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In the year 1944 it was decided to try and push the war in Europe on a bit faster. To do this the Airborne Division known as the Red Berets were to be trained to capture the Bridge at Arnhem. These soldiers were posted all around Lincolnshire to do their training. Coningsby was one of these villages and it was absolutely full with soldiers.

I was still at school and remember distinctly one soldier was known by everyone as ‘Cherry,’ who had a room at the top of the Old Hall in Coningsby, and when off duty always sat in the window whistling at all the ladies old and young alike.

When the soldiers left to go on the raid at Arnhem the village was very subdued and quiet.

It became known that so many men had been lost the village was very sad. Cherry the soldier who whistled did not come back. I remember very clearly two men who had lost limbs. Several of the Airborne soldiers had actually married local girls.

Although Coningsby had an Air Force Base, all through the war we had never known so many men lost in one swoop. Only 2400 men out of the 10 000 who took part in the operation get away in boats or swimming across the Rhine. 1200 were killed, 6642 were taken prisoners.

Martin Middlebrook wrote a book called the ‘Airborne Battle’ and in 1994 on the 50th Anniversary my husband and I went on a visit with Martin to Oosterbeck, where a lot of the fighting had taken place.

We stayed in a hotle which had once been a chateau and one evening Martin invited Miss Ans Kremner who had lived there during the war, to join us for dinner and a chat. Hearing the other side of the story was very moving and it was nice to hear that the people in Holland would never forget what our men had done for them. I will finish theis story with two quotes from Miss Ans Kremner and recorded in Martin’s book,

She said she rarely wished anyone goodbye because when our soldiers had been shot and were dying they used to shout Goodbye, Goodbye, Goodbye and die.
The other, she said that ‘grateful’ was too small a word for what they felt.

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