Lieutenant Edward E Shaw MC

In September 1944, Lieutenant Ted Shaw was the Commander of C Troop of the 1st Airlanding Anti-Tank Battery equipped with 6 pounders guns. Their task at Arnhem was to support the 3rd Parachute Battalion on Tiger route aiming to be the main occupying force at the road bridge.Expected to reach the road bridge in the late evening of the first day of the operation, the 3rd Battalion group never reached the bridge.

Their advance was halted in the area of the St Elisabeth's Hospital (the MDS of 16 Parachute Field Ambulance), about a mile from the bridge on the morning of 19 September 1944. Early in the action, Ted described how he was sitting at the foot of the stairs in a house when he heard a Bren gun firing from further up the road and soon afterwards two Germans forced their way into the house only 6 or 7 feet from where he was sitting. Ted recalled opening fire with his Sten. One fell down inside the house and one outside. The one inside was wounded in the stomach. Ted made him as comfortable as he could in a chair, but could not do much more because there was the sound of firing at the rear of the house. It seemed a good time to move on.

With a few men of his troop, they tried to get out the back of the house only to be faced with a long drop. Ted thinking on his feet got a long table, put it out of the window and they slid down on it. It was literally out of the frying pan and into the fire as they came under immediate fire and had to get back in the house they had just left. They eventually escaped by dashing down the street to safer ground.

Later, Lt Shaw distinguished himself in a defensive battle when the 3rd Battalion group were positioned in houses in western Arnhem. It is recorded that he gave ‘an almost superhuman display of persistent gallantry.’ The majority of his troop were either killed or wounded but with a dwindling band of survivors he continued to man various guns until he was ‘the last man’ standing.

He was one of the members of the 3rd Battalion group who made it back to Oosterbeek where he took part in the Perimeter battle. He did not make it across the river and was taken prisoner. For his actions at Arnhem, Ted was awarded a Military Cross.

In later life Ted Shaw was the UK representative for the Society of Friends of the Airborne Museum Oosterbeek for many years. Ted died in 2005.

Profile photo kindly supplied by Colin Allen.