‘It’s important we remember those who gave their lives for our freedom’

GEOFF Roberts is fighting once more this time for his Second World War friends to be given one last chance to honour their fallen comrades.

- By Giles Sheldrick

The veteran, who turns 100 in June, is mustering all his might to return to the scene of his finest hour and wants fellow veterans to be able to do the same.

He backs the Express Respect Our War Heroes campaign which calls on the Government to pay for a dwindling band of the greatest generation to attend commemorative events this summer.

The Battle of Arnhem soldier said: "I think it's very important in these current times that we remember those who gave their lives for our freedom and peace in Europe. We should never forget."

Our crusade urges the Prime Minister to give Second World War heroes the opportunity to take centre stage at ceremonies in the UK and on the Continent in a momentous few months.

It comes after funds from a government scheme dried up, leading to fears old soldiers could miss out on what might be their last chance to salute comrades.

Geoff was 19 and in the 7th Battalion King's Own Scottish Borderers when he was sent as part of a crack team to help liberate Nazi-held Netherlands.

On September 17, 1944, he flew from the UK alongside two pilots and 27 other troops in a 30-seater Horsa glider towed by an RAF plane. Geoff was captured during the assault and held as a prisoner of war. He was one of 765 men from the battalion dropped on to the Continent. By the end of the Battle of Arnhem 112 were dead, 577 were reported missing and 76 were evacuated back to Britain.

During the bloody battle some 35,000 Allies valiantly fought the Germans for nine days in some of the fiercest fighting of the war. It resulted in the award of five Victoria Crosses, four of them posthumous, and is immortalised in the 1977 epic A Bridge Too Far.