Arnhem

They were not scheduled to take off until 10 a.m. but, in Kent’s recollection, ‘we were woken up at some unearthly hour. We’d drawn our parachutes the night before and slept with them alongside us in our tents. Because of the rain, the camp was a quagmire and we queued in the mud to draw our breakfast in mess tins. Then we sloshed our way back to our bivouacs to consume the salted porridge, bacon and baked beans, a thick slice of bread and hot strong tea.’ It was still pitch dark as section commanders like him lined up their ‘sticks’ – the technical term for a section of paratroopers – and checked each man’s equipment by torchlight. ‘We’d been through it all so often before we could have done it blindfold.’ With dawn breaking clear and bright, they clambered on board trucks to take them to the airfield, the canvas backs lashed down to conceal them and their mission from the prying eyes of civilians. They had got this far and further before and been stood down at the last minute, but he felt certain this time they would go. ‘By 7.15 we were on the road to Fairford [in Gloucestershire]. Our parachutes, pre-fitted and chalk marked, followed in trucks behind. As we rolled round the perimeter of the airfield, we could see twelve big black Stirling bombers lined up at the end of the runway.’ Their taxis were waiting.

At more than a dozen airfields, trucks filled with troops were arriving. In some, men sat in silence, pondering what lay ahead. In others, noisy chatter covered nerves or one soldier would begin to hum and the rest joined in until, as they careered at speed through sleeping villages, everyone was roaring out some reassuring ditty: ‘That’s my brother Sylvest/ Gawt a row of bloody medals on his chest, big chest/ ’E fought forty soldiers in the west/ That’s my brother Sylvest.’ At some airfields, they were welcomed with a rare treat – ham sandwiches, handed out by ladies of the WRVS. ‘I hadn’t seen boiled ham for five years,’ Leo Hall recalled. Each aerodrome bustled with intense activity around the planes, parked nose to tail, engines ticking over. Each ‘stick’ made its way to its allotted plane and sat down on the grass to wait. Not that sitting was easy. At Barkston Heath in Lincolnshire, Reg Curtis of 1 Para – feeling at one moment like ‘a stuffed duck’ and then ‘a well overdue pregnant hippo!’ – checked off his gear: ‘One Gammon bomb, two hand grenades, combined pick and shovel, web equipment with small pack, two ammunition pouches, a canvas bandolier with 303 rifle ammo, a water bottle, mess tin, iron ration, emergency chocolate, field dressing, a camouflage net scarf, triangle-shape air-recognition bright yellow silk scarf which was tied around the neck ready for instant use, one rifle, an ingenious escape outfit comprising a silk map of Europe, a button compass about half an inch in diameter, a strong file as big as a nail file. That was about it, except for a kit bag strapped to my leg and parachute, plus Mae West life jacket in case we finished up in the drink. I also had a couple of hundred cigarettes and two bars of chocolate and some boiled sweets.’³ One para officer calculated his jumping weight at 22 stone, not including the folding bike he was carrying.

Curtis was in the main pack that day, but leading the way – twenty minutes ahead of everyone else – would be Ron Kent’s company. As the pathfinders on this mission, they had to pinpoint the right landing zone, and he and the navigator of his allotted plane stood on the runway checking maps against recent aerial photographs. ‘I pointed out the long rectangular shape of a barn near the centre of our DZ and asked if he could put us down within a hundred yards. He saw no problem.’ The time came to board. With a casualness he did not feel inside, Kent called his seventeen-man stick to attention and wished them luck. ‘Then, I took my place in the line, at number six.’ Within ten minutes they were airborne, climbing and circling to get into formation with the other planes in the advance party. ‘Flying in these conditions was boring and uncomfortable. We were seated on the bare floor of the fuselage facing one another but the noise of the engines made normal conversation impossible. The British never designed an aircraft specifically for parachuting, and we often thought this was deliberate. It meant we were always glad to jump when the moment came.’