A Collection of Medals to Members of the Special and Airborne Forces

Seven: Private J. Harrison, Parachute Regiment and Army Air Corps, late Cameronians, a member of one of “Lonsdale’s Force” who evaded capture at Arnhem in September 1944

1939-45 Star; Africa Star; France and Germany Star; Defence and War Medals; General Service 1918-62, 1 clasp, Palestine 1945-48 (3246747 Pte., A.A.C.); Efficiency Medal, G.VI.R., 2nd issue, Territorial (3246747 Pte., Para.), very fine and better (7) £1200-1500

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Collection of Medals to Members of the Special and Airborne Forces.

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John “Jock” Harrison, originally from Glasgow, enlisted in the Cameronians aged 17 years and, after training on Bofors and anti-tank weapons, served in North Africa, including the actions at “Knightsbridge” and Tobruk. He then volunteered for the 11th Battalion, Parachute Regiment, forming in Palestine, and fought at Arnhem in September 1944, when he was among those to make their escape over the Rhine - his Battalion had been surrounded at Den Brink and reduced to 150 all ranks, following which the second-in-command, Major R. T. H. “Dickie” Lonsdale, D.S.O., M.C. withdrew them to Oosterbeek church, where he told them they must ‘stand or fall, and fight to the last round’. And so they did, just a handful from “Lonsdale’s Force” eventually making it over the Rhine on the 25th - an accompanying obituary from the Leicestershire Branch of the Parachute Association states that Harrison was saved by ‘a Geordie woman, Mary Baer, the wife of a Dutchman’, through whose terraced house he made his escape as the net closed.