Jack Reynolds
Soldier captured during Operation Market Garden who featured in a memorable photograph
JACK REYNOLDS, who has died aged 97, won an MC in Sicily in 1943 during the first major airborne operation carried out by Allied forces; he was subsequently captured at Arnhem, where his two-fingered gesture to a German photographer became a celebrated image of defiance.
In July 1943 Reynolds was in command of the reconnaissance platoon of 2nd Bn South Staffordshire Regiment, part of 1st Airlanding Brigade. On the evening of July 9, the Brigade took off from airstrips in Tunisia for its glider-borne invasion of Sicily.
High winds and gathering cloud made navigation difficult, and bright muzzle flashes from Italian antiaircraft batteries added to the problem of identifying landmarks. Many of the aircrews lacked combat experience.
Some aircraft turned back to North Africa. Gliders were released far out to sea and ditched in the Mediterranean. Others reached Sicily but were scattered many miles from their landing zones. Only a small fraction landed close to their intended destination.
The most important part of the battalion’s task was to make a coup-demain raid on the strategically important Ponte Grande Bridge. Code-named Waterloo Bridge, it was south-west of the city of Syracuse and on the route to be taken by the British 5th Infantry Division.
Reynolds landed with his party of nine men at 22.25 hours, four miles south of the battalion RV. They ran into stiff opposition on the way and several of his small group became casualties. When he reached the Bridge it had already been captured, but the force was too small to hold off a determined counter-attack and was running short of ammunition.
At 08.00 the following morning, the Italians began to shell and mortar the British positions. By early afternoon, the Italian infantry were closing in, only a handful of men were still able to fight, ammunition had run out and the order was given to surrender.
Two of Reynolds’s men, he said afterwards, were shot while holding a white flag. The rest dumped their weapons in the canal.
He and the other survivors were being marched off as Pows in a column of men from other units when their captors were ambushed by a unit of the 15th Infantry Brigade and overpowered. After a short, sharp firefight the bridge was back in British hands.
Jack Reynolds was born in Chichester on May 5 1922. His father was a gentleman’s outfitter in the town who had fought at Gallipoli and been invalided out of the Army.
Young Jack was educated at the High School for Boys, where he was in the first XI for cricket and football. He had, he said, a strict and rather narrow upbringing and attended church three times every Sunday.
Reynolds began work at the Gas Board, earning 15 shillings a week before joining the Surrey and Sussex Yeomanry. They were mobilised two days before the outbreak of the Second World War. The uniforms – breeches and puttees – had been in store since WW1 and rarely fitted.
He was then posted as a signaller to a coastal defence unit at Mumbles in South Wales. Their two guns had been taken off an old destroyer. When a German bomber came over, flying low, he grabbed a Bren gun and fired at it.
The aircraft’s rear gunner fired back. The regimental sergeant-major, who had been dozing in the command post and had been awoken by bullets spattering around him, emerged uttering a stream of foul language.
Reynolds was sent to Plymouth on an officer cadet’s course. The city was being heavily bombed and he was involved in the often grim work of helping to dig casualties out of the rubble of their houses.
Just before his 19th birthday he was commissioned into the Royal Artillery and posted to Dover, again on coastal defence duties. The guns, sited on the piers, had been manufactured in 1898 and the ammunition dated from 1902. They were no match for the German E-boats.
Enemy fighter aircraft would fly overhead and shoot down the barrage balloons. Sometimes, when a large wooden structure was trawled into position to provide target practice, the German gunners, firing from Calais, amused themselves by joining in.
In 1942 Reynolds transferred to the 1st Airlanding Brigade, part of 1st Airborne Division, and was posted to the 2nd South Staffords at Bulford, Wiltshire. He commanded a reconnaissance platoon and travelled in a motorbike sidecar.
He had received no training in drilling and during an important parade he forgot one of the commands: 1,500 men had to mark time in front of the saluting base while he racked his brains. The regimental sergeant-major ticked him off: “You are a dirty, scruffy officer, sir!” Reynolds undertook rigorous training on gliders and parachute jumps.
On one occasion, a sergeant jumped when the light was still showing red. The medics had not discovered that he was colour blind.
Reynolds was fortunate to be in the second half of the “stick”. The first half landed in a lake. Another time, jumping from a captive balloon, the man immediately in front of him “roman candled” – his parachute failed to open and he was killed.
In May 1943 Reynolds’s battalion landed at Oran, Algeria. After the campaign in Sicily, they returned to North Africa before taking part in the invasion of Italy. Reynolds, in command of a mortar platoon, landed at Taranto in September but returned to England with the battalion in December to prepare for the Second Front.
In mid-september the following year, the battalion was sent to Manston airfield in Kent, where it was briefed for Operation Market Garden, an audacious plan to seize the key Rhine bridges with allied airborne units and establish a wide salient ahead of the ground advance.
Reynolds, commanding a mortar platoon, took off on September 17 in the first wave of glider-borne troops. Having landed safely, he was sent on a reconnaissance mission with a dispatch rider.
The two men came under sniper fire and dived into a ditch. The motorbike was disabled and Reynolds continued on foot. He subsequently reported that he had seen German infantry and armour in considerable strength.
The next morning, the battalion set off on an eight-mile march towards Arnhem. The leading company was ambushed and took heavy casualties.
Reynolds said afterwards that the Germans were firing at them from across the river and fenced gardens made it impossible to get off the road. Several days of vicious street fighting followed.
Mortars, he said, were useless in the built-up areas. They had no maps, no orders, no means of communication. His signaller dumped the heavy wireless set because it did not work.
Reynolds and about 10 others were holed up in a trench at battalion HQ when their position was overrun by German tanks with an infantry screen and they were all taken prisoner. While they were being marched to the station, he saw an official German photographer with a triumphant grin on his face.
Impulsively, he gave the man a two-fingered salute. “The Germans thought that it was a Churchillian ‘V for Victory’ sign,” said Reynolds. “I didn’t disillusion them.” He was taken by cattle truck to Oflag 79, at Brunswick, where he remained until he was liberated by the Americans. He had lost nearly four stone.
Victoria Crosses were awarded to two soldiers in the battalion, to Major Robert Cain and, posthumously, to Lance-sergeant John Baskeyfield.
In September 1946 Lieutenant Reynolds was demobilised and joined George Wills Holdings, an importexport business. Based at the London office but commuting daily from his home in Pulborough, Sussex, he worked his way up from company secretary to vice-chairman and travelled all over the world before retiring aged 65. He had a sharp mind, many interests and was excellent company.
Jack Reynolds married, in 1947, Eulalie Willcocks, who was in the WAAF and who had served as a plotter at RAF Tangmere. She was a sister of Captain Willcocks, his company commander, who had also been a prisoner at Oflag 79. She predeceased him, as did their son and their daughter. He is survived by four grandchildren.
Jack Reynolds, born May 5 1922, died August 22 2019