.“   

Flaking out under the enormous weight of ammunition, for a while Des managed to get a lift on a truck trailer, but the driver was killed by a sniper and Des was thrown off as the truck crashed.  Becoming separated from his unit he started to walk and eventually joined up with them at the crossroads of Oosterbeek. But events were taking a disastrous turn. 

He recalls: “It had all gone wrong. They were in trouble at the Arnhem Bridge.  There were far more Germans than were supposed to be. We were totally outgunned, outmanned, everything.”

Battle of ‘The White House’

The unit moved into the perimeter around Oosterbeek reaching the Dreyeroord Hotel, known as the ‘White House’, allied HQ occupied by the Kings Own Scottish Borderers, (KSOB) and from there dug shallow trenches around a small plantation around the back of nearby a hotel. Des set up his Bren gun and waited.

He said: “Nothing much happened for a while till I suddenly heard a gasping sound and realised the glider pilot next to me had been hit by snipers in the houses facing our side of the trench.  A medic came up but he was also hit so I grabbed his collar and pulled him out of the line of fire. We fired back at the houses and after about 15 minutes we had killed three snipers. But the glider pilot died. The Germans then pinned us down with shells until they could move in more snipers.”

From the cover of nearby woodland the German main force then launched a full attack. The allies were up against crack Panzer tank troopers with years of experience. Des lost 30 comrades in the attack.

He recalls: “The woods were alive with fire. Any soldier will tell you about the noise of a fighting battle. It’s noise until your mind boggles. You think you are going out of your head, then suddenly a complete quiet, everything’s hush.  You might hear somebody moaning whose been hit, or the clink of a gun. I ran into the White House to get some more ammunition. I ran upstairs and looking through a window I saw a German about to throw a stick grenade so I shot him.”

I ran around the corridors but I couldn’t find any ammo. A KSOB came out of a room and asked if I could load a PIAT bomb, so I loaded two for him. Three armoured cars were attacking the front of the hotel. I ran down another corridor and found some ammunition when the whole hotel shook. Really shook. I thought ‘my god, they’re in underneath us’ but they weren’t so I ran down through the back door. By this time the Germans had brought up a tank.”

Arnhem glider pilot Des Page. 
Photo: Matt Alexander/PA

Des rejoined his comrades and continued fighting into the night. He said: “The Germans set the top of barn alight so they could see us. Bits of it were dropping on my head and suddenly we had to change trenches to avoid being cremated. We then set fire to a building near the Germans so we could see them.

‘The only romantic bloke at Arnhem’  

 “We were still firing around 3am when all of a sudden a woman’s voice rang out, ‘don’t shoot! I’m a woman!’ She was in the middle of the road with a suitcase. Suddenly she went down. All her left foot toes had been shot off. My officer ran out into the road and picked her up. I shouted to him to drop her in the trench next to me. I talked to the girl, she spoke English. Her toes were gone. It was a bloody mess. The stockings were all mixed up in it. I gave her a morphine injection and shouted for a medic. He came up with a stretcher but machine gun fire came close so he went back in the trench. He tried again and this time we managed to get her to a regimental aid post. It was loaded with wounded, a padre going round with a little candle. I laid her down in a small space, kissed her hand, and told her not to worry. It was later said that I was ‘the only romantic bloke at Arnhem’”      

Des rejoined his comrades. Soon after the Germans made a full assault, outnumbering the airborne four-to-one and bringing up armoured cars and machine guns, forcing them to retreat back across the road. But turning to face the onslaught, the group held them off once again, before moving into the woods to reposition their defence.

Safely over the Rhine

Des was later part of the allied evacuation over the night of 25–26 September to safely withdraw the remnants of the 1st Airborne across the Rhine. Approximately 2,400 men were evacuated, effectively ending Operation Market Garden. 

Veteran Des, 91, from East Farleigh, Maidstone, has been returning to Arnhem for over 58 years, and along with a group of old comrades from the Glider Pilot Regiment is returning this weekend for the historic 70th anniversary.

Children’s whispers – Oosterbeek Cemetery on Sunday

Of the week’s commemorations held around the site of the famous battle Des recalls one of the most beautiful and moving: the Flower Ceremony at Oosterbeek Cemetery, Arnhem, where local schoolchildren come to lay flowers on the graves of those killed in the battle.

He reflects: “At about 10 o’ clock you can hear children’s voices, and by 11 ‘o clock they are lined up at the graves. They wave their flowers in the air then bend down by the headstone and whisper the man’s name.

“There are nearly 2000 graves. If you don’t cry then, you never will.”

Of this year’s landmark 70th commemoration trip he said: “I think Heroes Return is a great cause. It is helping people who couldn’t afford to go back. But it’s benefiting people who haven’t been back. If you’re one of those chaps who says, ‘oh let’s just forget the war’, don’t do that lads, go back, you’ll be surprised. But don’t forget, we’re all pretty old, so don’t leave it too long.”

Peter Ainsworth, Chair of the Big Lottery Fund, said: “As we commemorate the historic 70th anniversary of Operation Market Garden, the generations who have benefited are proud to remember and honour the immense debt of gratitude owed to those veterans who played a vital role in the European conflict, and whose courage and sacrifice finally brought an end to a war that cost over 60 million lives across the world.”

The Big Lottery Fund’s Heroes Return programme has awarded over £28 million to over 57,000 WW2 veterans, widows and carers since 2004

The Big Lottery Fund has extended its Heroes Return 2 programme to enable veterans to apply for funding to make second trips. The programme deadline for closure will now be end of 2015.

This will ensure Second World War veterans from the UK, Channel Islands and Republic of Ireland who have already been funded since the programme relaunched in 2009 will have a second opportunity to apply for a grant towards travel and accommodation expenses to enable them to make trips back to places across the world where they served, or make a commemorative visit in the UK. For details contact: Heroes Return helpline:

 0845 00 00 121 or visit www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/heroesreturn

Big Lottery Fund Press Office: 020 7211 1888
Out of hours media contact: 07867 500572
Website: www.biglotteryfund.org.uk
Twitter: @biglotteryfund #biglf
Facebook: www.facebook.com/BigLotteryFund

Notes to editors

• The Big Lottery Fund is responsible for giving out 40% of the money raised by the National Lottery.
• The Fund is committed to bringing real improvements to communities and the lives of people most in need and has been rolling out grants to health, education, environment and charitable causes across the UK. Since its inception in 2004 it has awarded close to £6bn.
• In the year ending 31 March 2013, 28% of total National Lottery revenue was awarded to projects. Since the National Lottery began in 1994, £31 billion has been raised and more than 400,000 grants awarded