It was a long wait before Eric Richards finally parachuted into enemy territory. “Four days after D-Day we were supposed to drop near Caen, but it was cancelled. Then we were supposed to drop near Paris and had actually boarded the aircraft, but that was called off.
“Before Arnhem we were stood down for 10 operations and they were starting to call us the armchair army. Finally on September 18, 1944, we took off from an American air base in Northamptonshire and headed for Holland.”
Before he saw England again, Eric would have been wounded, captured, made a prisoner of war and escaped. No longer an armchair soldier.
Eric, from Tulse Hill in South London, was called up in February 1943, just before his 17th birthday. After infantry training, he was posted to the Royal Engineers training battalion at Aldershot. But after three months a team came round recruiting potential paratroopers.
Having been accepted he underwent more tough training at Hardwick Hall near Chesterfield, culminating in a psychiatric assessment. Having passed, he went to Ringway, which is now Manchester Airport, to practice jumps and landing.
“First you did jumps from towers inside hangars. Then it was balloon jumps, and finally aircraft, ending with a night jump,” he said.
In September 1944 operation Market Garden, planned by General Montgomery to take the bridge over the River Rhine at Arnhem, began. Had it been successful it would have shortened the war.
“We didn’t know we were going until the day before,” said Eric. “The First Brigade dropped on the Sunday, but we were confined to camp. Then the old man told us we would be going on the Monday.
“They told us it would be a walkover,” he said. “Just three or four thousand third rate troops to deal with, mostly old men. We would be home within 50 hours.
“We landed about 14.20 on Ginkel Heath. The Germans were waiting for us with machine guns and everything. They set part of the Heath alight with mortar fire. We came up to a place called Wolfheze and then a Panzer unit stopped us.
“The next thing we knew the Germans were attacking us. There was a culvert under the railway. All the units got mixed up and there was panic. Next day we were told we had to hold the road to Oosterbeek, and retraced our steps. At one point there was a dead German general hanging out of the open door of his staff car.
“We came to a big hotel called the Hartenstein and were told to hold it. That is where we remained until the following Monday and where I got hit in the thigh by shrapnel from German mortar fire.
“The only food we had was what the Germans left. So we were rationed to hard tack on one day, and a couple of sardines the next.
“On the night of Monday September 25, we were told we were pulling out. One of our captains had put marker tapes out leading right down to the river. Around that time a Spandau opened up and I got hit in the leg. By the time I had sorted myself out and was ready to continue, everyone had gone.
“Another chap, Stan Hole, was also hit. We gave each other morphine. That night we stayed near the river and then next day found a house that was full of troops from the King’s Own Scottish Borderers. Most of them were wounded. An officer told us: ‘Don’t try and get across the river. It’s too late. The Germans have got it covered.’
“In about three hours the German SS came up. A lot of people don’t believe this because they think of the SS as a bunch of murderers. But as we came out of the house, walking wounded and stretcher cases, the SS commander got his men together and they saluted us. Not the ‘heil Hitler’ raised arm but a proper military salute.
“We were taken to the Dutch police barracks at Appledoorn where our wounds were treated. A fortnight later they took us to the POW camp Stalag 11B. But on the way we were shot up by our own aircraft because the Germans failed to put red crosses on the roofs of the railway trucks.
“We had escape equipment, including a silk map, a compass fixed to your fly buttons and a small hacksaw blade. A couple of guys used the blade to saw through the floorboards of the railway wagon and escaped when the train stopped. A German officer shouted after them: ‘If you don’t come back I’ll shoot one in every five prisoners.’ But they didn’t and he didn’t.”
It took two days for the train to reach Hanover. “In the February myself and another guy decided to do a runner,” said Eric. “We saved up our chocolate and condensed milk from the Red Cross parcels for the trip.
“We had been working on digging out tree roots which the Germans wanted to fire the trains. On the return journey to the camp, we stopped at a clearing for a rest. I said to my fellow escapee: ‘It’s now or never,’ and off we went.
“Unfortunately, the Germans were out looking for a couple of British guys who had parachuted out of a plane. But they found us two silly buggers instead. The took our boots and made us walk eight kilometres without them. Then I got 28 days in the cooler for escaping. There was no mattress. You slept on the floor. And if you wanted the toilet the guards refused to open the door.
“At the prison camp we had an RSM called J.C.Lord. He was turned out as if he was in a Guards depot, boots polished, and trousers pressed. He used to parade the men every day.
“I had thought about joining the British Free Corps, which was being set up by the SS to fight the Russians. They promised us all kinds of benefits. We knew the war was nearly at an end so we thought there would be no harm in it. But RSM Lord said anyone who joined would be court martialled.
“Eventually the German Colonel told Lord he had to take his men away. They left half the guard behind and armed us. I was given a bayonet and still have it now.
“At last, an armoured division came up to relieve us. A lot of the prisoners had been there since Dunkirk and they let them go first, which was fair enough. We were left guarding German civilians against the oncoming Russians who might have killed them.
“Eventually I was taken to Wing in Buckinghamshire where we were re-kitted. They gave us double rations. Then they gave us leave so I went to my home near Chalfond St Giles. I knocked on the door and said: ‘Mum I’m home.’”
