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The Second World War resulted in the deaths of around 85 million people. Additionally, tens of millions more people were displaced. However, amid all the carnage, people demonstrated remarkable courage, fortitude, compassion, mercy and sacrifice. We want to honour and celebrate all of those people. In the War Years Blog, we examine the extraordinary experiences of individual service personnel. We also review military history books, events, and museums. We also look at the history of unique World War II artefacts, medals, and anything else of interest.

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The Glider Pilot Regiment at Operation Market Garden: What Happened to the Men Who Flew Into Arnhem?

Using the story of Sergeant Stanley Edward Platt, reported missing in October 1944, as a starting point, this article explores the little-known role of the Glider Pilot Regiment during Operation Market Garden. It shows how these men not only flew troops and equipment into Arnhem, but then fought on the ground as infantry and helped guide the evacuation from Oosterbeek. This article offers readers a powerful, human perspective on courage, sacrifice and one of the most dramatic battles of the Second World War. It also reveals what happened to the missing Sergeant Platt.

By Charles Richard Trumpess | Military Historian | Author | Associate Fellow, Royal Historical Society

Army Form B.104-83, dated 11 October 1944, notifying the family of Sergeant Stanley Edward Platt that he had been posted missing on 25 September 1944.

Not long ago, I was contacted by a family member who had come across a remarkable wartime document. It was an original Army Form B.104-83, dated 11 October 1944, informing the next of kin that Sergeant Stanley Edward Platt, service number 5340441, of the Army Air Corps, had been posted as missing on 25 September 1944 in North West Europe.

The form is a standard printed letter, filled in by hand. It is brief, carefully worded and, as these things always are, quietly devastating. It notes that being reported missing did not necessarily mean the soldier had been killed, and that he might be a prisoner of war. It asks the family to forward any letters or postcards they might receive directly to the Record Office.

A little research confirmed that Sergeant Platt had indeed survived the war. His German prisoner-of-war record card, held at The National Archives as WO 416/291/464, shows that he was processed at Stalag XIIA at Limburg an der Lahn under POW number 89043. Born on 30 March 1919, he has no entry in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which is the clearest possible confirmation that he came home. But as we will learn, before his repatriation, he would have to endure a period of captivity.

The date on his missing notification, 25 September 1944, is immediately significant to any historian of the Second World War. It is the final day of Operation Market Garden and the night of the withdrawal from Arnhem. Sergeant Platt, in all probability a pilot of the Glider Pilot Regiment, was caught up in one of the most dramatic and costly operations in British military history.

This article looks at what men like Sergeant Platt were asked to do at Arnhem, and why the story of the Glider Pilot Regiment deserves to be far better known.

A parachute drop during Operation Market Garden

What was Operation Market Garden?

Proposed by Field Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery, Operation Market Garden was launched on 17 September 1944. The aim was bold: to drop three Allied airborne divisions up to sixty miles ahead of the front line to capture a series of bridges across the major rivers and canals of the Netherlands, while XXX Corps, spearheaded by the Guards Armoured Division, drove north along a single road to link up with them.

The American 101st Airborne Division would secure the bridges around Eindhoven, the 82nd Airborne Division would take Nijmegen, and the British 1st Airborne Division, supported by the 1st Polish Independent Parachute Brigade and the Glider Pilot Regiment, would seize the northernmost prize: the road bridge over the Lower Rhine at Arnhem.

If it worked, the Allies would bypass Germany's Siegfried Line defences, cross the Rhine and drive into the industrial Ruhr. If it succeeded, some planners believed the war in Europe could be over by Christmas 1944. But the operation did not succeed. What the Allied planners did not know, or chose to discount, was that elements of the II SS Panzer Corps had been sent to the Arnhem area to refit after the Normandy campaign. The British airborne troops who landed on 17 September and thereafter would find themselves fighting not lightly armed garrison troops, old men, invalids and boys, but battle-hardened SS veterans with armoured support.

Operation Market Garden. Map of the Allied Plan by Chaosdruid - CC BY-SA 4.0

What Was the Glider Pilot Regiment, and What Made It Unique?

The Glider Pilot Regiment's motto: Nothing is Impossible.

