3314746 Private James Graham Denholm
3314746 Private James Graham Denholm was born on 10th March 1922.
He enlisted on 3rd September 1939, leaving his home in Glasgow and his civilian trade of cook.
At the age of 21 he was on parachute course No. 73 at Ramat David in Palestine from 18 to 31 October 1943.
After James got his wings he was assigned to the 11th Parachute Battalion.
On 20th September, whilst fighting in the Battle of Arnhem, he was captured and became prisoner of war.
He was given pow number 119639.
James wrote in the MI9 General Questionnaire for British/American ex- prisoner of war report
the following:
“I was on the Arnhem operation and came down by glider on Monday September 18, 1944. I was wounded in
the subsequent fighting and was in the St. Elizabeth Hospital at Arnhem when the Germans took it over on September
24. The Germans had moved us from Arnhem to Apeldoorn on about September 26.
Whilst there Private George Norman
(George Samuel Norman, Support Company, 11th Battalion) and I pretended to belong to a fatigue party carrying beds
and thus got past the sentry. We got into an air raid shelter and stayed there until dark. In the shelter we met two
others, Privates Binns and Clements from 1st Battalion.
When it was dark we all four crawled out and the following
morning we made contact with some Dutch people and stayed in a big house at the village Beekbergen for about a
month, where we got medical treatment.
The house belonged to Mr. and Mrs. Vaasen. When we were fit enough to move,
we went by bicycle to Apeldoorn, where we stayed for two days. Then we moved on by bicycle to the village of
Barneveld where we arrived late that evening and got a hot meal. Then the underground took us to a farmhouse, where
we stayed for two weeks. Then the notice came that we had to make us ready to move.
We were told that an attempt
would be made to cross the river Rhine (Pegasus II). On the morning of November 18, 1944, we found ourselves in a
forest with a lot of other soldiers of British and other nationalities. We were told that we would all be moving at
half past five to cross the river. But finally around 24:00 hrs we ran into a German patrol and got captured.”
James
was taken to the prisoner of war camp Stalag XIB at Fallingbostel, Germany. There he was registered, a photograph
was taken and he got his prisoner of war number 119639. James was liberated in April, 16, 1945 and discharged from the
army on 31st May 1946.
It was not until 7th Jun 1991 that an application was made for James's medals. Interestingly the application was made
in person by a "visitor at door".