Heartbreaking moment WW2 veteran salutes graves of 'friends who didn't come back'
The daughters of a heroic World War II veteran soldier have shared a tearful plea after helping their dad place a cross on the graves of his two friends ahead of VE Day.
'Tell every child what my dad did and about his friends who didn't come back,' the daughters said. Geoff Roberts, 99, who saw unbearable horrors during World War II, tried to steady himself before he saluted his fallen comrades who died as he fought alongside them in the trenches at Arnhem. As he leaves the cemetery, with a tear streaming down his face, he points behind him and says: 'The heroes are here'.
The dad-of-two is supported by daughters Claire Welburn, 58 and Nicola Roberts, 61, during the trip to the Airborne Cemetery Oosterbeek, in the Netherlands. He is one of the few remaining survivors of the disastrous Battle of Arnhem which saw 1,754 Allied sailors and airmen killed in September 1944.
For 60 years Geoff has loyally returned to his pals' graves but every year it is getting harder. The veteran has to make a herculean effort to leave his wheelchair behind and walk the 20 yards to the graves of Lance Corporal Leonard Plummer, 24, and 25-year-old Private Robert Brown. He touches each grave for support and in love, then steps back five times, before placing his walking stick in his left hand and saluting each man individually.
'I was the lucky one I survived. That's where I'm going to die when I pop my clogs,' he adds, pointing behind him at his friends' graves. Claire explains: 'We knew he'd lost friends there but he only told us two years ago how they died.
"He was in a trench next to them and he could hear them firing and he could then hear one of the guns had gone quiet and Brown shouted 'Plummer's had it!' Two minutes later Brown's gun stopped and dad was the only one left in the trench. He left his pack behind and ran, that always stays with me because his life was in that bag. "
As Geoff heads for the London cab that brought him there with the Taxi Charity for military veterans, he is surrounded by Dutch families wanting to thank him for his service and shake his hand. His daughters have to carry cream round with them as their dad's hands are black with bruises.
This week in the UK the country is being urged to remember all those who fought for freedom 80 years ago, just as Geoff did. Our VE Day, the end of the war in Europe, remembrance events begin with a magnificent military procession and a Red Arrows fly past over Buckingham Palace, where the King will then host a Tea Party for 30 veterans aged between 98 and 104. The Armed Forces of NATO nations will join the United Kingdom 's VE Day 80 procession in central London on Monday.
Geoff was in the prisoner of war camp in Czechoslovakia on VE Day after being captured by the Germans on September 26 1944, nine days after landing in Arnhem. He was told by the Nazis: 'For you, the war is over."
He had been just 19, when he was a private in the 7th Battalion King's Own Scottish Borderers, and part of a crack team sent to help liberate the Netherlands, flown in by glider, towed by the RAF. They found themselves at the gruesome heart of the bloodiest battle of World War II, where things got so desperate they were ordered to take part in a suicidal bayonet charge.
There were 765 men from the battalion dropped on to the Continent. By the end of the Battle of Arnhem, 112 were dead, 76 evacuated back to Britain and 577, including Geoff, reported missing. He had been put to work down the mines until suddenly all the machines stopped and they were marched back to the camp from the coal face.
'And when he got back to camp, all the German guards had left, they'd all gone...That's when he realised the war was over," Claire said. The Russian forces were the first to reach the camp and 'weren't interested', telling them to 'wait for the Americans'. Geoff and two others were not prepared to wait and decided to leave and try and find their way home.
'They 'liberated' some bicycles and the word liberated is really important to Dad,' Clare laughs. Geoff ended up getting picked up by some Americans in the end and then got flown back to France then the UK. On his return home to Bishop's Stortford he found happiness and stability, only for his wife to then die, leaving him to look after two young daughters.
His daughters talked to The Mirror about their father and how he brought them up with compassion and care. Claire can't hold back the tears as she explains: "He's just my hero.' It's hardly surprising she feels that way, the nation should too, as Geoff, who turns 100 next month, is an incredible man.
Geoff always tells his family 'I'm home' when he arrives back in the Netherlands to pay his respects. He has left precise instructions that his remains be buried in a small box, placed behind the two headstones of his lost friends.
Nicola said: 'Our mum died in 1972, so I would have been eight, Claire would have been five. It wasn't until we were a little bit older when we started going to Arnhem with him, we got to see what he'd done. He'd joined the Arnhem Fellowship and they put on a coach trip in September so dad went and obviously didn't have anyone to look after us so we went too and it became our summer holiday.'
Clare jokes: 'Most kids go to Majorca and we were at Arnhem!' Nicola says over the years more details have slowly emerged about his ordeal during World War II. 'One thing that sticks in my mind, when he was fighting at the White House,' which was a hotel in Oosterbeek.
'They were out of ammunition and the Germans were approaching and they were told to fix bayonets and charge. To do that at 19! That's younger than my son! I think that was the last bayonet charge because they didn't really do that in the Second World War, that was a First World War thing, but their officer in charge was a First World War man and so he just sort of resorted back to that.'
'Another horrifying tale he opened up about was how he had to hide during the day and then go out and night to bring in the wounded and dead, taking the dressings off those they'd lost to reuse. He was a stretcher bearer. I remember him telling me that when we went back to the White House having a coffee and dad just sat there and suddenly he pointed to the far wall at the end of the room and said that room was just full of bodies.
'And all this and he was just a baby aged 19. I can remember him saying he was cold, he was tired, he was hungry, and then he was scared. And when I look at my son at 19, I know he would just want his mum. '
Claire adds: 'It's heartbreaking because they were just all so young, I mean Dad was one of the youngest.' Nicola reflects: 'He's our dad and we've only ever known him as our dad and he's the person that looks after us and cares for us and it's just really hard to marry up those two different images of the same person. "
Describing their dad, a grandad of three, Claire said: 'He's just my hero. He's shy, he's self-deprecating and he cares deeply and he loves his family.' Urging the nation to keep the memories of World War II alive, she says: 'I think it's shameful, the way our veterans are treated and how we don't educate our young people. I'd like parents to tell every child what my dad did and what my dad gave. And about his friends that didn't come back.'
Claire says coming back to visit his lost friends has been 'his life'. She explained: 'It is so important to him because he lost so many good friends here. He loves coming back, he comes about twice a year, it's all he lives for. '
Geoff is one of only three veterans left who took part in the biggest airborne invasion ever, 60 miles behind enemy lines was called Operation Market Garden, and focused on the capture of three key Nazi-held bridges over the River Rhine, but it ended in heroic failure.
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