Fallen soldiers from a Midland town – including one who died in the famous bid to capture Arnhem bridge – are set to be remembered in a town’s street names.
All 22 new roads in the Milestone Way housing development in Chasetown, in Staffordshire, will be named in tribute to all the heroes named on the town’s war memorial.
So far descendants of 16 of the men have given the plan the green light and the district council is now just awaiting word from the final four to rubber-stamp the idea.
In three cases, the soldiers had the same surname – Wright – so their full names will be used.
One of the Chasetown men who died fighting for his country, was Trooper Frederick Brawn who was a part of the ill-fated Operation Market Garden, immortalised in the film A Bridge Too Far.
The brainchild of General Bernard Law Montgomery, the operation involved landing three groups of paratroopers along the route to Arnhem in a bid to open the way into Germany in one fell swoop.
However, the mission ended in disaster for the British airborne forces when they could not be relieved in time, and most were killed or captured in desperate battles against two German Waffen SS Panzer divisions which happened to be in the area.
Trooper Brawn, who had landed by glider was killed aged just 21 on September 19, 1944.
Remarkably the day before he died, Brawn, of Troop C, Reconnaissance Corps, 1st Airlanding Squadron, was being filmed by the Army Film and Photographic Unit on Duitsekampweg at Wolfheze, in the Netherlands.
He was one of several men killed as their convoy of jeeps raced through fierce enemy machine gun fire in a “desperate” bid for survival after being cut off.
According to the book Operation Market Garden, Then and Now (Karel Margry 2002), a patrol of seven jeeps: “containing 30 men of C Troop was badly shot up on the Ede-Arnhem main road. The troop had been scouting out from Wolfheze towards the Ginkel Heath when it found itself virtually cut off with enemy troops on all sides.
“Their only option was to make a desperate dash out of encirclement down the main road, racing at 60mph through the German positions with all guns firing.
“In the event only two jeeps and eight men managed to escape in this way; the other five jeeps were stopped, five of the men killed and the rest taken prisoner.”
Another fellow Chasetown soldier was father-of-one AC John Vayro.
When the Second World War broke out he became part of the British Expeditionary Force and took part in key battles around Dunkirk and Normandy, luckily managing to escape back to Britain.
He took part in the invasion of Europe in 1944, and was wounded as his battalion fought to hold a bridge over a tributary of the river Niers near Goch on September 27, 1945. But the enemy counter-attacks were so fierce he could not be rescued until the following day and later died from his injuries.
