Archive

Home / September 2021

Exemple

The 77th Tenth Battalion Commemorations in Leicestershire & Oosterbeek

September 30, 2021 Alec Wilson Uncategorised

On Saturday 11th September, Friends of The Tenth held a very well attended annual general meeting in Somerby Memorial Hall.

This was followed by an open afternoon and get-together in the Memorial Hall where the Charity’s historian and archivist, Grahame Warner, read the opening chapter from his forthcoming book, which is a comprehensive history of the Battalion – ‘Arnhem: Eight Days to Oblivion’.

During the afternoon, there was a sale of merchandise, especially popular were signed copies of ‘The Tenth Battalion Trail’.

 

Later, on Saturday afternoon, attention turned to the more serious business of the Remembrance Service at the 10th Battalion Memorial, Burrough on the Hill.

The solemnity of the regular ‘At the Going Down of the Sun’ service was made even more poignant by the unveiling and dedication of a new and additional Memorial which remembers those of the post-war 10th who lost their lives during their service.

 

Padre, Brian McAvoy led the service and gave special mention to recently deceased, Pam Henry-Lamm, widow of Battalion Intelligence Officer, Captain Myles Henry (KIA at Arnhem). Pam, from Auckland, New Zealand, who celebrated her 100th birthday last November, has been such an important part in the story of the Tenth and was the greatest ‘long-distance’ supporter and inspiration in the creation of the Memorial. Few, who have watched, will ever forget Pam’s wonderful, filmed message played at the unveiling in September 2019.

Pam on her 100th Birthday

 

Friends of The Tenth President, Jennifer Lady Gretton, laid the wreath to remember the, more than one-hundred, men of the 10th who gave the ultimate sacrifice during WW2. Trustee and founder-member, Jeanie Holland, laid a wreath of the Battalion colours in honour of Pam Henry-Lamm, flags were later lowered to half-mast.

 

 

The post-war 10PARA Memorial         Colonel John Power and Padre, Brian McAvoy

The new Portland stone memorial for post-war 10PARA created by sculptor, Ivan Cudby, was unveiled by Nick Gunn, son of Major Douglas R Gunn who is remembered on the stone, and Colonel John Power of 10PARA. Colonel John’s inspiring words reminded every one of the unbroken chain and legacy that link the wartime and post war battalions.

The Airborne Riders at the 10th Battalion Memorial

A glamorous old lady at the Memorial

 

The next day, Sunday, events moved to Somerby, the village that was the Battalion’s HQ and centre of all things in 1944, during the lead up to Operation Market Garden.

Children from Somerby School being inspected and congratulated by Major Sean Philips

Every year since 1945, a service has been held in All Saints Church and a parade of Paratroops through the village, led by the Seaforth Highlanders Pipes & Drums. Until very recently, the parade held veterans of the 10th Battalion. Sadly now, to the best of knowledge, only one man from the Battalion remains standing, Victor Gregg. Vic, now 101 and quite frail, was unable to attend.

Forty-eight Paras march through Somerby

 The Seaforth Highlanders Pipes & Drums

The 77th Arnhem Service, All Saints, Somerby

 

Despite this year’s scaling down of events in the Netherlands, the 10th Battalion was not forgotten.

Friends of The Tenth patron, Robert Voskuil and committee members, Liset Van der Vos and Arjan Vrieze with 10PARA’s Chris Dimond and Donal O’Brian, organised a wreath laying at the Battalion marker post on the Utrechtsweg, Oosterbeek.

 

 

 

The week before, Liset and son, Jelle, had remembered Pam Henry-Lamm by laying a beautiful posy of flowers on Myles Henry’s grave in the Arnhem Airborne Cemetery.

Flowers for Pam Henry-Lamm on Myles’ grave

 

Finally on Saturday 18th September, the Airborne Riders, unable to journey to Arnhem, instead rode ‘Arnhem in Leicestershire’.

Following the Tenth Battalion Trail, they visited Somerby, Thorpe Satchville, Owston (wartime home of Captain Lionel Queripel VC) and Burrough on the Hill, where they laid a wreath at the Memorial. Their final RV was at Spanhoe Airfield, formerly RAF Spanhoe, the departure point for the 10th Battalion on 18th September 1944.