The Glider Pilot Regiment (GPR) was formed in 1942 and was part of the Army Air Corps, alongside the Parachute Regiment. It was authorised by Royal Warrant on 24 February 1942, and by 1945 it had reached a peak strength of approximately 2,500 pilots.

What set the regiment apart from every other aircrew unit in the British armed forces was the concept of the "Total Soldier." The man behind this idea was Colonel George Chatterton, a charismatic and demanding commander who had been an RAF fighter pilot before transferring to the infantry. In the mid-1930s, Chatterton survived a mid-air collision only to be told at an RAF medical board that if war came, he would spend it flying a desk, so he transferred to the Territorial Army. Ironically, before he joined the Glider Pilot Regiment, he was required to attend another RAF medical board, which found him A1 – fit to fly. His vision was that a glider pilot should be as capable on the ground as he was in the air: trained to fight as infantry, to handle British and German weapons and equipment, and to fill whatever gap appeared in the line. To this end, he employed Drill Sergeants from the Brigade of Guards to oversee a rigorous training regimen that would weed out all but the very best men.

Chatterton's speech to the Regiment in 1942 rather summed up his approach: "We will forge this regiment as a weapon of attack... Not only will we be trained as pilots, but in all we do... I shall be quite ruthless... Only the best will be tolerated. If you do not like it, you can go back whence you came."

In the American airborne forces, glider pilots were generally expected to avoid ground combat after landing to avoid wasting trained specialists. The British took the opposite view. Once their gliders were down, GPR pilots would pick up their weapons and fight alongside the men they had delivered, until they could be withdrawn, rested and used again. The regiment's motto was "Nothing is Impossible."

The men were predominantly non-commissioned officers, mainly sergeants and staff sergeants, selected for intelligence, initiative and physical toughness. They underwent full military training before beginning their flying instruction, and they were expected to master a glider with no engine, no second chance, and no way back once released from its tug. To some, gliders were nothing more than “flying coffins”; every landing was little better than a controlled crash.

IWM BU 1164: HQ of 1st Airlanding Light Regiment, Royal Artillery, unload a jeep and trailer from their Horsa glider at the landing zone near Wolfheze in Holland, 17 September 1944.

The cockpit of an Mk.II Horsa glider, the de Havilland Aircraft Museum, by the author.

How Did the Glider Pilot Regiment Fly Into Arnhem?

For Operation Market Garden, the British element of the airborne assault involved just over 1,200 members of the Glider Pilot Regiment, almost the regiment's entire strength. They flew 667 gliders, primarily Airspeed Horsas, along with some Hamilcars (large gliders designed to carry heavy cargo, such as light tanks) and Hadrians (the British name for the American Waco glider), delivering approximately 4,500 troops, around 600 jeeps and 95 guns to the landing zones west of Arnhem.

The operation was divided into three lifts, spread across three days. The first lift on 17 September was largely unopposed. Glider pilots had no difficulty identifying their landing zones, and the Independent Parachute Company's pathfinders had marked them clearly with Verey lights and smoke candles. Of the 358 combinations that took off for the first lift, the great majority reached their targets.

The second lift on 18 September was more difficult. Of the 297 combinations that took off, 273 reached the landing zone. Twenty-four loads were lost due to engine failure, tow rope breakage, flak damage, and other causes. A third and smaller lift followed on 19 September. By this point, the element of surprise had been entirely lost and German resistance was intensifying rapidly.

In the original planning of the operation, glider pilots would deliver their loads, remain to defend the divisional and brigade headquarters during the initial phase, and then withdraw into reserve, ready to be extracted from the battle and used again. It was a sound plan for a battle that went as expected.

Arnhem did not go as expected.

Troops dug in holding Brigade Headquarters Arnhem 18 September 1944, National Army Museum, NAM image no. 106438.

What Happened on the Ground at Oosterbeek?

By the second day, the 2nd Parachute Battalion under Lieutenant Colonel John Frost had reached the northern end of the Arnhem road bridge and was holding it under increasingly heavy German attack. The rest of the division, however, had been unable to break through to reinforce them. The II SS Panzer Corps had moved quickly to block the roads into Arnhem, and what had been intended as a rapid advance became a grinding, close-quarters battle through the streets and gardens of Oosterbeek.

