Lieutenant Reginald B Woods

Reginald Bryan Woods was the son of Captain Alfred Reginald Woods and Eileen Elizabeth Woods of Lenaderg, County Down, Northern Ireland.

Bryan was studying at Cambridge when war was declared and later granted an emergency commission with The Royal Ulster Rifles on 1 March 1941.

He was posted to 1st Battalion, RUR, which at that time was based in the Black Mountains on defence duties and formed part of 31st Infantry Brigade Group. He was nicknamed ‘Lakari’ by the old hands of the battalion who had served in India.

Later that year the brigade was reorganised and formally redesignated on 10 December 1941 as 1st Airlanding Brigade Group. The battalion spent the following months training for its new gliderborne air assault role with 1st Airborne Division.

In 1943, Bryan volunteered for service with The Parachute Regiment and attended course 61B which started at RAF Ringway on 26 April 1943. The instructors’ notes record that Bryan was an “excellent leader, capable and efficient performer.” The course was shortened because of the urgent need to supply reinforcements to 1st Parachute Brigade following the bloody fighting and heavy losses sustained in Tunisia.

Bryan joined the 2nd Parachute Battalion on 2 June 1943 and went onto fight in Sicily, Italy and Arnhem, where he commanded the battalion’s mortar platoon. He was heavily involved in the battalion’s struggle to hold the road bridge against overwhelming odds but was injured by shrapnel towards the end of the battle and later transferred to Stalag XIB at Soltau where he died of his wounds.

Lt Bryan Woods died on 14 October 1944, aged 25 years, and was initially given a field burial in the local POW cemetery. He is now buried at Becklingen War Cemetery in Germany.

Profile photograph courtesy of Airborne Forces Museum Oosterbeek.

Further Reading
'Brotherhood of the Cauldron' Irishmen in the 1st Airborne Division from North Africa to Arnhem by David Truesdale Redcoat Publishing.
'Arnhem Spearhead' by James Sims published by Imperial War Museum. Sims served in the 2nd Battalion Mortar Platoon under Lt Woods at Arnhem and there are numerous references to Lt Woods in Sims' personal account of the actions at Arnhem.