One day before the big remembrance at the Airborne Cemetery in Oosterbeek, The Netherlands, a small remembrance for The Glider Pilot Regiment was held in the presence of four veterans.
The four were members of the Glider Pilot Regiment, which brought many material and soldiers to Operation Market Garden. After they completed that task, they were classified to other regiments and fought along.
Lofty
Many comrades didn’t make it home and died. Men which the four knew and who were their best friends. The first thing Frank Ashleigh (92) did when he arrived at the Cemetery was visiting Lofty.
Frank was Bernard ‘Lofty’ Cummins co-pilot and they did everything together. “Really everything. We were always together. He was my best friend.” On the same day Frank was captured by the Germans, Lofty died.
He gets emotional. “You know, I know exactly at what time I’ve been imprisoned by the Germans that day, but I don’t know what time Lofty died.” It obviously bothers him.
A detail which is even after all these years, still as important. Emotional but with pride of his big friend he poses next to Lofty’s headstone.
Roll of Honour
Roy Roberts, Frank Ashleigh, Peter Clarke en Denzil Cooper took place at the couch, covered with a roof at the edge of the Cemetery. Dave Pasley, secretary of The Glider Pilot Society, starts his welcome with a piece of history.
There are prayers denounced and prayed together. Followed by the reading of the Roll of Honour. It contains 229 names from Glider pilots who lost their life during Operation Market Garden. They are not all buried in Oosterbeek, some of them lie to rest in England or Germany
A long list of names, Ann Pasley and Nikki de Heer read all the names one by one. Ann’s father and Nikki’s uncle both landed with their gliders near Arnhem during the operation, both became prisoners but survived the war.
Silence
During the reading of the Roll a Transal flies over, on his route to the Ginkel Heath. Strangely it doesn’t disturb but it is a beautiful thing that these Second World war planes fly over, just as the names of these Glider pilots are being called.
When the last name is read, a minute of silence follows
Then Dave asks all who are present to take on of the sheets he took of the fallen pilots, with their picture and information about who they were. To bring it to their grave and stand a moment in silence before them.
Everybody walks, after some directions, quietly their way to the right grave to honor a Glider pilot.
