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15 October 2014
WW2 - People's War

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My Friend Harry O. Jeston

by Civic Centre, Bedford

Contributed by听
Civic Centre, Bedford
People in story:听
Anonymous
Location of story:听
Arnhem, Holland
Background to story:听
Army
Article ID:听
A2736740
Contributed on:听
12 June 2004

My friend Harry joined the army as a regular and became a paratrooper. He sold his bike for the fare to the enlisting office he didn't tell his parents and made me promise I wouldn't say anything. He did want to join the commandos and he went through the training but wasn't accepted for some reason. He had 2 weeks leave but he got a coded message and had to go back to his barracks straight away. He was dropped into Arnhem, Holland he was the radio operator. They finally got to their destination but the Germans were ready and opened fire killing 60 out of 64 men. An officer survived but was badly wounded, they decided to escape but the Germans were going from house to house to find them. They decided to give theselves up and were taken to a prisoner of war camp. This was near to the end of the war and the Germans opened the gates and fled. Harry was on his own but was picked up by the Americans, he was taken to hospital and he was sent home. He had to gain weight as he had lost 5 stone, he was 11 stone when he left so to rejoin he had get his weight back up. He was putting on weight and finally was back to a healthy level. This time he was sent to Palestine, he was very lucky he told me they had just passed over a bridge when it was blown up and destroyed. When he did come home he married his sweetheart Pearly and they decided to emigrate to Canada. I gave my address to his parents so we would be able to write and keep in touch. I recieved a Christmas card from Harry with his address, but when I came home from work I found that my infant daughter had chewed the card and the address was lost. But I always remember Harry he was a lucky sod.

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This story has been placed in the following categories.

British Army Category
Arnhem 1944 Category
Netherlands Category
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