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In 1939 the 1st Battalion, Border Regiment, left their Aldershot barracks for France as part of the British Expeditionary Force. The 1st Borders played a part in the desperate rearguard action towards Dunkirk in May 1941. After Dunkirk, 1st Battalion Border were converted to glider-borne troops. They landed in Sicily in July 1943, although many gliders had crashed into the sea. The heavily depleted battalion was moved back to North Africa later in July, leaving the Battalion's equipment behind when they were evacuated from Sicily. Reinforced, the 1st Battalion fought in Italy with the 1st Airborne Div. and in 1944, fought at Arnhem.
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List of those who served with 1st Battalion The Border Regiment during The Second World War
Select a story link or scroll down to browse those stories hosted on this site.
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Pte. Harry "Dusty" Rhodes 1st Btn Border Regiment My father Harry Rhodes joined the Border Regiment at Carlisle in 1941. His actual d.o.b. was 11/3/1925, but army records have it as 11/3/1923, so he would have been 16 when he joined up. He was sent to North Africa and took part in the longest towed glider flight from, I think, Casablanca to Tunis. In 1943 he was stationed at or near, -- where his glider was released early and crashed in the sea. Several of his platoon were drowned. The remainder of the Battalion served in southern Italy around Taranto and guarded prisoners there. On the way back to England their troopship collided with an American Cruiser and was badly damaged. They docked at Malta for a time.
When they returned to the U.K. they were based in Staffordshire training and for a time at Drem airfield in Scotland. They left for Arnhem from Aldermaston. I think and his company held positions near a farm on the northwest side of the Oosterbeek perimeter. His company commander was Charles Breeze who was wounded, but escaped capture. I have a letter from Lt. Col. Breeze to my Grandmother dated Nov 1944 when he had recovered from his wounds. It states that my father was unhurt on the afternoon of the 25th Sept, but he was wounded, as many were, by mortar fragments whist in a slit trench on the forward perimeter. He was kept in the cellar of the farm until the Germans arrived. He was taken to the local hospital and was operated on by a Waffen SS doctor who was a dental specialist before the war. My father thought he was the brother of Rudolf Hess, the infamous concentration camp commander. When they were fit enough to travel they went to Germany by train and were shot up by allied aircraft on the way and made to clear bomb rubble off the tracks in one city they passed through. I think he was held in Stalag Luft 1X for a while but then moved further east. They worked unloading sugar beet barges and later in a mine where they were liberated by the Russians in May 1945. No one tried to escape as they were so far east, but they did go through the wire to collect vegetables from the nearby fields to supplement their rations.
They had all lost so much weight that the authorities sent them to a camp in Denmark I think called Lildelhalle to be fattened up before they could be repatriated. My father said his glider weight was 12st 2lbs at Arnhem and was down to 8st 4lbs when they arrived in Denmark. They were flown into Finningley Yorks in Sept 1945 to be met by customs officers checking what they were bringing back in case duty was due. The whole group smashed their bottles of schnapps and brandy on the hangar wall rather than pay. Some welcome home! He finished his army career guarding No 3 civilian internment camp near York and was discharged in October 1946. He returned to Oldham and eventually joined the Police force in which he served until 1981. He died in January 1988 aged 63. He never returned to Arnhem, but did visit Sicily for a holiday in the 70's. I went to the 60th anniversary celebration at Arnhem in 2004 and was overwhelmed by the Dutch people's kindness and interest in my father's story. We visited the woods and the farm which we think was the company position and also the cemetery and the John Frost bridge in Arnhem. I still have the letter and my father's Borderers' cap badge which are my prize posssesions. David Rhodes |
When Dragons Flew: Illustrated History of the 1st Battalion the Border Regiment, 1939-45 Stuart Eastwood, Charles Gray & Alan T Green
This is a truly stunning book. Over 230 glossy paper pages loaded with both colour and black-and-white photographs, many of them meticulously researched to provide additional explanations, down to who actually features in those photographs. The book details the 1st Borders' run up to Operation Market-Garden, and it's participation in and around Arnhem and Oosterbeek in September 1944, the latter done on a day-by-day basis. This written account features and names many of the characters within the battalion, and the part they played in the fateful battleMore information on:
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When Dragons Flew: Illustrated History of the 1st Battalion the Border Regiment, 1939-45
