ramonmercado
CyberPunk
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Happy Birthday Ron! May you continue to escape the Grim Reaper!
A pilot who escaped a prisoner of war camp after being captured in Allied attempts to end World War Two early has celebrated his 100th birthday.
Ron Johnson's first operational flight came in the 1944 battle for the bridge at Arnhem and he was taken prisoner after being shot by a sniper in subsequent fighting at Oosterbeek. He later escaped and hid "with a few biscuits" until he was rescued.
He said despite his age, he was "still feeling hale and hearty".
Mr Johnson, from Shrivenham, Swindon, was held in reserve on D-Day and flew during Operation Market Garden, an attempt to capture a series of bridges over rivers and canals on the Dutch/German border, in September 1944. The failure of the operation was famously retold in the 1977 film A Bridge Too Far.
The glider pilot was injured in subsequent fighting and taken to hospital, but it was overrun by German forces and he was taken prisoner.
He was held at Spangenberg Castle in central Germany, but six months later, he and fellow pilot Bob Garnett escaped and hid for over a week before being rescued by American soldiers and flown back to England.
IMAGE SOURCE,BERRY DE REUS
Image caption, Mr Johnson has revisited the Netherlands several times and on one occasion, he met with Agnes Schaap, mayor of Renkum
Roger de Beets, the chairman of the Airborne Commemorations Foundation
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-wiltshire-58862178
A pilot who escaped a prisoner of war camp after being captured in Allied attempts to end World War Two early has celebrated his 100th birthday.
Ron Johnson's first operational flight came in the 1944 battle for the bridge at Arnhem and he was taken prisoner after being shot by a sniper in subsequent fighting at Oosterbeek. He later escaped and hid "with a few biscuits" until he was rescued.
He said despite his age, he was "still feeling hale and hearty".
Mr Johnson, from Shrivenham, Swindon, was held in reserve on D-Day and flew during Operation Market Garden, an attempt to capture a series of bridges over rivers and canals on the Dutch/German border, in September 1944. The failure of the operation was famously retold in the 1977 film A Bridge Too Far.
The glider pilot was injured in subsequent fighting and taken to hospital, but it was overrun by German forces and he was taken prisoner.
He was held at Spangenberg Castle in central Germany, but six months later, he and fellow pilot Bob Garnett escaped and hid for over a week before being rescued by American soldiers and flown back to England.
Image caption, Mr Johnson has revisited the Netherlands several times and on one occasion, he met with Agnes Schaap, mayor of Renkum
Roger de Beets, the chairman of the Airborne Commemorations Foundation
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-wiltshire-58862178