A Happy Reunion

It was a pleasant surprise for Tom Ashmore, but for Bernard Halsall it became a wonderfully nostalgic and emotional experience. The surprise was an e-mail Tom received from a gentleman named Leo Bral in Bruges, who had found our Branch web site on the internet.

Leo was anxious to contact Bernard for information about the forced landing of a General Aircraft Hamilcar Glider at Zomergen, a village near Ghent, in 1944. "I happened to witness this incident", he wrote. "I was six years old at the time and I watched how it landed safely in front of our house, where it remained for some time." After much research, he learned from a book entitled ‘Tugs and Gliders to Arnhem’ that the glider pilot was Captain Halsall. Contact was made and in October, accompanied by his wife Con, Bernard returned to Zomergen after nearly sixty years.

Bernard was given a very warm welcome from villagers, some of whom had watched him make the crash landing. It was on the third Arnhem lift during Operation Market Garden that the tow-rope on Bernard’s glider had broken. He had had less than a minute to make a choice of landing site, and he was delighted to meet the farmer whose field he selected.

"They were just so pleased to see me," said Bernard, "I was delighted with the whole reunion". Leo Bral, who, of course, was delighted to have been able to arrange the meeting after so many years research, presented him with a piece of the Hamilcar glider. Bernard also received a blue delftware plate engraved with five local villages.

62/1103

  Click here to Continue in original sequence or select from menu left

Return to Main menu