Private Memorial, Old Lonsdale Church, Oosterbeek
The final fighting north of the River Rhine during the last stages of Operation Market Garden was in and around the small Arnhem suburb of Oosterbeek. On 19th September 1944 Major Lonsdale, Second in Command of 11th Parachute Regiment, gathered together men coming from every direction and addressed them from the pulpit in the church (hence the church's name). There were men from the 1st, 3rd and 11th Battalions, the South Staffords and some glider pilots and they became known as the Lonsdale Force. The church abounds with Memorials, both inside and outside, because it came to mean so much to those who assembled here. When the evacuation began, the route down to the river lay across the fields behind the church where this small symbolic poppy is. It shows the Arnhem bridge on the right, the River Rhine and the locations Driel, Oosterbeek and Arnhem. The legend is From the Sky they Came, On Land They Fought, then Over Water Under Deathly Threat, the Ones We'll Never Forget). It was placed in 2003
