Corporal Leslie Woods

Leslie Woods enlisted into the Royal Ulster Rifles.

Rifleman Woods volunteered for airborne forces in April 1943. After the selection process at Hardwick Hall was complete he was sent to RAF. Ringway to undergo his parachute training. Completing course 61B/62, in early May 1943 with the instructor commenting: ‘Rfn Woods: Quiet man, good performer.’This was a re-inforcement course for the 1st Parachute Brigade, which was in North Africa and they were soon sent out on a troopship as part of a large convoy.

Rfn Woods was posted to The 2nd Parachute Battalion (2 Para Bn).He jumped with the 1st Parachute Brigade during the hard fought costly attempt to secure the Primosole Bridge in Sicily on 13 July 1943; and participated in the later sea landings and fighting around Taranto in Italy the following September. In November he returned to the UK.

On 17 September 1944 Corporal Woods jumped into Arnhem on Operation Market Garden with 9 Platoon, C Company 2 Para Bn between the evening of 17 September and Monday 18 September he was taken a Prisoner of War.

Cpl Woods demobbed in January 1946.

Norton Woods, Leslie's grandson recalls this about his grandfather.:

"At some point during Leslie’s training and we believe it was his Para course, he was asked to be a weapons instructor and specifically the Bren Gun as he could fire from both arms equally. He ultimately ended up being a Bren gunner we believe. He turned down this opportunity as he was trained to fight and wanted to contribute to the war effort in this way.

On numerous occasions he spoke about his time at Arnhem and talked about how he saw his friend killed on the bridge by being shot in the back. This stuck with him and I think he felt it was unacceptable to shoot someone in the back like this.

Once the Germans had over run the Para’s at Arnhem a lot of them were hidden by the Dutch residents who tried to help them. He recalled of his capture and how a Dutch family had hidden him in a wardrobe at their house and one of his team were hidden in the house next door. He could hear the Germans searching houses and they found the Para in the house next door. The Germans then proceeded to kill everyone in that house including the children.

Leslie jumped out of a window and ran down the road before giving himself up so that the family hiding him wouldn’t be killed!

He was taken to a POW camp which is really where he was effected most. He told many stories of the despicable way the Germans treated the Russians POW’s. They would segregate them and starve them to death. They would throw Green lumps of fat into the Russian compound and watch them fight over the food.

Leslie was a very agile and athletic man and also very light being only 5’5. At night he used to go over the fence into the potato field outside and throw potatoes over the fence to the Russians knowing that he would be killed if found!!! 

Once home he spent hours and hours every day ironing his clothes. Apparently this was the only way they could kill the bugs in their clothes in the POW camp. This stuck with him for a long time.

He used to tell us funny stories about his training and specifically the glider training. He would tell of how the gliders were terrible and used to crash land on a regular basis. One such landing was in a farm where they ended up in a chicken coup and they then proceeded to kill the chickens and take them for dinner!

He hated the gliders and left at the earliest opportunity to parachute instead. He spoke about how so many of them used to bash their heads jumping through the hole in the floor of the balloons."