The plan to withdraw the glider pilots into reserve was abandoned. The situation required every man to fight. GPR pilots were ordered to remain with the 1st Airborne Division and were heavily engaged as infantry, manning sections of the Oosterbeek perimeter alongside parachute troops, engineers and anyone else available. They fought house to house, led mixed groups of infantrymen and medics, conducted anti-sniper patrols and moved to plug gaps in the line as they appeared.

The Oosterbeek perimeter was, by any measure, a desperate place. The division was surrounded on three sides by German forces that included tanks, self-propelled guns, infantry and Waffen-SS. The perimeter shrank day by day. Resupply aircraft, unable to communicate with the men on the ground, dropped their loads into areas already held by the Germans. The wounded filled every available building.

The GPR pilots, trained as "Total Soldiers," proved themselves fully capable of sustained infantry fighting. That came at a heavy price. By the time the battle ended, the regiment had suffered casualties on a scale from which it never fully recovered.

Map of the Oosterbeek perimeter, September 1944 - Battle of Arnhem.com.

Hotel Hartenstein in Oosterbeek, on the outskirts of Arnhem, 1945, photograph by Frank Tomlinson, 74th Field Regiment, Royal Artillery, NAM image no. 2014-08-16-447.

Airborne Museum Hartenstein, June 2025, by the author.

What was the Defence of Oosterbeek like? A Personal Testimony by Gilder Pilot Sidney East

In 1994, 50 years after the events, Sidney East recalled his own experiences of Operation Market Garden as best he could for the Imperial War Museum’s sound archive. Many people believe that memories of violent or stressful events are clear and remain unchanged over time. They assume that when we recall these events confidently, our memories are likely to be accurate. However, research in psychology and neuroscience shows that memory is not infallible. Instead, it is a process of reconstruction, which can lead to errors and distortions in what we remember. As a result, it is highly probable that testimonies from veterans recounted 50 years or more after the events are inaccurate. Nevertheless, Sidney East’s testimony resembles accounts given by veterans in the years immediately following the war.

By the time of Market Garden, East was an experienced NCO having served in North Africa, Sicily, Italy and Normandy. He was a glider pilot with D Squadron, No. 1 Wing, Glider Pilot Regiment. He recalled how he and his co-pilot, Charlie, left England on a beautiful Sunday morning, 17 September, and arrived at their landing zone as part of the first lift against minimal opposition. The only casualty on landing was his flask of coffee, which broke as he exited his glider. His glider was carrying a jeep, two motorcycles and six men of a reconnaissance unit.

Having landed safely, members of D Squadron assembled at the corner of the landing zone and dug in. Next, they moved into the Oosterbeek area, about 5km west of Arnhem, initially taking up residence in a house after evicting the female occupants. After two days of fairly light and sporadic fighting, suddenly, on the morning of the third day, East and his comrades came under sustained mortar and artillery fire. A German tank also made an appearance, but was later knocked out. They abandoned the house after it received a couple of direct hits and dug slit trenches in the front garden. While Charlie, the copilot, was armed with a rifle and successfully sniped at the Germans, East was equipped with a Sten sub-machine gun, which he described as “useless”, and a PIAT anti-tank weapon, but no “bombs” (anti-tank projectiles) to fire.

On the fourth day, East and his comrades were attacked by German troops and nearly overrun, but they managed to repel the enemy. He recalled that food and, most importantly, water were in short supply. On the fifth day, East remembered that the Germans used loudspeakers to call for the airborne forces to surrender. The British troops responded with catcalls, profanity, and hand grenades.

On the sixth day, the Oosterbeek perimeter was continuously tested and bombarded by mortar and artillery fire, which East described as “nerve-shattering.” On the seventh or eighth day, while attempting to make tea with the last of his rations, a sniper fired, knocking over his small stove. Incensed, he jumped out of his trench and ran toward the trees where the shot had come from. Armed with a rifle, he shot the sniper, who was positioned in the branches of one of the trees. As the sniper fell to the ground, East prepared to bayonet him, but discovered that the sniper was already dead. He was shocked to find that the sniper was just a teenager, little more than a boy.

On the ninth day, a runner informed East and his comrades to assemble at the corner of the tennis courts by the Hartenstein Hotel, which served as the 1st Airborne’s Headquarters. They gathered there at around 8 PM and then made their way down to the river, the Lower Rhine. Elements of the Second Army on the opposite bank provided covering fire. Heavy rain also helped conceal their retreat across the river.

