Wartime bravery and sacrifice should never be forgotten

ANDREW Vine’s column (Yorkshire Post, September 17) reminded me of the day when, as a 25-year-old Leeds lad, I was sitting with a friend, Robert, also from Leeds, having a beer in a bar in Arnhem.

It was a lovely, sunny September afternoon in 1980. Robert and I were working in Holland at the time. Having both graduated a couple of years earlier, we had decided to do a bit of travelling.

Imagine when, to our surprise, the waiter arrived at our table with drinks which he began to unload from his tray onto our table. “Sorry, but we haven’t ordered these.”

“I know,” said the waiter, smiling warmly.

“They are from the old men sitting in the corner.”

We looked across the room and, gathered around their own table was a group of five or six Dutch men in their seventies or even older.

They beamed across the room at us with their thumbs up and said: “You are welcome!”

Some of them had tears in their eyes.

The gradual realisation as to why these elderly men had sent us these drinks over brought a lump to my throat.

I was unaware at the time that Arnhem had in fact been liberated by the West Riding Regiment.

We thanked them and politely asked, as we were sitting at some distance away from their table, “Why us?”

To which one of them replied: “We listened to your accents!”

We should never, ever forget.

From: Dr Sheila Hopkinson, Gorman Close, Chesterfield.

I WAS very interested to read Andrew Vine’s essay on Arnhem; I was a child during the Second World War and remember the battle. Many years later, I had the opportunity to visit the cemetery and happened to arrive on the day of the annual commemoration. I was so moved and impressed seeing the schoolchildren taking their bunches of flowers to the graves. The ceremony was conducted with such simplicity and yet such dignity – a lesson to us all.

Other countries too remember their past. In the French city of Nantes you will find a memorial in the cathedral to the British servicemen who lost their lives during an attack on the U-boat base at nearby St Nazaire.

Inevitably this memorial too has fresh flowers on it, put there by local French people. Countries also remember their own dead. The many memorials to the uprising in Warsaw during the Second World War have fresh flowers.

It all makes one rather ashamed at the way we take our freedom for granted. Perhaps if we had suffered occupation we would think differently. In the meantime, we should never forget those who gave their lives so that we remained free.

From: Stuart Clark, Organiser, Association of Former AFPU Members.

I AM frequently reminded of Arnhem by the letters I receive, obviously from younger people, who are researching and seeking information on members of the Army Film & Photographic Unit whose film and photographs exclusively documented the action.

There were only three photographers there, Sgt D M Smith, Stills, and Sgts G Walker and C M Lewis. Cine. and it is their images, now archived by the Imperial War Museum and under whose name imagery appears whenever the action is screened or reproduced, as in Andrew Vine’s column.

There is a museum in Arnhem dedicated to the Parachute Regiment in which the photographers are featured.

Readers may be interested to note the German Super Ikonta stills camera and the American Bell & Howell ‘Eyemo’ cine cameras. Following the action in Arnhem they moved forward to record the horrors of Belsen before documenting the Rhine Crossing. It is interesting to compare the “battle dress” with that of today.

From: C Bellini, St Helens Close, Adel, Leeds.

HOW moving it was to read Andrew Vine’s article about Arnhem in 1943.

Our family had a wonderful cousin in the Paratroop Regiment. He died on that awful day. I was only eight, but I have a wonderful photograph of him in his summer shorts and red beret. Every year my aunt went over to Holland in September and stayed with the local people who were so grateful. She always brought back a souvenir from Oosterbeek nearby.

Thank you Mr Vine – it brought tears to my eyes.