Miraculously the Horsa glider, in which he was second pilot, landed safely on Landing Zone ‘Z’, near Wolfheze, Holland. But Des Page’s troubles were just beginning. Once their craft is safely down, glider pilots revert to being soldiers, just like the ones they were carrying into battle. For Des there was a long fight ahead, following the disaster that was the Battle of Arnhem.
Des, who lived near Maidstone, had a good job in a Birmingham cinema at the outbreak of war. But after the cinema was bombed twice, he decided he would be better off in a tank, so in 1942 he joined the 58th Royal Armoured Corps at Bovington, Dorset.
After training, he was posted to the 9th Royal Tank Regiment based at Charing. He would be driving a Churchill tank
Rebellious by nature, Des was not a model soldier and was sent to the tough military prison at Fort Darnet, Gillingham, for going AWOL. “I got fed up with playing nursemaid to 40 tons of heavy metal,” he said. “Also, I was hungry to get promotion and more money. If I volunteered as a glider pilot, I stood a good chance of being promoted to sergeant.”
He was sent to Fargo camp on Salisbury Plain, where the training was tough, and involved killing route marches round Stonehenge in full kit. But for those who survived the course, there was promotion to corporal and more pay.
“The next stage was learning to fly a powered aeroplane,” he said. “This happened at Booker Airfield, High Wycombe, and we were in Tiger Moths. I was supposed to be training to become a First Pilot for D-Day, but I made a big mistake.
“After a solo flight I landed in a take-off area. It could have caused death and damage. By the time the squadron leader had finished with me I felt about three inches high. But I had made a good landing, crosswind, despite being in the wrong place, so they let me continue.
“However, I was reduced to second pilot and went off to learn to fly Hotspur gliders. And then I moved to Down Ampney where I learned to fly the much bigger Horsa gliders. I was teamed up with a bloke called Stan Graham, who had a lot of experience and expertise, which he generously passed on to me.
“D-Day came and went, but I was still in training. Then came Arnhem, and I was going.”
Des was second pilot in a Horsa glider, which took off in the second lift of the Arnhem campaign, on September 211944. In the back was a Jeep and trailer, a motorcycle, and three members of the Royal Army Service Corps.
“We were held up by fog for a couple of hours, and were entertained by the comedian Jimmy Edwards, who was a Dakota pilot. I had many nights out with him.
“We eventually took off on what was to be a three and three-quarters hour flight. Most of the other gliders were carrying troops of the Kings Own Scottish Border Regiment (KOSBs).
“We made a good landing, right in the centre of the field, and were immediately fired on. To get everything out of the back we had to get to tail off, and I can tell you, no matter how much you practice these things in England, you do them ten times as fast when people are shooting at you.
“None of us was hit and we got a lift on the Jeep to Wolfheze, about a mile and a half away. At Oosterbeek Station I saw my first dead German. He was sitting against a hedge and was almost as tall sitting as I was standing up. I said to Stan Graaham: ‘If they’re all as big as this we’ve got no chance.
“Our squadron assembled in the grounds of a home for blind people. The residents formed a choir and sang the national anthems of both Britain and the Netherlands, in celebration of what they thought was liberation. There was sniping going on, which put us in a quandary. Do we remain standing out of respect or lay flat for safety. We were soldiers, so we stood to attention. Thankfully no-one was hit.”
As he progressed towards Oosterbeek, Des noticed that dead British soldiers, from the previous day’s fighting, had been neatly laid out along the roadside by Dutch citizens. Their arms were crossed on their chests and flowers had been placed on their bodies.
Towards the end of that first day, tiredness took its toll, and Des just had to rest. Next day he found his unit, well dug in, in a wood. They moved on and found the Hartenstein Hotel which had been taken over as headquarters of the First British Airbourne Division. The next stop was to be the Dreyeroord Hotel, where the King’s Own Scotting Borderers had set up a defensive position.
“There were 12 of us glider pilots, dug in facing some woods,” said Des. “I had a Bren gun. About mid-morning I heard a gun like a pom-pom, going off, and a chap about six feet away was hit in the knee and the thigh. We pulled him clear, but we now knew there were snipers in houses across the street from us.
“Our officer Ron Johnson, put a PIAT (a hand-held anti-tank weapon), into one of the houses. Then, moving like lightning, we ran across and put grenades into the other houses.
“Then we heard the rattle of a German tank approaching. The commander was half out of his turret. Our officer got him with a shot from his revolver.
“About an hour later we saw a German coming through the woods to attack us. A burst of fire was put into him and down he went.
“Then all hell broke loose as the Germans attacked. But the KOSBs were firing from the windows of the hotel, and my Bren gun was giving covering fire. After that I needed more ammunition so dashed into the hotel to see if anything was available. I got three bandoliers of .303 which was useful. Glancing through the window I saw a German about to throw a stick grenade, so I shot him with my Sten gun.
“A shell from a German tank then felled a tree in the grounds of the hotel, but in its new horizontal position, this provided useful cover when we fell back. I later moved to a trench near a thatched outbuilding. Now I’ve got a real problem. There was a frog in the trench, and I had a life-long terror of frogs. Eventually it got dark, and I forgot about him.”
The next incident was when a family in one of the burning houses opposite panicked and made a dash for it. A 21-year-old girl went down with an injured foot. Ron Johnson braved the bullets and dashed out to rescue her, dumping her by Des’s trench.
“I got my knife out to cut her stocking free and she screamed,” he said. “I think she thought I was going to amputate. But I bandaged her up and gave her a shot of morphine.
“A medic came up with a stretcher. As we lifted her bullets flew between our legs, so we literally threw her into a trench and jumped in ourselves. She screamed again.
“Next morning a mortar fell injuring the hero officer Ron Johnson. He returned to the trench after being patched up by medics and was then shot in the shoulder. By now it was time to start pulling back.
“The Germans had put up loud-speakers, and in cultured English voices complimented us on our courage and urged us to surrender. We answered them with a rendition of Lilly Marlene.”
On the Sunday morning, the glider pilots continued their retreat, using gardens and houses as cover. The plan was to get to the river that night. It was mildly raining as they made their way across marshy ground to the water’s edge.
There they found a Canadian soldier in charge of several assault boats. Des boarded one of these and stood precariously at the bow. Half-way across the boat lurched and he fell in, but was able to swim to the far bank, despite being weighed down with weaponry.
“Never did McConnochie’s army stew taste so good as that served up to us as we scrambled up the back on the far side,” said Des.
