THREE HEROES WE ALL ‘Men died along the way...it was appalling’
BY1944 Sgt Frankashleigh had finally been allowed to see real action as a trained glider pilot.
But his first and only mission would be Operation Market Garden, the doomed bid to end the war before Christmas by seizing and holding nine bridges to allow allies to cross into northern Germany.
A welder by trade, he fought hard to leave a so-called Reserved Occupation to join the Army on his 18th birthday, in December 1942. But even in uniform, his skills led him on a myriad of soft postings, from working at Woolwich Arsenal to logging the comings and goings of a fleet of Dodge built Army transport and supply lorries,
But when the newly-formed Glider Pilot Regiment called for volunteers he knew his moment had come.
“We were part of the Army Air Corps and so we flew and fought – that was the incredible thing,” recalls the 98-year-old from his home in London.
Having passed rigorous fitness and flying tests he was finally awarded the special Glider Pilot Regiment wings and posted to No.2 Flight, A Squadron, at RAF Harwell, Oxfordshire.
Finally, in September 1944, he was given the green light to go into battle.
“You had to become skilled in keeping your glider as steady as possible in all sorts of cross winds and turbulence so as to stay attached.that’s before you had to potentially encounter hostile enemy action from the ground or in the air,” he said.
“I think strong nerves, good training and confidence in your own ability were the main things required to succeed as a Glider Pilot, and we certainly needed that for what was coming up next, because for us it was time for the real thing. It didn’t come much harder than Arnhem.” Though Frank successfully landed his Horsa glider, the operation – made famous by the film A Bridge Too Far – was to end in failure.
“Once on the ground in Oosterbeek we volunteered for a patrol, and only got about a quarter of a mile before realising we were totally surrounded by Germans. They were coming from everywhere.”
Almost out of ammunition, his team laid low in a church for four days to avoid detection.
But their luck ran out when Germans stormed the church and shot their captain in the stomach. “Needing immediate medical attention he rightly gave himself up, and I think out of pure shock, told a German that there were three more British higher up in the roof, so that was it for us,” he said.
“We were captured by the dreaded SS who I must say treated us very fairly, myself included, despite my dog tags indicating my Jewish faith.
“I read later that this was due in most part because the elite
SS units battling against us at Arnhem respected us for the fight we put up and for the tenacious resistance of the British Airborne troops.”
Frank had seen action and survived, but there was suffering to come. In January 1945, with Soviet forces advancing, he was taken out of Stalag Luft 7 at Bankau in Germany and placed on what became infamously known as the “Long March”.
“Around 1,500 of us were made to walk over 80 miles in temperatures well below zero, with the threat that for every man who could not go on five more would be shot,” he said.
“Conditions were appalling. People died along the way.”
The 20-day march led him to the Stalag III-A south of Berlin at Luckenwalde, which held prisoners from 14 allied nations.
“Some of the Russians were like skeletons, some had been there for years,” he recalled.
The advancing Red Army finally arrived and liberated the camp on April 22, 1945, and the next day he was flown home.