The Fife Free Press. September 1994.

NEWS.

Glider Pilot unravels Arnhem link mystery. By Iain Muirhead.

A MILITARY mystery which has been solved . . . at the double. And The Fife Free Press, which joined forces with a Burntisland ex-serviceman to crack the conundrum, can now reveal the incredible story of a hastily-carved wartime message which, like its author, has survived to this day.

Former naval serviceman David Gladwin answered a call issued in the Royal Artillery’s magazine ‘The Gunner’. A Spanish reader visiting friends in the historic World War Two battle-zone of Arnhem was shown a message scribbled on a door jamb in a Dutch cellar. Providing brief details of a Burntisland soldier on the run from German troops, it had beaten all the odds to remain readable.

David, like the Spaniard, was intrigued to know whether the hero had made it out alive. And, within hours of his appeal appearing in the Fife Free Press, he had his answer.

Former glider pilot Richard Wilson is alive and well and living in Aberdeenshire, and this week recounted the story of his Arnhem adventure. Now aged 69, he explained: “I flew a glider into Arnhem carrying artillery. After landing, I was separated from my Regiment and continued fighting with other people. A day or two before being evacuated across the river, we ended up defending this house. Things looked rather dicey and I was going to ask the people there if I could write my mother’s name and address on a piece of paper, so they could let her know after the war that they’d last seen me alive. But I knew the Germans would be taking over and thought the family would be accused of collaborating if they found the paper. So, I carved it up above a lintel on the doorway in a dark part of the cellar, in the hope it would be found later after the liberation.

“I had my doubts whether I would survive because there were so many people being killed or wounded, and I didn’t think I was going to be so lucky. That was the last time I had heard about it until now. I had more or less forgotten about it, and I thought that the house was bound to have been bombed. It’s incredible that this has now come out of the blue, especially so close to the 50^th anniversary”.

One of the lucky few to survive the costly landings, the 19-year-old sergeant escaped by clinging to a boat which was evacuating troops across the river at Arnhem. And although this was the last wartime action he was to see, he went on to complete 27 years service with British Army units around the world.

Now retired to a farm cottage near Ello, Richard hopes to return to Arnhem to see his handiwork for himself.

And a delighted David Gladwin is now looking forward to passing on the good news to those intrigued by a Burntisland mystery in the corner of some foreign field.