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WW2 veteran, 97, parachutes again

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WW2 veteran, 97, parachutes again

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Commemorations have been held to mark the 75th anniversary of Operation Market Garden during World War Two, near Arnhem in the Netherlands.

The 1944 operation saw around 35,000 allied soldiers land by parachute and gliders behind enemy lines - in a failed bid to secure bridges to open up a route into Germany.

A mass parachute jump and wreath-laying ceremony on Saturday was attended by the Prince of Wales and veterans.

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Veteran Sandy Cortmann, 97, completed a tandem parachute jump as part of the service

The Prince of Wales, the Colonel-in-Chief of the Parachute Regiment, accompanied by Princess Beatrix of The Netherlands, met veterans of the operation on Saturday, to mark its 75th anniversary.
After landing Mr Cortmann, still wearing his red flight suit and returning to the area for the first time since the war, waved to onlookers and a mass of cameras from his wheelchair as he took his place for a memorial service on the heath.

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The Prince of Wales, wearing a multi-terrain patterned shirt and trousers and maroon beret of the Parachute Regiment, laid a wreath during the service bearing the handwritten message: "In everlasting remembrance, Charles."

What was Operation Market Garden?

Operation Market Garden was Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery's ill-fated plan to drop some 35,000 paratroopers deep behind enemy lines in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands.

Their mission was to capture and secure key roads and bridges, so that Allied forces massed in Belgium could pour into Germany's industrial heartland and bring World War II to an end.

The British 1st Airborne Division led the huge airborne assault in September 1944 that also involved the US Army's 101st Airborne Division and 82nd Airborne Division, along with Poland's 1st Independent Parachute Brigade.

But once on the ground, the Allied troops met with stubborn German resistance in and around the city of Arnhem and their advance stalled on a bridge there spanning the River Rhine in a battle immortalised in the book and Hollywood film "A Bridge Too Far."More Allied troops — about 11,500 — died in the nine days of Operation Market Garden than in the D-Day landings.

The subsequent fighting around Arnhem saw more than 1,500 Commonwealth soldiers killed, nearly 6,500 captured and five Victoria Crosses awarded.

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