Having escaped the Oosterbeek pocket, the glider pilots were transported first to Nijmegen, still under shellfire, and then to Louvain, Belgium. Finally, the survivors were flown back to RAF Keevil in Wiltshire. The airfield hosted the Glider Pilot Regiment's operational and training units, and was used to launch operations and debrief returning crews. Upon his return, East discovered that only four members of his original flight, which had consisted of approximately 50 personnel, had survived. The rest had been killed, wounded, or taken prisoner. East told his interviewers that he didn’t sleep properly for weeks after Market Garden, shocked by the loss of so many comrades.

The John Frost Bridge (John Frostbrug), the infamous road bridge over the Lower Rhine (rebuilt in 1948), is perhaps better known as “A Bridge Too Far”, the ultimate objective of Operation Market Garden. Photographed by the author in June 2025.

How Did the Glider Pilot Regiment Help with the Evacuation from Arnhem?

On 25 September 1944, the ninth day of the battle, as Gilder Pilot Sidney East reported, it was decided to evacuate the remainder of the 1st Airborne before it was overrun. The plan, sardonically codenamed Operation Berlin, was to withdraw across the Lower Rhine that night under cover of darkness and a full artillery fire plan from the south bank.

The surviving glider pilots played a crucial role in the evacuation. Using their navigational skills, they laid white tape through the woods, creating a pathway from the Oosterbeek perimeter to the riverbank for the retreating soldiers to follow in the dark. To muffle their footsteps, the soldiers wrapped cloth around their boots. The heavy rain not only masked the sound of movement but also reduced visibility for the German attackers.

Canadian and British engineers waited on the river with small storm boats and canvas assault craft, ferrying men across the fast, wide Neder-Rijn under constant German machine gun, mortar and artillery fire. The operation began at 22:00 and continued until dawn, when it was forced to stop.

Of the 10,095 men who had landed at Arnhem by parachute and glider, roughly 2,500 remained capable of fighting by the night of 25 September. Of those, 2,163 British troops and 160 Polish paratroopers made it across the Rhine to safety, among them 422 glider pilots. Several hundred more were left on the north bank, where they surrendered to advancing German forces or attempted to evade capture with the help of the Dutch Resistance. The Glider Pilot Regiment suffered horrendous casualties at Arnhem; 1,262 men flew in, of whom 219 were killed and 511 taken prisoner.

Sergeant Stanley Edward Platt was among those who did not cross the river that night. He was captured, processed through Stalag XIIA at Limburg and held as a prisoner of war until liberation in the spring of 1945.

The Arnhem Oosterbeek War Cemetery, or Airborne Cemetery, is a Commonwealth War Graves Commission site in Oosterbeek, Netherlands. Established in 1945, it contains 1,764 graves, mainly of service personnel who died in the battle for Arnhem. Photographed by the author in June 2025, this picture shows the graves of at least 15 members of the Glider Pilot Regiment, probably more.

What Were the Glider Pilot Regiment's Casualties at Arnhem?

The human cost to the Glider Pilot Regiment at Arnhem was the highest it had suffered in any single operation. 219 members of the regiment were killed, giving a fatal casualty rate of around 17.35%, the highest of any formation in the battle. When the wounded and prisoners of war are included, the regiment's overall casualties were devastating, to the point that for the Rhine crossing operation in March 1945, Operation Varsity, a substantial number of RAF pilots had to be seconded to the regiment to make up the numbers.

Those losses reflected not a failure but an extraordinary commitment. The GPR pilots had flown their gliders in, delivered their loads accurately under fire, fought as infantry for nine days in an increasingly hopeless defensive perimeter and, at the end, helped to guide their comrades to the river. They had been asked to be "Total Soldiers", and they had been exactly that, at very great cost.

The regiment was eventually disbanded in 1957, as the era of the military glider came to an end. Its battle honours include Sicily 1943, Normandy 1944, Arnhem 1944, and the Rhine crossing 1945.

War Office Casualty List, Sergeant Platt is recorded as being held at Stalag II-A.

What happened to Sergeant Platt?

