On September 18, 1944 an unexpected encounter took place between local patriots and the crew and occupants of a Horsa glider that had been forced to make a premature landing whilst on its way to ‘Arnhem’.
This occurred about 25 miles west of of their intended landing zone when they landed in a polder north of the town of Oss (NL), alongside the river Maas. They quickly unloaded their jeep & trailer and were advised by these helpers to follow the road along the dike to the town of Grave, which had been liberated the previous day. Fortunately some pictures were taken at the time and the name of the Lieutenant in charge – Lt McNaught – was known to one of the helpers. About fifteen years later he passed this information on to the author of this article. A cold case investigation, stimulated by an enquiry from a British Market Garden researcher, was commenced 75 years after this incident and, as wil be seen, it was succesfully concluded.
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NB the text is in Dutch
Aanvulling 11 februari 2025:
Richard Hallam stuurde ons dit document, met de toelichting:
So here it is the tug aircraft was from 296 Squadron RAF based at Brize Norton, UK aircraft type was an Albemarle Mk5 tail number V 1785 the aircraft captain Flight Lieutenant S P Horn. See attached document.
On the 18th September 296 Sqn sent 20 aircraft in support of Operation Market and each aircraft towed a glider. There were a total of 10 RAF Squadrons involved with Op Market.