T/289891. Driver. David Buckley.

‘D’ Transport Platoon, 250^th Airborne Light Composite Company, RASC.

David Buckley was born on the 1 January 1922 and came from Thornton Heath Surrey. Before he joined the Army he worked as a slater & tiler. His father was John Alfred Buckley, and his mother Nellie Buckley nee Payne. He enlisted in   the Royal Army Service Corps on the 18 September 1941. He was posted to the 250,^th Divisional Airborne Light Composite Company, RASC on the 9 July 1942, where he was assigned as a Driver to ‘D’ Transport Platoon.

In May 1943 the Company went to North Africa, along with the other units of the 1^st Airborne Division, to prepare for airborne operations in Sicily. The Company was not involved in this, but did have a Detachment take part in Operation ‘Slapstick’ in Southern Italy in September 1943, and then another Detachment remained there for several months training other RASC units in Air Re-supply. He served with at least one of these Detachments.

By the summer of 1944 he was still serving with ‘D’ Transport Platoon, in the Section which was to support No 1 Parachute Platoon.

In August 1944 he was at a Transit Camp at RAF. Harwell, along with the rest of ‘D’ Transport Platoon, as they waited to take part in an airborne operation. After several false stars this turned out to be Operation ‘Market-Garden’. He would fly out to Holland on the 2^nd Lift, Monday 18 September 1944.

Horsa gliders No’s 919 to 923, carried five Jeeps, ten trailers and 15 – 16 men of ‘D’ Transport Platoon, attached to No 1 Parachute Platoon, as their Jeep Section. Each glider had a jeep, two trailers (filled with ammunition or supplies, and two or three men). These gliders were piloted by men of 17 Flight, ‘A’ Squadron, flying out of RAF Tarrant Rushton, and towed by 298 and 644 Squadrons, RAF All of these landed successfully on LZ. ‘X’.

His glider was hit by machine gun fire upon landing and he was hit in the right arm. He was able to make his way to an Aid Station, where later he was taken prisoner, on the 24 September 1944. He was initially sent to the temporary ‘Airborne’ hospital, in the King Wilhelm Barracks, at Apeldoorn, but then left there on the 26 September 1944, with a party of walking wounded.

He was sent to Stalag 11B, at Falingbostel in Germany, arriving there on the 28 September 1944,  and given the POW No. 117834. Stalag 11B was liberated, by advancing British Army Forces, on the 16 April 1945.

Researched by and images donated by R Hilton