Steel Memories

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Further to last night's post, I linked to a previous post of mine that I wrote five years ago. In it I pondered in which of my Dad's brother's ownership the above knife was, during WWII. I have since corrected the error in my uncle Sam's service on the post, which obviously leads me to believe with reasonable certainty that the Army issue jack knife was indeed my uncle Arthur's service-issued kit. As I wrote about during last year's eightieth anniversary of Operation Market Garden in Arnhem, Holland; my uncle Arthur was in the First Airborne. I don't know for sure exactly when he volunteered/was seconded to the glider brigade, but I do know he served in the Sicily operations of 1943 and subsequently fought at Arnhem in 1944, surviving only to be taken as a POW until the war's end.

The date of issue of the pictured knife is 1943, and it has been in the family for as long as I can remember, and I'm seventy. I was given the knife by my dad, who held his older brothers in reverence, when I was quite small; so within fifteen years of the end of the war.  The dates tally and so I'm confident that the above artefact was with my uncle Arthur through some of the horrendous experiences he endured: ditching in the sea off Sicily and treading water whilst reciting poetry to himself just to keep going for eight hours until eventually being picked up, only to be shipped into Holland and the cauldron of Arnhem a few months later. It's a treasured item, and one which I will pass on to the next generation[s] along with its history...

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