Solider joins memorial drop
A Newark soldier helped to recreate one of the landmark moments of the second world war.
Lance-corporal Brendan Wadsworth (34) a Territorial Army Paratrooper, is on a permanent contract with 2nd Battalion, The Parachute Regiment in Colchester.
At the weekend he joined about 500 fellow paratroopers to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the Battle of Arnhem by parachuting on to Ginkel Heath, near the Dutch city of Arnhem.
Lance-corporal Wadsworth was chosen as one of only 12 who made the jump from a second world war Dakota.
He almost missed the experience when minutes before he was due to jump a fault was found in one of the strops that attaches static line parachutes to the plane.
That meant one of them would miss out and Lance-corporal Wadsworth, a former welding tutor at Newark College, drew the short straw.
However, thanks to a last-minute adjustment, the programme was changed while the plane was in the air and he was able to make the jump.
He said: “To jump out of a Dakota on the 65th anniversary — nothing can quite compare. It was fantastic.”
Lance-corporal Wadsworth joined the TA in 1994 and has been with 2 Para in Colchester since January 2008.
About 40,000 people, including 50 veterans, watched on Sunday as more than 1,000 troops, including Dutch and Americans, parachuted on to the site in a re-enactment of Operation Market Garden.
Eight C130 Hercules aircraft from three nations and the RAF Battle of Britain Memorial Flight’s DC3 Dakota were used.
After the airborne descent, a service was held at the Airborne Memorial, at Ginkel Heath. The crowd stood silent as The Last Post was played, before wreaths were laid.
On Sunday, 2nd Battalion, The Parachute Regiment for the first time held a memorial ceremony on the Arnhem bridge itself, renamed the John Frost bridge, after the then commanding officer of 2 Para.
The troops sang Abide With Me, before the Commanding Officer, Lieutenant-colonel Andy Harrison, addressed the troops and gave a speech on the historical significance of the Battle of Arnhem to 2 Para.
Only 2 Para made it to the bridge, and of the 508 who got there, only 17 made it home. The rest were either killed or captured.
Operation Market Garden, from September 17 to 25, 1944, was the brainchild of Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, and one of the most controversial Allied operations of the war.
It was portrayed in the film, A Bridge Too Far.
The Allies’ aim was to pave the way for the capture of the Ruhr, the German industrial heartland, by striking a decisive blow that would bring the war in Europe to an end by Christmas 1944.
The intention was to capture bridges on key routes through Holland, near Arnhem, and Eindhoven to Germany, by dropping three airborne divisions behind enemy lines by glider and parachute.
However, the German defences prevented the link-up of British and US armoured forces with those deployed by air.
This meant that a defensive battle had to be fought by the 1st Airborne Division in the streets of the Dutch town.
More than 1,500 British soldiers were killed in and around Arnhem and nearly 6,500 captured. Five Victoria Crosses were awarded.
