HULL’S HERO OF ARNHEM
PARA LES RANSOM DESCRIBES TAKING PART IN BLOODY BATTLE FOR ARNHEM
EACH year, war hero Les Ransom remembers his fallen comrades with a visit to Arnhem where they fought in one of the most heroic battles of the Second World War.
The Covid-19 pandemic this year robbed him of the chance to pay his respects at the gravesides of British soldiers whose bravery was immortalised in the movie A Bridge Too Far.
Yesterday he should have laid a wreath at St Faith’s Church in Dunswell before enjoying a few w drinks with members of the e 299 Association, which brings together new and old parachute, commando and special forces.
Instead 98-year-old Les, originally from Hull and now of Woodmansey, recalled the fearless valour of fellow soldiers while he watched the Remembrance Day ceremony on TV before observing his own two minute silence.
But the grandfather-of-six, who visits Arnhem every September, is determined he will join next year’s commemorations.
With a twinkle in his eye he said: ““I’ll miss having a laugh in the pub, but maybe they’ll open up especially for me.
“It’s been a very strange time and this is the first in donkey’s years I’ve not gone on my annual visit to Arnhem bridge.
“This pandemic has changed the world, but we need to wait it out.
“When you’ve been through a war this isn’t so bad. And anyway I’m determined to lay a wreath and make it back next year – 99 or not.”
Sprightly Les was just 21 when he took part in Operation Market Garden in 1944 which saw paratroopers dropped behind enemy lines in the Netherlands. It was their job to secure key bridges and towns as the Allies advanced.
On September 17, he landed in a field 8km from Arnhem with no idea that the 9th and 10th SS Panzer Divisions were still in the town.
What followed was some of the fiercest hand-to-hand combat of the Second World War.
Within minutes of reaching the River Rhine Les was fired upon by German soldiers aboard a passing boat.
Scrambling over a 10ft wall to escape, he looked at the two men sitting either side of him who had also fled the fire storm.
“When I looked at them I realised they were Germans,” said Les. “We just looked at each other and they got up and went one way and I went the other. That was my first lucky escape.”
Les, who was attached to the First Airborne Division, was one of the few paras who made it on to the Arnhem Bridge, before being pushed back by heavy German gunfire.
They retreated into the town, r running from building to building and stepping over dead bodies es as they dodged bullets and exploosions.
After almost 24 hours, Les was so “dog tired” that he found a bed in an abandoned police station – and incredibly slept for two hours.
He said: “When I woke up it was as daylight and the whole town was as still blazing away.
“I ran outside where some of the other men were and we went into a building next to a church.
“The next thing I knew shots came from the church tower where a sniper was hiding.
“We couldn’t get sight of him but he was above us and could see us as we ran up the stairs. He got one of our men in the rear end.
“The sniper was giving us hell. I felt something hit my scarf and when I reached up I saw it was a spent bullet.
“The next minute a shell went through the church, probably from one of our men, and the shooter bit the dust.
“For days we kept moving from house to house. The fighting was really close. One of our men was wearing a kit with grenades on him and when he was hit by a sniper
he disintegrated, i t td right i ht before b f my eyes.”
After four days Les and three other paras found themselves in a house surrounded by German troops. Exhausted, starving and reduced to drinking water from radiators, they finally gave themselves up.
Les said: “We could either surrender or fight to the death and that seemed daft by that point. We were beat.”
Les was taken to a prisoner of war camp in Holland before being sent to Dresden to work for the Nazis in a tram repair shop.
But the conflict was far from over. When Dresden was flattened by Allied bombers in February 1945, Les was again lucky to survive after an unexploded bomb landed outside the billet he shared with 20 other prisoners.
It was then he made the decision to escape.
Les said: “I told the German guard I was leaving and he raised his rifle and threatened to shoot me. I said ‘well shoot me then’ and walked off.”
“I expected a bullet in the back, but it never came.”
For almost a week, Les hid in woodland and ate anything he could scavenge from abandoned German lorries as he made his way to the Czech Republic where he was taken in by a kind family.
One day, he spotted a Dakota land in a nearby disused airfield.
For the next four days he lived on beans in the control tower until another plane arrived – and hitched a lift back to France, before being transferred home to Hull.
Yesterday Les showed the same spirit he displayed during the war.
He said: “I’m just getting on with things. I’ve led a charmed life really. I got out of Arnhem with my skin.
“My family joke that if anyone ever wrote a book about me they’d call it ‘lucky s**’!”