The Army Form B.104-83 sent to Sergeant Platt's family in October 1944 is a modest document. It is a printed form with blanks filled in by hand. It runs to fewer than two hundred words. But it represents a moment of profound anxiety for a family who did not know whether the man they loved was alive or dead, and a chapter in one of the most remarkable stories of the Second World War.

After his initial capture and incarceration, Sergeant Platt is listed on an updated War Office casualty list as serving with the 1st Battalion, Parachute Regiment. By 11 June 1945, the list shows that he was reported as a prisoner of war in German hands, but was marked as “Not Prisoner of War”. This means he was no longer officially considered a German POW. The record does not explain how this change occurred, whether he was liberated, as the European war had ended in May, escaped, or repatriated, or whether it was simply a correction of earlier information.

Evidence suggests that Platt was one of the Arnhem prisoners, all non-commissioned officers, sent to Stalag II-A/Camp Fünfeichen near Neubrandenburg. A Red Cross report from 14 November 1944 mentions 200 British non-commissioned officers captured at Arnhem, who arrived at the camp on 12 October 1944. The report describes poor camp conditions, including insufficient food, depleted Red Cross supplies, and shortages of socks, underwear, and shoes. There was no British chaplain, and recreation was very limited.

An oral history by David Arthur Brooks, a veteran of the 2nd Battalion, Parachute Regiment, and a POW at Stalag II-A, offers insights into camp life. He recalled a ten-day train journey to the camp without food, 200 men packed into two cattle trucks. The refusal of Arnhem POWs to work for the Germans and the resulting isolation, as the prisoners’ barrack was fenced off from the rest of the camp. Nevertheless, this didn’t stop some of the British prisoners from slipping under the wire and trading with Serbian prisoners. He talked about rationing and the arrival of Red Cross parcels in December 1944. Some prisoners were marched in from camps farther east, and many of them were in urgent need of medical assistance.

Brooks described the final days of the camp, which were marked by disputes regarding the burial of British prisoners and an attempted burial ceremony. There was also an RAF air drop of food and medical supplies, along with the arrival of Soviet Red Army units. The German guards’ families were entrusted to British POWs, as they feared potential reprisals from the Red Army.

After being liberated by the Russians, the prisoners were left to their own devices until an RAF officer arrived to arrange their transportation. They subsequently marched to Schwerin before returning to Britain aboard Dakota transport aircraft in May 1945. Following their return, Brooks and his comrades (we can only assume that Sergeant Platt was one of them) were moved to a camp near Haywards Heath, where they received new uniforms and £5 in cash, and were permitted to go home on leave the next day. Later in 1945, Stanley Platt got married. He passed away in March 2002, aged 83.

Sergeant Platt survived. Many of his comrades did not. Their names are recorded at the Arnhem-Oosterbeek War Cemetery, where 1,684 Commonwealth servicemen, many of them airborne forces, lie buried, tended by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and still visited every year by Dutch families who have kept faith with the men who came to liberate them.

The Glider Pilot Regiment may be less well known than the Parachute Regiment battalions with which it served, but the men who wore its Gold Lion with Blue Wings insignia deserve every bit as much to be remembered. If a piece of old paper leads you to ask who they were and what they did, that seems like a worthwhile place to start.

Charles Richard Trumpess is a military historian, author, and an Associate Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He is the author of “A History of the Guards Armoured Formations 1941-1945” (Pen & Sword Military, 2025) and “The Birth of British Special Forces” (Fonthill Media, 2026). ‍ ‍

References and Further Reading

Primary sources

Secondary sources and recommended reading

  • Beevor, A. (2018). Arnhem: The Battle for the Bridges, 1944. Viking. A comprehensive operational history of Market Garden.

  • Peters, M. and Buist, L. (2010). Glider Pilots at Arnhem. Pen & Sword Aviation. The definitive account of the GPR at Arnhem, drawing on personal testimonies and operational records.

  • Kershaw, R. (1996). It Never Snows in September: The German View of Market Garden and the Battle of Arnhem, September 1944. Sarpedon.

  • Urquhart, R.E. (1958). Arnhem. Cassell. Republished by Pen & Sword Military Classics (2008), The divisional commander's own account.

  • Seth, R. (1955). Lion With Blue Wings: The Story of the Glider Pilot Regiment 1942-1945. Victor Gollancz Ltd.

Online sources

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