Lance Sergeant Ernest Riddle

Ernest Riddle was the son of George and Annie Riddle, of Marylebone, London. He enlisted in the Middlesex Regiment and volunteered for airborne forces.

Lance Sergeant Riddle successfully completed his parachute training at RAF Ringway on course number 2 Advanced from 18 to 30 November 1941. He was posted to Medium Machine Gun Platoon, HQ Company, 2nd Battalion, the Parachute Regiment, and took part in operations in North Africa and Operation Market Garden (Arnhem).

L/Sgt Riddle was captured near the Rhine Bridge at Arnhem. He died at Stalag IXB, aged 27, and was buried in Wegscheide POW Cemetery, Bad-Orb, Hessen. Eleven bodies were recovered from this graveyard, and reburied in Durnbach War Cemetery in September 1947, but Ernest Riddle’s remains were not found. He is commemorated on the Groesbeek Memorial to the missing. (Roll of Honour, 5th Edition, 2011).