Corporal Robert H Summerfield

Robert Henry Summerfield, son of Robert and Jane Summerfield, of Gullane, East Lothian, enlisted in the Royal Scots and then volunteered for airborne forces.

Corporal Summerfield successfully completed his parachute training at RAF Ringway, on course number 4 from 17 to 23 December 1941, and was then posted to C Company, 9 Platoon, 9 Section, 3rd Parachute Battalion, and took part in Operation Market Garden (Arnhem).

Cpl Summerfield was murdered whilst a POW, on 20 September 1944, aged 26, in Van Oldenbarneveldstraat at Arnhem, east of the Rhine Bridge. The SS man involved took out a photo of his wife from the corporal’s wallet and tore it to pieces. The Brit reacted to this by stepping forward, and the German shot him. He was possibly first buried as an unknown soldier in the Moscowa General Cemetery at Arnhem, and was later reinterred as such in the Oosterbeek War Cemetery (Battle of Arnhem, Roll of Honour, 5th revised edition, 2011). He is commemorated on the Groesbeek Memorial to the missing.

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