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Battle of Arnhem
Flight Lieutenant Douglas MacDonell

Bernice MacDonell’s Story

Douglas and I had 58 years of marriage. We wouldn’t have had that if ‘fate’ hadn’t taken a hand!

I was a driver in the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) and Douglas was a navigator in the RAF. When we decided to get married on September 16th 1944 we both applied for leave in good time. I was stationed near London and Douglas was at Down Ampney in Gloucestershire where all the aircrew were training to tow gliders. No one could know of the ‘Market Garden’ plan (Arnhem), but when the exigency arose the camp was closed and all leave cancelled. Douglas went to see the Commanding Officer explaining his wedding date was booked. The C.O. checked and found there was another navigator available who could take Douglas’s place with pilot David Lord and the usual crew.

We married in Woking on Saturday September 16th 1944 and because the original honeymoon in Devon had to be cancelled we managed to get a room in a hotel in Bramley, Surrey. On Sunday morning we went for a walk in the hotel grounds. We sat on a bank and for two hours watched the (Arnhem) armada flying overhead with planes, one after another, towing gliders. Douglas was concerned as he watched the Dakotas and said ‘it must be something big’.

We ended up having a drink in a local pub and later returned to the hotel. We listened to what news there was about Arnhem and after five days I went to Cirencester with Douglas. On his return to the hut in the camp he found all ‘his’ crews’ belongings stacked on their beds. He went to the Officer’s Mess to find any news and was told the whole crew and dispatchers had been killed (except Harry King) while they were dropping paniers to the beleaguered troops below who were by now trapped. (The tragedy is that the paniers were dropped after the troops had moved on).

The Dakota’s right wing was on fire. Harry King parachuted out at 400 feet but later suffered with hips and leg. If only the plane had been higher they may all have been able to ‘jump’.

The pilot, David Lord put airmanship to the finest test that day for which he received a posthumous Victoria Cross.

I was blessed that Douglas wasn’t navigating that day and we were able to manage 58 years together before he died.

Bernice A. MacDonell (BA Open University)

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