Hero Second World War veteran Geoff Roberts has issued an SOS in the hope of reuniting his chums at the scene of their finest hour.
The warrior was just 19 and a private in the 7th Battalion King’s Own Scottish Borderers as part of a crack team sent to help to liberate Nazi-held Netherlands. On September 17, 1944, Geoff flew from the UK alongside two pilots and 28 troops in a 30-seater Horsa glider towed by an RAF plane.
The braveheart – captured during the assault and held as a prisoner of war – was one of 765 men from the battalion dropped on to the Continent but by the end of the Battle of Arnhem 112 were dead, 76 evacuated back to Britain and 577 reported missing.
During the bloody battle some 35,000 Allies valiantly fought the Germans for nine days in some of the fiercest fighting of the war. It resulted in the award of five Victoria Crosses, four of them posthumous, and is immortalised in the 1977 epic A Bridge Too Far directed by Richard Attenborough.
READ MORE:Nationalist writer sparks fury with D-Day comment as she says UK is ‘trapped in the past’
The film depicts Operation Market Garden, the doomed Allied operation, and features an all-star cast including Dirk Bogarde, James Caan, Michael Caine, Sean Connery, Edward Fox, Elliott Gould, Gene Hackman, Anthony Hopkins, Laurence Olivier, and Robert Redford.
Each year on May 4, the Netherlands observes a Day of Remembrance, followed by a national celebration, where the Dutch express their gratitude to those who ultimately secured their freedom.
Dirk Bogarde (left) with (from third left) Sean Connery, Ryan O’Neal and Gene Hackman in a scene from ‘A Bridge Too Far’, directed by Richard Attenborough, 1977
(Image: United Artists/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
This year will be especially poignant and Geoff wants to share what will most likely be a final and deeply emotional visit with his band of brothers. He said: “I think it’s very important in these current times that we remember those who gave their lives for our freedom, and peace in Europe. We should never forget.”
Geoff, from Peterborough, Cambs, was captured by a German officer and told in perfect English: “For you the war is over”. He was then sent to the POW camp Stalag 12 A and then Stalag IV-C where he was put to work as a slave in coal mines.
In 2019, at events to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Arnhem, he met King Charles, then Prince of Wales, who asked the hero: “Did they take you somewhere ghastly?” He said: “I told him, ‘Yes, down a bloody coal mine’.”
A child prepares to lay flowers during the commemorations for the 75th anniversary of the military operation in Arnhem, codenamed Operation Market Garden
(Image: Steve Parsons/PA Wire)
In May Geoff, now 99, will return to Holland to mark the 80th anniversary of its liberation. Events being held to commemorate the end of five-long years of Nazi occupation will see children clutching bouquets of flowers mob the returning heroes.
Since 2012 The Taxi Charity for Military Veterans has been proudly taking vets from London to Wageningen, where they solemnly pay their respects to fallen comrades, and participate in Liberation Day celebrations as guests of honour in a grand military parade.
This year the charity is offering those who served in the Netherlands during the Second World War the opportunity to join a fully-funded, five-day trip back to the country they helped free and where they are still feted. And Geoff wants as many of his mates alongside him as possible.
He said: “We weren’t sure what sort of reception we would get because we dropped out of the sky and the place was wrecked within a week. We failed, and they paid a heavy price for us trying to liberate them, but they’re still greeting us now and thanking us, after all this time.”
* If you are a Second World War veteran who served in the Netherlands and would like a place on this extraordinary trip email info@taxicharity.org
For more news, follow us on Facebook and Twitter but never miss the latest top headlines and sign up to our daily newsletter here.