80th Anniversary of the Double Hills Memorial Service

The annual event took place at the Cross of Sacrifice and the War Graves section in Milton Cemetery, Weston-super-Mare.

It commemorates the loss of 23 personnel when glider RJ113, en route from Keevil to Arnhem, crashed in a field called Double Hills near Paulton in Somerset.

The crash victims, including 21 men of the 9th Field Company Airborne Royal Engineers and two pilots of the Glider Pilot Regiment, were the first casualties of Operation Market Garden.

This mission aimed to land an Allied airborne force behind German lines to hasten the end of the Second World War.

All the casualties are interred in the War Graves section of Milton Cemetery.

Prominent figures laying wreaths included deputy lieutenants lt colonel Mike Mortum (Somerset) and Stephen Parsons (Bristol), lt colonel Mike Allison (Bristol Royal Engineers Association), Robert MacDonald (Somerset County RBL), and others.

Personal tributes were paid by Valery Austin and sergeant (retd) Martin Allison, who laid wreaths at the graves of their respective relatives.

Cadets from Worle Detachment ACF and 290 Squadron ATC placed poppy crosses on each grave.

The Silver Bugles Band, Somerset Army Cadets buglers, sounded the Last Post and Reveille.

The mayor of Weston-super-Mare, councillor John Crockford-Hawley, attended the service, which was led by reverend Peter Ashman, the Weston-super-Mare Branch RBL chaplain.