Kids lay flowers for fallen at 75th anniversary service

buried (here) or survived after the Battle of Arnhem.” Jamie said each pupil was given an envelope with a soldier’s story inside which they were encouraged to read when they found his grave. He added: “As this battle slips from living memory, it’s very important to look at the big moral questions that surround it.” Pupil Ben Latimer, 15, visited the grave of his great-gran’s cousin John Whiteman, who fell on the last day of the Battle of Arnhem, aged 29. He said: “You see all these graves and you think they are random people but when you find out you’ve got a relative then it’s different, because you feel connected.”

Ben added: “It’s amazing to see how people turn out to an event like this. It shows that people in the Netherlands and around the world care about the Battle of Arnhem.”

He said the battle’s victims were “so brave” and “risked their lives for other people”.

Pupil Hollie Clarke, 15, said: “It’s upsetting but, in a way, it’s also a good thing, because they were fighting for our country and they were making everyone proud.”

Also attending the ceremony were 21 of the original flower children, returning to the cemetery 75 years later to honour the dead.

Wim van Zanten, 83, who was born in Oosterbeek, said they were there to “honour and to say thank you so much for what you have done for us”, adding:. “It’s our duty to honour the men who have given their lives for our freedom.”

In a moving and solemn service on Sunday, hymns were sung, prayers offered and wreaths laid for the war dead.

Around the edge of the cemetery, thousands of Dutch citizens looked on while planes made flypasts.