Name
Richard William West(*1)
Conflict
Second World War
Date of Death / Age
06/10/1944
21
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Staff Serjeant
926508
The Glider Pilot Regiment, A.A.C.
2nd Wing
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
Arnhem Oosterbeek War Cemetery
24. A. 9.
Netherlands
Headstone Inscription
WITH OTHER COMRADES BY YOUR SIDE, THAT WE MIGHT LIVE, FOR US YOU DIED
UK & Other Memorials
Hitchin Town Memorial, St. John's War Memorial, Hitchin, St. Mary's Church Memorial, Hitchin, Hitchin Roll of Honour 1939 – 1945 (Book) St Mary’s Church, Hitchin
Biography
He was born in Hertfordshire but at the time he enlisted was resident in Hampshire. His Service Number was 926508 and at first he served as a horn player in a Royal Artillery band. He then joined the Glider Pilot Regiment, 1st Wing on the l 7th June 1942. He took part in the famous landings at Arnhem called Operation ‘Market Garden’ and died of wounds in Apeldoorn Hospital in Holland. He was recommended for a Distinguished Flying Medal, but it was never approved. Sadly, all the operational records of the unit were destroyed at the end of ‘Market Garden’ when the British were compelled to surrender to the Germans.
He is buried in Plot 24 Row A Grave 9 in Oosterbeek Cemetery Holland. His headstone shows a private inscription reading ‘‘Winds of heaven blow softly here where lies sleeping those we love so dear". The headstone also mentions that he was in the Glider Pilot Regiment of the Army Air Corps.
Additional Information
*1 We believe that he appears as P W West on the St. John's War Memorial, but also see the entry for P W West.
Acknowledgments
David C Baines – ‘Hitchin’s Century of Sacrifice’, Paul Johnson - local historian, Mrs D.E. Webb
