Private Alf Whitbread
 | Private Alf Whitbread
Alf Whitbread, known in the war as 'Lucky Jim' was born in Twickenham, London and when his father got a job in the Building Research Station in Garston the family moved to Watford. Alf Whitbread left school to become a machine engineer, but was encouraged to volunteer for the army after hearing a patriotic speech on the radio. On June 19th, 1940, Alf Whitbread went to the Edgeware recruiting office and joined the Royal West Kent Youth Battalion at the age of 18 and in 1942 in Ireland, Alf heard rumours about a newly formed airborne unit and volunteered. Alf said : 'We thought we were going to be in the paratroopers, who were mad, but we finished up in the gliders and the paratroopers thought we were mad.' Alf Served with 17 Platoon of the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry. He landed as part of the Coup de Main operation on Glider No.6 into Pegasus bridge in the early hours of D-Day. Alf was part of the second group of gliders which landed first at Horsa Bridge, before taking part in the battle for Pegasus Bridge, (the subject of the film 'The Longest Day'.) They sent the message 'ham and jam', a code confirming they had captured both bridges. The men held off many counter attacks by German troops and tanks until midday on June 6th. Alf would later say 'Two of our gliders were sent to secure Horsa bridge and frankly, it was a walk over. Our platoon never lost a man. We secured the bridge and then, when another platoon relieved us, we went and joined John Howard on Pegasus Bridge.' Alf Whitbread was later to take part in Operation Varsity, the last major battle of the war in Europe. On March 24th 1945 Operation Varsity was launched. The aim was to take a bridge over the Rhine again by gliderborne troops. Almost 1,500 men of the Ox and Bucks died during the operation, and Lucky Jim lived up to his reputation before his glider even landed. Alf would say: 'They say dont volunteer for anything, but I did and it worked out to my benefit. I remember when we were set to get on a glider on the way for the Rhine crossing and it was too full. I was detailed to another glider. They both crash landed. All the troops in the first glider were killed. Only three of us got out of the other glider alive, after it broke in half.' After the war Alf Whitbread joined London Transport as an engineer for 40 years and in all that time Alf never took a day off due to illness. With great sadness we have been told that Alf has passed away peacefully on 19th March 2011 at the age of 88. Cranston Fine Arts feel very honoured to have had Alf sign some of our art prints. |