All Saints, Somerby

The Riders at the 10th Battalion Memorial

Spanhoe Airfield

It’s a long way on this little fellow!

Read More →
Exemple

Pam Henry-Lamm 1920 -2021

September 13, 2021 Alec Wilson Uncategorised

 

Pam Henry Lamm 1920 – 2021

It is with great sadness that we report the passing of Pam Henry-Lamm in Auckland, New Zealand. Pam passed away on Thursday 9th September, Pam would have celebrated her 101st birthday on the 10th November.

For the unveiling of the 10th Battalion in September 2019, Pam recorded this poignant yet uplifting video message which formed a major part of the film ‘Remembering The Tenth’, available from Friends of The Tenth.

 

Her daughter, Anna, told that after a fall on Tuesday and unsuccessful surgery, Pam died peacefully and without pain on Thursday 9th September. At the annual Memorial Service for the Battalion, on Saturday 11th September 2021, founder member, Jeanie Holland, laid a wreath for Pam. We have lowered our flags in Pam’s honour and memory.

 

 

 

Pam is the widow of the Battalion’s Intelligence Officer, Captain Myles Henry. Myles was killed in action on the 19th September 1944. He was killed during the carnage of the Battalion’s withdrawal across the Polish Glider Landing Zone.

This is Myles’ and Pam’s Story

 

Myles, Pam and the Stag & Hounds

 

Snow was falling when the 10th Battalion, The Parachute Regiment, arrived in this area on 10th December 1943. Most of the men had been serving in North Africa, the Middle East and Italy for 18 months or more. Captain John Myles Henry was 23 years old and the Battalion Intelligence Officer.

He and Pamela Morris were married in London on the 27th December and after honeymooning in the Savoy Hotel, the Cotswolds and Brighton, arrived at Burrough on the Hill early in January 1944. Their billet was to be the Stag and Hounds.

 

Pam takes up the story:

High on a hill, surrounded as far as the eye could see by snow- covered fields, stood a lonely pub.

Howling gales had battered its grey stone walls for centuries, but inside the warmth of old-fashioned hospitality prevailed. For Myles and me it was the perfect billet as, being so small, it contained only two bedrooms. One for the landlord and his wife, and one for us. A diminutive chamber, almost entirely filled by the huge bed, whereon reposed a genuine goose-feather mattress, into which we sank as if on a billowing cloud.

Each morning, after my husband had departed to his duties, our solicitous landlady served me a vast breakfast in this feathery nest. Bacon, eggs and sausages! I could not believe my eyes. Were there no rationing problems in this remote countryside?

As evening approached, I would wait for the sound of a jeep to roar up the road, bringing Myles home. After dinner we would be joined by cheery parachute officers around the blazing fire in the tiny saloon bar.

Amongst them, if I remember rightly, was Lionel Queripel, who won a posthumous Victoria Cross, and others whose names would soon be legendary.

This saloon bar, which also acted as my sitting-room during the day, adjoined the public bar, where paratroopers sat on old oak settles nursing mugs of beer, their large frames filling the restricted space; and such was the camaraderie between these men that often bantering conversations flowed between both bars, roars of laughter filling the smoky rooms. I felt honoured to be accepted by these stalwarts, but, although I took long walks along the ice-glazed roads, I never discovered where their headquarters lay (Somerby House, Burrough Court).

In the early hours of 18th September 1944, the Battalion was lorried to Spanhoe Airfield where they emplaned for Operation Market Garden- the famous the Battle of Arnhem. Some two weeks later from the 582 men who left, only 36 returned to the ‘Welcome Home’ party in Somerby laid on by the local ladies and Land Army girls.

Myles never returned. On the 19th September he was killed by a burst of machine gun fire near Johannahoeve farm, Oosterbeek. His best man at his wedding, Lt Leslie Kiaer, was also tragically killed the following day by an exploding mortar bomb. Both men are laid to rest at the Arnhem Airborne Cemetery, Oosterbeek, the Netherlands.

Pam received a telegram on 29th September that Myles was ‘Missing- believed killed’. Pam’s labour pains started shortly afterwards and their daughter, Anna, was born.

 

page1image130924176

Myles’ grave at Arnhem War Cemetery, Oosterbeek, Netherlands

Read More →

Friends of the Tenth is a Registered Charity in England and Wales (1176669)

Design by reachmarketing.co.uk