The Kennet Valley at War

Today, after the passage of more than sixty years, it’s difficult to appreciate the important part the Kennet Valley played in the defeat of Nazi tyranny during World War Two. At the beginning of the 1940s the valley was, as it still is, a predominately rural area and the vast majority of its male population worked on the land or had jobs that were directly associated with agriculture. The recession of the late 1920s and early 1930s had a devastating effect on the rural economy and many farms suffered years of neglect – the coming war was to change all that.

	Pfc. James 'Pee Wee' Martin from the US 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment pictured at Camp Ramsbury during the winter of 1943/44.

On Sunday 3rd September 1939 British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain announced that Britain was at war with Germany. Within days the 48th (South Midland) Division had started to form up in the Hungerford area and used Littlecote House as its Divisional Headquarters. The 67th Field Regiment Royal Artillery was attached to the division and moved into the villages of Ramsbury and Aldbourne.

In May 1940 Hitler launched his invasion of France and the low-countries and a new word ‘Blitzkrieg’ (meaning lightening war) entered the British vocabulary. By the middle of June all of western Europe was under Nazi control and Hitler’s armies were making plans for the invasion of Britain, which they codenamed ‘Sealion’. All across the United Kingdom anti-invasion measures were being hurriedly put into place. In every town and village across the nation a new civilian army, called the Local Defence Volunteers (later renamed the Home Guard), was formed to help the Army keep a lookout for German parachutists. A vast complex of pillboxes, anti-tank ditches and other obstacles were constructed beside the banks of rivers, along canals and beside railway lines, and the Kennet and Avon canal became part of a defensive barrier known as the ‘Blue line’. This vast construction programme took just six months to complete and was the biggest of its type ever undertaken in the United Kingdom. Fortunately the defences were never tested in anger, as in the summer of 1940, during a period now known as ‘The Battle of Britain’, just three thousand young RAF fighter pilots (whom Churchill dubbed ‘The Few’) thwarted Hitler’s invasion plans.

	Aircraft from the 436th Troop Carrier Group pictured at Membury shortly before operation Market Garden.

By June of 1941 Hitler had turned his attention east towards Russia, relieving the pressure on Britain’s hard stretched defences. The only means by which Britain could strike back was to bomb Germany’s industrial centres and to help achieve this aim hundreds of new airfields were constructed all across Britain. Five of these, Ramsbury, Membury, Welford, Greenham Common and Aldermaston, were to play a significant part in the wartime history of the Kennet Valley.

Following Japan’s 7th December 1941 attack on the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, the United States of America joined the Allies and entered the war. Six months later American soldiers were starting to arrive in Britain and by June of 1944 over one-and-a-half million US servicemen were stationed in the United Kingdom. The five Kennet Valley airfields were now occupied by Troop Carrier Groups from the US 9th Air Force and were busy training for the Allied invasion of northwest Europe, codenamed ‘Overlord’. In addition, during mid-September 1943, over 13,000 paratroopers from the 101st Airborne Division arrived in the Kennet valley and moved into camps between Reading in the east and Ramsbury in the west.

	Littlecote House was used as a HQ by numerous British and American units throughout WWII. At the time of the Market Garden operation it was occupied by the 506th PIR.

On 6th June 1944, along the Normandy coast of northwest France, the Allies launched their long awaited invasion and quickly established a firm foothold. Over the following weeks tens of thousands of troops poured ashore and by the end of August the Germans had been pushed back to the Dutch border. However, at this point German resistance stiffened and General Montgomery, commander of the British forces in northwest Europe, decided that a narrow thrust through the German lines would be more effective than an advance on a broad front, and thus Operation Market Garden was conceived - it was hoped this bold plan would end the war before Christmas. The soldiers who would carry out the airborne part of the operation were from the First Allied Airborne Army, which consisted of troop carrier units from the US IX Troop Carrier Command and the RAF’s 38 and 46 Groups, plus three airborne divisions - one British and two American.

During mid-July 1944 the 101st Airborne Division was withdrawn from combat in Normandy and the men returned to their old camps in England to regroup. A number of new operations were planned for the division during July and August but cancelled at the last minute and operation Market Garden, set for mid-September, marked their return to action.

As with operation Overlord the troop carrier groups based at the Kennet valley airfields would play a significant part in delivering and re-supplying the airborne element of Market Garden. By Sunday 17th September many of the parachute and glider regiments from the 101st Airborne Division had assembled at the airfields and were preparing to take part in the mightiest airborne invasion in history – at one point on that day almost 5,000 aircraft were in the sky at the same time!

	US Airborne troops on exercise approaching Knighton crossroads a mile or so east of Ramsbury.

In Ramsbury’s church, as in others across the country, a special service was being held to commemorate the RAF’s victory over the Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain. The congregation could hear, from high on Elmdown Hill, the engines of the 437th Troop Carrier Group’s aircraft warming up and, as the 70 planes hauled their gliders into the sky, so the vicar’s sermon was gradually drowned out by the noise. Some parishioners ventured outside and watched as the planes and gliders circled the village before setting course for Holland.

History compiled by Roger Day, January 2007.