Major Thomas E Montgomery

Thomas Everard Montgomery was the son of Thomas and Gladys Montgomery and the husband of Lavender Montgomery, of Kilshannig, County Cork, Irish Republic. He was commissioned on 14 December 1940 into The Border Regiment.

Major Montgomery successfully completed his glider training and was posted to Command A Company, 1st (Airborne) Battalion, Border Regiment, and took part in Operation Market Garden (Arnhem).

According to the famous Dutch amateur historian of the Battle of Arnhem. Th. A. Boeree, it is likely that Maj Montgomery was wounded in the head at Oosterbeek on 20 September 1944. Apparently he was taken to a hospital at Apeldoorn a few days later, but the records do not show his name. It is assumed he was nursed in the St Antonius Ziekenhuis at Utrecht. Ultimately the major died of his wounds, aged 36, in the hospital at Lingen (Ems), Germany. On-the-spot investigations indicate that he was interred in the New Cemetery at Lingen, row 13, grave 11, but after the war this plot turned out to be empty. A special memorial headstone has been placed for him in the Arnhem Oosterbeek War Cemetery, at first to the right of the entrance near the hedge, but since June 2006 in plot 25.C.12. (Battle of Arnhem Roll of Honour, 5th revised edition, 2011).

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