September marks the 80th anniversary of the Operation Market Garden and this story highlights the comfort a pregnant wife, who did not know if her husband was dead or alive, received from his comrades.
The plan to seize bridges across the Netherlands by airborne advance and ground attacks was a “Bridge Too Far” with more than 1,600 British soldiers killed and almost 6,500 captured.
British paratroopers were told to capture and hold the bridge at Arnhem until back up forces arrived but they were left isolated and vulnerable.
One man at Arnhem was Major William Frank (Bill) Arnold, Commander of 1st Airlanding Anti-Tank Battery RA.
A Norfolk man and Gresham’s pupil whose grandfather founded Arnolds Department Store at Great Yarmouth in 1869.
Bill, a highly respected soldier who served around the world, was married to Subaltern Priscilla Ryan. She wrote to him after reading about the action at Arnhem but the letters were returned and he was reported “missing.”
Now their daughter Scilla Landale has sent me some recently discovered important letters that Bill’s colleagues sent to Priscilla following the operation.
They include ones from:
*Lt. Col Robert Loder-Symonds from HQ Royal Artillery, 1st Airborne Division.
“I very much regret to tell you that Bill is missing together with a large proportion of 1 Para Brigade. I honestly think there is every reason to suppose he is safe but a prisoner of war. Bill is a great loss to me.
*Peter Spencer Thomas.
“I returned from Holland yesterday and the first thing I want to do is to write to you about Bill. I know the anxiety you must be feeling about him, but it is a comfort to know that he is after all missing and there is very chance that he is a prisoner.”
*Capt. Henry Bear.
“May I offer you my deepest sympathy and that of the Battery over Bill’s non return. We know little more than the official report of ‘missing’ though we do know that he was one of the few who were holding out on the bridge at Arnhem when communications broke down. The battery was indeed proud to know that he was one of the leaders of that gallant band and daily asked for news of him.”
*Major J A Hibbert, on official BM 1st Para Brigade paper from Lincoln Military Hospital, November 1 1944.
“I saw the announcement in The Times about Bill. You will have heard he is a prisoner of war, but as I was probably the last person to see him, I thought I would drop you a line.
“Bill dropped with us on the Sunday west of Arnhem and came with brigade HQ to Arnhem Bridge. He was there all the time, from the Sunday evening until Wednesday evening when we were overrun organising anti-tank defences,
“Bill was absolutely magnificent, he seemed to be everywhere at once and never rested: he was firing the guns himself, encouraging the men and generally providing an excellent example to every one of us.
“I am not certain of the official total of German casualties but I know Bill and gunners knocked out at least two heavy and six medium tanks and eight half-tracks and I think the final results will prove to be double that.
“When eventually we were overrun, Bill broke out with a party of 30 and took up a new position in the cathedral north of the bridge. Unfortunately ammunition was by this time very short and was exhausted the next morning when after another German attack they too were overrun.
“Bill was brought to the same PoW cage as myself and apart from a small splinter on his shoulder was quite alright,” said Major Hibbert.
*Ingram Cleasby, who later became Dean of Chester and became a close friend of Bill when they were imprisoned at Spangerburg. wrote later:
“On Maundy Thursday March 27 1945 the sound of American guns was getting nearer, and accompanied by guards, a group of us were being marched further into Germany, moving at night and sleeping in the daytime to avoid the Allied warplanes.
“Dick Wingfield Digby, our chaplain (later Dean of Peterborough) rigged up an altar of sorts to celebrate Holy Communion on Easter Day. We were holed up in a barn across the River Weser near Eschwege when Bill and I decided to escape and try to contact the Americans.
“Our guards were slack, they had had enough of war. We spent three nights in the woods and Bill was able to make a brief reconnaissance and discovered the Americans were in the village below us.
“ Fortunately, Eschwege was being used as a forward base by the Allies for bringing supplies and reinforcements by air, so planes were returning empty – just what was needed by a bunch of former PoWs. So, we were flown to Paris.”
From Paris, Bill sent a telegram to Priscilla to let her know he would be home the following day – a month before VE Day.
He would meet his second son, Christopher Ryan, born on November 22, 1944.
After the war Bill returned to Norfolk and took up fruit farming at Newton Flotman. Later moving to mixed farming at Aldeby…his dairy herd grazing the Waveney marshes looking across the river to Suffolk. He also started a family apple-packing enterprise, Waveney Apple Growers.
He continued to serve in the Territorial Army and was very active in training territorials reaching the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in 1951.
Bill and Priscilla had four children, three sons and a daughter. Bill died in 1997 in Norwich following a stroke aged 88 and Priscilla, who had moved from the city to Walsingham, died in 2010 aged 94.
*Reproduced from the Arnold Family Archive. Also, with thanks to the late Rev. Ingram Cleasby’s memoir: Martin Middlebrook’s book Arnhem 1944 and ParaData www.paradata.org.uk/people/william-f-arnold
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