Sergeant Henry Parkinson

Henry Parkinson, the son of Ernest and Florence Parkinson, was born in Lancashire in 1916. He attended Bury Grammar School, (along with Lieutenant Des Turner also later served as a glider pilot at Arnhem. although they do not appear to have known one another.). He married Phyllis Lily Cox in St Albans in mid-1944, a few months before the Battle of Arnhem.

Henry originally enlisted with the Lancashire Fusiliers before volunteering for Airborne service. He became a Sergeant and served with F Squadron, 14 Wing, of the Glider Pilot Regiment and took part in the Battle of Arnhem, during Op Market Garden.

Sergeant Parkinson flew to Arnhem as the second pilot to Staff Sergeant ‘Syd' Dobbs. They took off from RAF Blakehill Farm on 17 September 1944 in a Horsa glider towed by a Dakota transport aircraft. They delivered their cargo safely and then, like all British glider pilots fought as ordinary infantrymen.

During the defence of the 1st Airborne Division HQ at the Hartenstein Hotel at Oosterbeek, Sergeant Dobbs went away from the glider pilot lines to help man an anti-tank gun. On his return he found that Harry Parkinson and several others had been killed by two German FW 190 aircraft which had attacked their position.

Sergeant Parkinson died on 20 September 1944, aged 28 years old. He was originally given a field burial near to Sonnerberg House, before being reinterred later at Oosterbeek War Cemetery, Arnhem.

Profile photo supplied by Harvey Grenville