An important statement from Friends of The Tenth

When we formed our charity, a main objective was to ‘name in tablets of stone all the members of the Battalion at the time of the Battle of Arnhem’.

This mission will be accomplished by September this year with the installation of a Memorial pathway. More than twenty York stone slabs will be laid in the Memorial Garden oval path.

Each stone will be inscribed with approximately thirty names. The total, of more than 600 names, will identify those who were serving with the battalion from mid to late 1944. The path will, of course, include those, already named on the Memorial, who paid the ultimate sacrifice.

The total cost is £27,000. We hope that you may be able to support this project. We have already received a hugely generous donation, covering more than half the cost, from our long-term supporter, Barratt Developments Ltd.

You may be a next of kin, family of one of those brave young men, or you may feel an association or have a connection. We will be very grateful if you wish to donate in memory of one individual soldier or all of them. You can donate and, if you wish add UK Gift Aid, by clicking this safe and secure link.

https://gofund.me/2297c349

Another way to support this project is to buy from our online shop where we have unique books and prints for sale.

https://friendsofthetenth.co.uk/shop/

During the course of the next few months, we will also be offering special items for auction.

We thank the following for their generosity –

Barratt Developments PLC

Steve & Nic Gornall, Seaport Engineers Ltd

Andrew (Charlie) McColgan

Bryan Burnikell

Laura Briggs

Jeremy Heygate

Richard Chevis (In memory of: Cpl J W Chevis 6400518 ‘A’ Coy)

Alan James

Norman Bishop

Bill Stokoe

John Fitzgibbon

Derek Maylor

Terry Lowe

Nigel Gunn

Alexandra Dembitz (In memory of: Pte Denzil Meyer Keen 6292817 ‘A’ Coy KIA)

Sally & Les Dyos (In memory of: Pte Frank Burton 4975961 ‘A’ Coy)

Karen Medhurst

John James

Paul Pariso

Steve Infield (In memory of: Lt Gerald Infield, 3rd Parachute Bn Arnhem)

Sue Clapson

Andy Sloper

Denise Earnshaw

Richard Drake

Mark Burgess ( In memory of  Lt William Burgess)

We will be holding our annual service of Remembrance at The Tenth Battalion Memorial, Burrough on the Hill, starting at 10.45am Sunday 10th November 2024.

Everyone is welcome to the service and afterwards at the Get Busy Living Centre for tea, coffee and snacks.

In February 2023 Martin Sugarman, the archivist at AJEX, sent me a photo of a man in a WW2 uniform, carrying my Uncle Denny’s photo.  Martin is the author of ‘Fighting Back: British Jewry’s Military Contribution in the Second World War’ (Valentine Mitchell 2017) that includes an entire chapter devoted to the Jewish paratroopers who served at Arnhem.

My uncle had been killed at the battle of Arnhem, aged 21, in September 1944.  My mother never got over losing her younger brother and here was somebody out of the blue carrying his photo.  Who was he and why was he holding my uncle’s photo?  Martin not only knew the man in uniform, but also recognised the soldier because of all his research for his book.

The man was Mark Ganat, a British born Israeli who as a member of various US and Europe based parachute teams takes part in commemorative events of the airborne operations of WW2 by parachuting from period aircraft into the drop zones that were used in those operations, wearing period uniform.

Mark had sent the photo to Martin who not only recognised the soldier in the photo but told Mark he knew his niece.  And so started over a year of correspondence between the two of us.

I immediately got in touch with Mark and discovered that he is an ex-special forces soldier who is an IDF trained parachutist.   Through family in the US, he was introduced to an American jump team, Liberty, and did a refresher course so that he could honour the veterans of airborne operations of WW2 and later conflicts.  Like the other teams, Liberty has close relations with the US army and regularly jumps in France to commemorate the D-Day landings.

Mark makes a particular point of commemorating the Jewish participants in those operations, particularly those who were killed in action, by carrying their photographs when he jumps or performing short Jewish memorials at their graves.

My uncle, Private Denzil Keen (Denny),  has no known grave, but his name is engraved on the memorial at Groesbeek as well as on the memorial to the 10th Battalion, The Parachute Regiment at Burrough on the Hill, High Leicestershire.   I promised my mother before she died in 2021 that I would not forget her brother.  It seems others have not either.

Mark and I corresponded by email and I told him I planned to attend the 80th anniversary commemorations of the Battle of Arnhem and hoped to meet him should he be going.  My son, husband and I booked our flights and booked our hotel to arrive late on Friday 20th September, thinking that this would be perfect timing.  How wrong could I be?  I then got the following message from Mark:

Is there no way you can extend the beginning of your trip? By one day? My jump in the British drop zone (1st Brigade, not the 4th) is on the 20th at Renkum. I am hoping that the head of Pathfinder Parachute Group UK will give me the lead position – first flight, first stick of parachutists, first parachutist out the door. Planned time-on-target is 1000. If so, I will be opening the whole event. And I will be carrying Denny’s photo like I did two years ago. It’s a very special event. It would be terrific if you could be there on the ground when I land. Any chance you can change that?

Well – how could I say no to that?  So, we are off on Thursday 19th September to watch Mark jump, carrying my uncle’s photo yet again.  I will also be laying a Star of David wreath at the service held by the Friends of the Tenth at Burrough on the Hill on the Saturday afternoon.

We will also be attending the service of Remembrance on the Sunday morning to which a cousin from Rotterdam will be joining us. He is our daughter in law’s relative who had escaped Vienna just in time as a small child and was hidden in The Netherlands.  He survived.  His father and grandmother were not so lucky, they were taken to and died in Auschwitz. He told us that he remembers seeing the paras drop and would be honoured to attend a service of Remembrance – yet again, what a small world.

Order of Service 2024