The Vickers MG during Operation MARKET GARDEN

17th September 1944 was the launch of Operation MARKET GARDEN and to recognise that, we've taken the opportunity to prepare a video on how the British airborne forces used the Vickers machine gun, with a particular focus on the 1st Airborne Division and their time at Arnhem and Oosterbeek. We also talk about the development of the Vickers' use in the airlanding and parachute units as it's not a simple evolution. Rich Fisher is joined by Matt Yates, another of the VMGCRA's directors as Matt's specialism is gliders and glider pilots - he runs the CHALK Living History group. Airlanding units used Horsa gliders to transport their MMGs and we discuss how they were loaded and how they were used.

For more information on parachuting the Vickers into action, please visit: Parachuting with the Vickers machine gun

CHALK Living History and more of Matt's work can be found at: Chalk Living History

 

Excellent work (as always!) Richard.

And if you've not seen it before you will find something of interest for you within the film footage collection of the IWM, link within the thread here. Viewing said footage is one and a half hours well spent. Here's the link;

Airborne in North Africa

Kind regards, keep doing what you are doing, always,

Jim.

 

Excellent work!

Fred Moore was a Vickers MG crew member at Arnhem and shares his story here:

BBC - WW2 People's War - Arnhem - Chapter 1

 

A couple of books worth reading are "An Arnhem Odyssey" which is Jim Longson's story as well as general info on the Border Regiment at Arnhem (I'm sure the first time I met Rich many years ago we spoke about Jim and the book) & "With a Machine Gun to Arnhem" which came out recently and follows Stephen Morgan's battle

 

Thanks to AB64 for his memory jogging post.

From a few years back, the dear late Steve Morgan in fine form, his Arnhem, in his own words.





Always remember, never forget,

Jim.

 

Thanks for all the kind comments. I bought Steve Morgan's book recently but completely forgot about it! I think it's even still on the desk where I was editting this - very foolish of me. Perhaps I'll do a follow up over the next day or two.

Rich

 

If anyone would like to read a little more about Airlanding battalions and their machine gunners, I wrote an article for Glider Pilot Notes a while ago. A copy of it is available here: (PDF) Airlanding Machine Gunners

 

Just remembered another one for you Rich (and others) "Chalk 619 Doomed even before it started - the story of MMG Platoon 156 Parachute Battalion"