9:14am Monday 6th September 2010
By Clive White
A former paratrooper is to re-visit the site of one of the most moving episodes of his wartime service.
Jack Lockwood, 84, will pay homage to a friend who died as the Airborne Division advanced across Germany in May, 1945, and was buried quickly in a shallow grave.
Jack, who joined up in Skipton, helped bury his comrade who was one of 20 who died while crossing a bridge.
He is making the trip back to the location, accompanied by his son Ian, of Skipton, former editor of T&A sister paper the Craven Herald, to meet the man who watched the drama unfold from his bedroom as as a ten-year-old boy.
“It will be a very moving occasion for me,” said Mr Lockwood, who lived in Burnside, Skipton, after the war and helped found and played for Skipton Town football club.
“The man is now in his 70s but he saw what happened. We buried the men in very shallow graves about two feet deep. It wasn’t until 1953 that their remains were removed and put into the Celle War Cemetery, which is kept beautifully by the Germans.”
Jack was among the troops that swept across Germany, ending up by the Baltic coast at Wismar where they met up with the Russian Army.
He added: “Events like this where we lost those men when a bridge was blown by the Germans, sticks in your memory when you’re only 18.”
Jack is one of a number of people across Yorkshire who have won a National Lottery grant which is being offered to veterans to help them return to the places where they served.
The fund is to mark the 66th anniversary of Operation Market Garden – one of the most daring in the Allied offensive in World War Two.
He now lives in Hull with his wife, Rita, but while in Skipton worked for the Yorkshire Electricity Board.
© Copyright 2001-2012 Newsquest Media Group
http://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/trade_directory/