A Place to Remember, Learn, and Honour the Light that Shines in the Darkest Nights This community isn’t just about the Battle of Arnhem. It’s about the extraordinary courage, sacrifice, and humanity displayed during one of the most harrowing battles of World War II. The Battle of Arnhem—part of Operation Market Garden, the largest airborne operation ever mounted—was more than a failed attempt to seize a bridge. It became a nine-day crucible of fire and fury, a desperate struggle for survival in a place the Germans would come to call the Hexenkessel—the Witches’ Cauldron. Here, against impossible odds, surrounded and isolated, the British 1st Airborne Division, alongside the often-overlooked Polish Independent Parachute Brigade, fought with a tenacity and grit that defies belief. It was a battle of extremes: lightly armed airborne infantry facing Tiger tanks and self-propelled guns, Fallschirmjäger defending their own doorstep, and civilians caught in the firestorm. But this community isn’t just about the soldiers. It’s about everyone who stood up in the face of tyranny: • The Dutch civilians who opened their homes, like Kate ter Horst, the “Angel of Arnhem,” whose house became a sanctuary for the wounded amidst relentless bombardment. • The Dutch underground, who risked everything to aid Allied survivors, guiding them through the darkness after the battle ended. • The medical staff who stayed behind when the order to withdraw came, treating the wounded under the shadow of German control. The courage, compassion, and sacrifice of Arnhem are timeless. They are not just stories of the past; they are reminders of what we, as human beings, are capable of when faced with overwhelming adversity. This community is a torchbearer for those stories.

This is your community. You tell us what you're most interested to see & learn. What you've learned that inspires you, what was a revelation to you to discover? Learning and discovery should be fun. And it's a family show so the younger generations are the ones who'll be travelling to Arnhem & Oosterbeek each year. It's as much about enabling and inspiring their enthusiasm as much as feeding ours. So to that end I'm incentivising. On the right hand side of your page under the Arnhem Banner is a Leaderboard for 30 day engagement. Underneath that is a link to more Leaderboards for 7 day and all-time engagement. How do you get points for engagement? Writing posts which attract likes from other members of the community. Subject matter appropriate please. The 30-day Winner of this Competition will be announced each month, (on the 1st, so that September Winners have a slim chance to make arrangements) and all monthly winners will join me (with their plus 1 upon request) for a dedicated tour around all the major Arnhem and Oosterbeek landmarks* over the course of 2 days of each Airborne Weekend in Arnhem, every September. If the weather is good and the group is happy, we'll do it on hire bikes. It's fun that way, cycles have right of way over cars, cyclepaths are segregated and there's an additional fitness element to it, and the beers at the end of the day are all the more welcome. The experience will be followed by Dinner on the Saturday at Klein Hartenstein OR The Pancake House on Utrechtseweg depending on the preference of the winners at the time. Klein Hartenstein is a well-heeled posh restaurant directly next door to the Hartenstein Hotel in Oosterbeek; the Pancake house is considerably more relaxed. Both rated well. Good wine at the former, good beer at the latter. * Reasonable restrictions & conditions apply, but in particular: + Each winner person will only get one spot on the tour (with a plus-1 on request) and one Dinner expense covered. Your plus-1s will have to cover their Dinner expense themselves, or you will.

Welcome one and all to the community as an alternate to a page on the usual social channels. This is just as much about you and your interest and links and dits as it is about the very well documented events that still fires the imagination and continues to inspire people to come and see for themselves. Please do introduce yourselves here, what your interest and connection is to the place. What you want to discover, learn, contribute if anything? It is currently free to join, either by my invitation or by your referral in to the group. Those of you who join as free members will retain your free membership - BUT in return please, this community is not supposed to be just me being 'stuck on send'. As a tongue-in-cheek condition of founding free membership, your contribution to discussion, spinning dits, bringing new information to light is a very valuable resource please. It will add considerable energy to the build and will give more people more reasons to interact. And I get bored of the sound of my own voice. I will at some point flick across to a paid group for new members to join, not least because I will by then have invested a fair bit of time and effort building out the content. I'll continue to develop out the content but to do so will require more trips and more time across there, at Kew National Archives etc. I'm keen to serve the community and keep these stories alive for the enjoyment, entertainment and inspiration and marvel of many generations to follow. I'll go first with the introductions: My own connection to the battle is through my maternal Grandfather, Lt Roderick Pearson and so much of my interest and content begins with him and his unit, the 1st Airlanding Light Regiment Royal Artillery. He and his Regiment, equipped with and firing 75mm Pack Howitzer shells ,were dug in around the Old Church in Lower Oosterbeek, in the South Eastern corner of what became the Airborne defensive Perimeter. This Sector saw a lot of Jerry attention SS Panzer tank and Self Propelled Gun attacks from the direction of Arnhem along the river road, all intending to drive a wedge between the units of 1 Airborne Div and the river, to deny them a possible route of escape.