I was lucky enough to meet Vince in
2007 after Pathfinder had dropped at Ginkel Heath. He was an
absolute gent and I was honoured that he took the time to sign
my logbook and have a chat with me about some of his
experiences.
He talked about the pals he had lost
and having picked up on my accent he told me how the Irish
lads he'd served with always had a joke to tell no matter how
bad things got.
I had hoped to meet him again last
September while Pathfinder were jumping at Arnhem but when we
were out there I found out that he had passed away in May.
A year after I had met him I came
across a poem that he had written as a dedication to the
friends that didn't come home. In memory of Vince I've
included his poem below. I've also included the text of an
article that appeared in the Yorkshire Post in 2004 about
Vince.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
REQUIEM FOR AN ARNHEM BOY
My jumps are done for I am dead
My time on earth is done
But in a hundred years from now
I'll still be twenty one.
My brief sweet life is over
My eyes no longer see.
No summer walks, no Christmas trees
No pretty girls for me.
I've got the chop, I've had it
My day jumps are done
But a hundred years from now
I'll still be twenty one.
My wife said see you jack
She will grow old as time goes on
But in a hundred years from now
I'll still be twenty one.
- - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Old soldier's legacy of the day they
took a 'Bridge too far'
Day of memories: Vince Goodwin at Arnhem.
Published Date: 18 September 2004
Andrew Vine Chief Reporter
VINCE Goodwin goes into hospital next
week to have three pieces of shrapnel removed from his stomach
– 60 years after he was wounded at Arnhem.
They have waited since 1944 to start
troubling him, but for Mr Goodwin they are an intensely
personal reminder of a battle he can never forget – and of
the fallen friends he has returned to salute.
"They thought it was an ulcer,
but then the doctor says 'It's shrapnel', and I said 'I know
where that's from'," said Mr Goodwin, 80, from
Middlesbrough. "It's funny that it's taken all this time
to surface. Strange really."
The shrapnel is the legacy of the last
savage day of fighting for the "bridge too far".
Among the estimated 700 Arnhem
veterans in Holland to commemorate the 60th anniversary, Mr
Goodwin is one of the few left who actually made it on to the
bridge. The British sent 10,000 men to Arnhem, with the order
to take the bridge and hold it for two – or in the most
extreme circumstances, three – days before tanks arrived to
relieve them.
Only 740 men got there, but they held
the bridge for four days in the teeth of overwhelming odds, in
one of the bravest actions in military history. Mr Goodwin, of
2nd Battalion the Parachute Regiment, was one of the 700 who
did what 10,000 were supposed to do.
And as he returned to the city in time
for the 60th anniversary of the battle yesterday, the memories
were especially vivid.
"We marched eight miles from
Ginkel Heath, where we landed, and we managed to get into
Arnhem on the bottom road near the river," he said.
"It was clear soon enough that a
lot of the other lads weren't going to get through. The radios
weren't working, and there were all sorts of problems.
"When we'd been on the bridge 20
minutes, we saw the German half-tracks coming across, and we
knocked hell out of them.
"But we only had food for two
days and ammo for two, because the powers-that-be thought that
that's how long we'd be here.
"Luckily, we'd learned the
equipment that the Germans used, so we threw our weapons away
and used theirs."
The fighting at the bridge lasted from
the Sunday, when the first British troops arrived, until the
following Thursday.
"You were too busy to be scared,
because there was a lot of hand-to-hand fighting," said
Mr Goodwin. "I was one of the lucky ones who survived
it."
But on the last day of the battle, Mr
Goodwin's luck ran out and he was shot in the stomach. Wounded
and a prisoner, Mr Goodwin was taken to Eusebius Church, in
Arnhem's market place. He went back there yesterday and
remembered how it was there that he thought he would die.
"This young SS officer said 'Come
outside' and when we did, facing us were three of our own
captured Bren guns. They were going to shoot us. So we shook
hands, and then this very tall German officer came up and
slapped the SS man across the face, and took us back inside
and gave us half a block of cheese."
He has returned four times to Arnhem
since then, and each visit brings painful memories.
"When I go to the cemetery, I
shall cry," said Mr Goodwin. "In there are six of my
dear friends, and I shall go and tap each of their graves.
There were twins, and one of them got killed by the beginning
of a machine-gun burst and the other got killed by the end of
it. Neither knew the other had gone."
"We were a very close-knit
company, and to see them obliterated was heartbreaking, and
that's why I come back. To remember them."