John Grayburn

Captain John Hollington Grayburn VC (30 January 1918 – 20 September 1944) was an English recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.

Born in 1918, Grayburn was educated at Sherborne School in Dorset and joined the Army Cadet Force before the outbreak of the Second World War.

He was initially commissioned into the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry and later joined the Parachute Regiment.

At the age of 26 he went into action in the Battle of Arnhem where he was part of the small force that was able to reach Arnhem road bridge.

Between 17 and 20 September he led his platoon, and later the remnants of a battalion, in the defence of the small British perimeter around the bridge, but was killed after standing up in full view of a German tank in order to direct his men to new positions.

Grayburn is buried in the Arnhem Oosterbeek War Cemetery, and his Victoria Cross is displayed at the Parachute Regiment and Airborne Forces Museum in England.

John Grayburn was born on 30 January 1918 on Manora Island, India, the son of Lionel Markham and Gertrude Grayburn.

The family returned to England whilst he was young.

Grayburn played rugby for the Chiltern Rugby Club between 1927 and 1939 and was a skilled boxer.

Grayburn joined the Army Cadet Force and was posted to the 1st (London) Cadet Force, The Queen's Royal Regiment.

From 1931 to 1935 he attended Sherborne School in Dorset where he was a member of Abbey House.

After leaving Sherborne School he joined the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation.

In September 1940 he was given an emergency commission to second lieutenant and was posted to the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry.

Grayburn was promoted to war substantive lieutenant in 1942 and married Marcelle Chambers, with whom he had a son, in the same year.

However, the Ox and Bucks remained on the home front and Grayburn became bored with the inactivity.

Instead he applied to the Parachute Regiment and in June 1943 he was transferred to the 7th (Light Infantry) Parachute Battalion.

The following year he was transferred to the regiment's 2nd Battalion, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel John Frost, and took command of 2 Platoon, A Company.

The Battle of Arnhem was part of Operation Market Garden, an attempt to secure a string of bridges through the Netherlands.

At Arnhem the British 1st Airborne Division and Polish 1st Independent Parachute Brigade were tasked with securing bridges across the Lower Rhine, the final objectives of the operation.

The Allies failed to cross the Rhine, which remained under German control until Allied offensives in March 1945.

1st Airborne Division's commanding officer, Major General Roy Urquhart, originally planned for the 2nd Battalion to lead the 1st Parachute Brigade into Arnhem to secure the road, rail and pontoon bridges over the Lower Rhine.

Frost chose Major Digby Tatham-Warter's A Company to lead the battalion's march from the drop zones to the bridges, knowing him to be "a thruster if ever there was".

A Company was in action almost at once, ambushing a small German recce group near the drop zone.

The company moved off through the woods toward the river road, with each platoon taking turns to lead.

There was a brief plan to advance the platoons by jeep once out of the woods, but German forces were encountered shortly afterwards and the idea was not followed up.

Grayburn had just arrived at a road junction and headed north when the men behind him came under enemy fire.

After laying a smokescreen he led a charge that cleared the enemy positions.

Tatham-Warter lacked confidence in the Airborne radio equipment and had trained his platoons to use bugle calls; it was with the charge that Grayburn signalled that the advance could be resumed.

A Company was not significantly delayed by the German patrols it encountered later, although the presence of cheering Dutch crowds delayed the whole battalion as it passed through Oosterbeek.

As they approached the railway bridge, C Company detached to capture it, but German engineers blew the bridge just as the British were starting to cross it.

A Company now encountered enemy armoured cars, but successfully skirted them by manoeuvering through the back gardens of the houses on either side of the road At 8pm, as darkness fell, Grayburn's platoon led A Company into Arnhem centre and under the main ramp of Arnhem road bridge.

Tatham-Warter deployed his platoons around the ramp; 2 Platoon covered both sides of the northernmost extreme of the ramp where it fed into the town centre.

Grayburn did not fire on the occasional German traffic still using the bridge, preferring not to advertise the Allied presence until the rest of the battalion had arrived.

Upon his arrival, Frost began securing more buildings around the ramp, and a small section attack was made on the bridge.

The German defenders quickly repulsed this however and Tatham-Warter organised a stronger attack, to be led by Grayburn.

As soon as it was sufficiently dark, Grayburn led his platoon along the ramp to the bridge, their faces blackened and their boots muffled with strips of torn up curtains.

However, the airborne forces that dropped on 17 September were not aware that the 9th SS and 10th SS Panzer divisions were also near Arnhem for rest and refit.

Their presence added a substantial number of Panzergrenadiers, tanks and self-propelled guns to the German defences and the Allies suffered heavily in the ensuing battle.

Only a small force managed to hold one end of the Arnhem road bridge before being overrun on 21 September.

The rest of the division became trapped in a small pocket west of the bridge and had to be evacuated on 25 September.