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Born 5/1/1924 at 121 Hutton Road, Handsworth, Birmingham, Maurice Bassett recalls some cherished memories from the war years.
Prior to going to Norton Motors I had a few weeks at a gunsmith's shop, grinding disks for firing pins, as used on some small arms, but my stay did not last long for one day on arriving for work I found the shop was no more, it had been hit by a bomb during the night.
The manager said I had to report to the Employment Exchange but before I left he gave me a 12 gauge shot gun that he had salvaged from the shop, and his remark was that it might come in handy one day. I took it home and it was put in a small room under the stairs.
Many years after the war my mother was cleaning the stairs when she noticed a small hole in the bottom stair, and on further examination she discovered there was a piece of board nailed over a large hole.
My father, when asked if he knew anything about it, said yes, it happened many years back. He said, 'I was sitting in my chair when I thought of the gun in the cupboard, I got it out and put a cartridge in, closed the gun and it went off, blowing a hole in the stair.' He put a piece of board over it to hide the damage, then took the gun outside and smashed it up.
Coming back to my Service days, we were put on many alerts during 1944 and never knew when we would be called upon to go into action. One briefing was for us to go to Nijmegen on the Waal part of the River Rhine, but that was cancelled after getting ready to take off.
We were all ready at the airfield when the order to cancel came through. After all the preparation it was quite a relief, but we had to go through it all again many times. We were getting to the stage when we thought the war would end and we would not have to go into action again, but this was not to be and we were engaged in one of the biggest blunders of the war -- Arnhem in Holland on the River Rhine.
On September 17th 1944, the 1st Airborne troops were dropped near the Rhine at Arnhem. It was suspected that information had been received by the German high command that this landing was going to take place, our job being to hold the bridge at Arnhem and stop the Germans destroying it which would deny us of a crossing place in the advance.
Little did we know that one of the best German divisions was waiting for us. Field Marshal Montgomery, the British commander, had hoped to have advanced quickly enough to relieve us after a few days.
Unfortunately we were trapped between two forces and we could not get back over the bridge. After fighting a loosing battle and losing many thousands of men we were forced to either surrender, or if lucky, to try to cross the Rhine in a different spot.
Only a few of us in my platoon were able to get back with a Canadian company helping us get back over the river in Amphibian craft many kilometres down the river. This story has been told many times before and depicted on film as a Bridge Too Far. On the 25th of September 1944, I think, or around that date, we managed to reach our own lines.
Maurice Bassett, Queensland, Australia, 2001
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