The Chalk Collection

Anyone who has read about Arnhem has seen this photograph. Almost nobody knows the name of the man in it. He is Serjeant John Turl of E Squadron, Glider Pilot Regiment. Sergeant Dennis Smith of the Army Film and Photographic Unit took the picture on 21 September 1944. It shows Turl (right) and Sergeant Whawell (left) searching for snipers at the school on Kneppelhoutweg in Oosterbeek. Turl did not have to be there. As a fireman in the National Fire Service he held a reserved occupation. He gave up that exemption to join the Gloucestershire Regiment, then volunteered again for gliders. His squadron landed at Wolfheze on 17 and 18 September. Once on the ground, glider pilots fought as infantry under whichever officer found them, and Turl ended up far from his own squadron, in a mixed party on the southern edge of the perimeter. He was killed four days after the photograph was taken, on 25 September, the day the withdrawal across the Rhine was ordered. He was 25, and he lies in Arnhem Oosterbeek War Cemetery. Today we followed John Turl with his relatives from the landing zone at Wolfheze to his grave.