220413 Lt. Ernest Roebuck British Army 2nd Battalion South Staffordshire Regiment from:Ashlea, Ingbirchworth, Penistone (d.19th Sep 1944) Lieutenant Ernest Roebuck of B Company, 2nd Battalion, South Staffordshire Regiment took part in Operation Market Garden, centred on Arnhem in Holland, most widely known through the film "A Bridge Too Far". Until recently, all that the family had to remember his war service by were his medals, which of course he never saw himself, as they were issued after his death, and his bamboo swagger stick. My brother and I were proud to visit Arnhem itself in September 2014, for the 70th anniversary of the battle and its associated commemorative events.
From accounts and records I saw on our visit, I have pieced together some of the likely facts about my uncle's contribution and what happened to him. He was in the 1st Airlanding Division, formed specially for the operation, and dropped on either 17 or 18 September 1944 (most probably the former) at the dropping zone north west of Arnhem. According to the Roll of Honour in the Hartenstein Airborne Museum in Oosterbeek, Ernest Roebuck was first buried at the St Elizabeth Hospital. From this record, I have deduced that he most probably died close by. In the evening of 18 September, two platoons of B company of the South Staffs regiment, in which Ernest was a lieutenant, are recorded as approaching the aforesaid hospital and then taking up positions slightly to the south of it. From there, on the next day, they were ordered to press forward towards the bridge at Arnhem itself. According to an account available from history.net, published originally in World War II Magazine and subsequently online on 12 June 2006, "...section leader, Corporal Arthur Stretton, ...ordered an 'O Group'(orders group) with the platoon officer Lieutenant A. J. Roebuck..."
I am grateful for this account, but must offer a correction: there was only one Roebuck among those killed in the operation, and he was my uncle Ernest. I suspect that the initials quoted above might be wrong. Still, the same account, by Private Robert C. Edwards, makes it clear that "when the leading platoons reached the open spaces east of the hospital...[at] the wide-open exposed riverside stretch of the road in front of [it]...everything suddenly let loose". It seems most likely that it was then or during the push shortly afterwards that my uncle died.
My brother Jonathan Goodhead and I were privileged to be able to visit Ernest's grave at the war cemetery in Oosterbeek on Saturday 20 September 2014, to lay a wreath on behalf of all the surviving family members. We revisited the next day, just before the major 70th anniversary commemorative service there, when we briefly added Ernest's swagger stick on top of the wreath. The service itself was most moving, especially when an army of school children laid flowers on each of the graves. We are sincerely grateful to the Dutch people of Arnhem and Oosterbeek, to the War Graves Commission and to all others concerned for their generous and moving welcome and their insistence on retaining and supporting these annual events.
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