Gelders Archief 1604-6407

"About the beginning of March 1945 we were on parade, and were told, all the men who had fought at Arnhem were to stand at ease the rest were dismissed, we were told in seven days time we were going back to Arnhem to make a film, Theirs is the Glory, it took about a month to get organised, my mate and I were told we were driving three ton trucks.

We had to report to the Standard Firework Factory, at Hemelstead Hempstead we met two men who were travelling with us, they were in charge of the explosives, the big bangs as we called them, we stayed the night at the homes of the men.

Two days later we returned to Grimsthorpe, we got all our gear together including NAAFI rations of cigs and chocolate, we had to assemble at Oakham, and drove to dover, the main body about 70 - 80 went from Southampton. We arrived in Ostend and got ready to go to Arnhrem, it took us a couple of hours to get used to driving on the right side of the road, it took us six hours to get to Arnhem, the shock we got when we saw the devastation and the people who were returning adter being banned from the area by the Germans.

It took about four hour or five weeks to make this part of the film, we returned home, and did the river crossing in England, I was towing a generator and nearly had a crash  with it.

We completed the film and it was Xmas 1945, we went on fourteen days leave. When I got back to Grimsthorpe Castle, we were told we were flying into Denmark to accept the surrender from the Germans, unfortunately for me I had just been given the job of batman to a new young officer, I was told we would not be going.

So I missed the best thing in my career, in June I was told my group (46) was due for demob so I started getting ready to be demobbed. We went to Salisbury, there were five of us, were there for a week, and then we got our issue of civilian suits, shirts, ties, ,overccoats. I still had three year to serve on the reserves, then came the time when we had to say goodbye, it was rather upsetting leaving men you had lived with for years, fought alongside, seen other mates killed, we went to a pub near the railwaystation and had a pint of beer, after one or two we went and caught our different trains.