Signalman William T P Shaw

William Thomas Patrick Shaw originally enlisted into The Essex Regiment before transferring to the Royal Corps of Signals. He had already seen active service in North Africa when he volunteered for Airborne Forces.

Signalman Shaw successfully completed Parachute Course 101, at RAF Ringway, 31 January to 13 February 1944. His course report stated: “Awkward and nervous and slow, but jumped quite well”.

He was posted to No 1 Company, 1st Airborne Division Signals, then based at Honington Hall in Lincolnshire. He was assigned to ‘C’ Section under the command of Lieut. A.D. Polley. The Section’s main responsibility was laying line between the different elements of the Divisional Headquarters, when it was set up ‘in the field’.

On Sunday, 17 September 1944, he took off in a Dakota aircraft of the USAAF, from Barkston Heath aerodrome, bound for DZ ‘X’ near Renkum in Holland as part of Operation ‘Market-Garden’.

Signalman Shaw was killed in action on 24 September 1944, aged 22, and, according to the CWGC, was given a field burial in a field by the side of the Hartenstein Hotel, Oosterbeek, and was re-interred to Arnhem/Oosterbeek War Cemetery on 6 September 1945.

Research in the 1980’s gives a different location, which is 500 metres further North, in a field by the junction of the Oranjeweg and Bothaweg.

The son of W H and Ellen Shaw, of Twickenham, Middlesex, he now lies at rest in grave 17. B. 14.

Profile picture taken at Honington Hall June 1944.