Капитан Джон Грейберн: Герой Арнхемской битвы и кавалер Викторианского креста.

Recipient of the Victoria Cross

Captain John Hollington Grayburn VC (30 January 1918 – 20 September 1944) was an English recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces. Born in 1918, Grayburn was educated at Sherborne School in Dorset and joined the Army Cadet Force before the outbreak of the Second World War. He was initially commissioned into the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry and later joined the Parachute Regiment. At the age of 26 he went into action in the Battle of Arnhem where he was part of the small force that was able to reach Arnhem road bridge. Between 17 and 20 September he led his platoon, and later the remnants of a battalion, in the defence of the small British perimeter around the bridge, but was killed after standing up in full view of a German tank in order to direct his men to new positions. Grayburn is buried in the Arnhem Oosterbeek War Cemetery, and his Victoria Cross is displayed at the Parachute Regiment and Airborne Forces Museum in England.

John Grayburn was born on 30 January 1918 on Manora Island, India, the son of Lionel Markham and Gertrude Grayburn. The family returned to England whilst he was young. From 1931 to 1935 he attended Sherborne School in Dorset where he was a member of Abbey House. After leaving Sherborne School he joined the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation. Grayburn played rugby for the Chiltern Rugby Club between 1927 and 1939 and was a skilled boxer. Grayburn joined the Army Cadet Force and was posted to the 1st (London) Cadet Force, The Queen's Royal Regiment. In September 1940 he was given an emergency commission to second lieutenant and was posted to the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry. Their presence added a substantial number of Panzergrenadiers, tanks and self propelled guns to the German defences and the Allies suffered heavily in the ensuing battle. Only a small force managed to hold one end of the Arnhem road bridge before being overrun on 21 September. The rest of the division became trapped in a small pocket west of the bridge and had to be evacuated on 25 September. The Allies failed to cross the Rhine, which remained under German control until Allied offensives in March 1945.

1st Airborne Division's commanding officer, Major General Roy Urquhart, originally planned for the 2nd Battalion to lead the 1st Parachute Brigade into Arnhem to secure the road, rail and pontoon bridges over the Lower Rhine. Frost chose Major Digby Tatham Warter's A Company to lead the battalion's march from the drop zones to the bridges, knowing him to be "a thruster if ever there was". A Company was in action almost at once, ambushing a small German recce group near the drop zone. The company moved off through the woods toward the river road, with each platoon taking turns to lead. After laying a smokescreen he led a charge that cleared the enemy positions. A Company was not significantly delayed by the German patrols it encountered later, although the presence of cheering Dutch crowds delayed the whole battalion as it passed through Oosterbeek. As they approached the railway bridge, C Company detached to capture it, but German engineers blew the bridge just as the British were starting to cross it. A Company now encountered enemy armoured cars, but successfully skirted them by manoeuvering through the back gardens of the houses on either side of the road At 8pm, as darkness fell, Grayburn's platoon led A Company into Arnhem centre and under the main ramp of Arnhem road bridge. Tatham Warter deployed his platoons around the ramp; 2 Platoon covered both sides of the northernmost extreme of the ramp where it fed into the town centre.

Grayburn did not fire on the occasional German traffic still using the bridge, preferring not to advertise the Allied presence until the rest of the battalion had arrived. The German defenders quickly repulsed this however and Tatham Warter organised a stronger attack, to be led by Grayburn. As soon as it was sufficiently dark, Grayburn led his platoon along the ramp to the bridge, their faces blackened and their boots muffled with strips of torn up curtains. The platoon moved forward on either side of the girders along the sides of the road, but was quickly spotted by enemy forces on the bridge. Grayburn was shot in the shoulder but continued to press his men on, until the withering enemy fire became too intense and he was forced to pull them back. Over the next few days, every man of the 700 or so who had made it to the bridge and whether a combat trooper or not, was engaged in the defence of the British perimeter. A Company was sited in the buildings on either side of the ramp nearest the river, and on Monday 18 2 Platoon occupied a house on the east side. This sector came under increasing attack from tanks and infantry of the 10th SS Panzer Division, and the building was later burnt down. The rest of the division made several efforts to reinforce Frost's men, but were unable to break through the German forces that surrounded the bridge. The exact disposition of the British troops subsequently became more confused as the battle developed into house to house fighting. Tatham Warter took command of 2nd Battalion on Tuesday 19, and Grayburn temporarily took command of A Company after Tatham Warter's designated replacement was wounded. Grayburn led several fighting patrols that forced the Germans to commit more armour but as Wednesday 20 dawned, the British position was becoming untenable. As the Germans squeezed the perimeter they laid explosives on a section of the ramp crossing a road next to the riverbank, lest XXX Corps should break through and capture the bridge from the south. Grayburn led another patrol that forced the enemy away from the arch while Royal Engineers removed the fuzes. Frost's perimeter gradually shrank as men and ammunition ran low, and Frost himself was wounded on 20 September. A brief ceasefire was held later that day to allow the evacuation of wounded men in danger of becoming trapped and being burned alive in the cellars of wrecked buildings.

After his death, Grayburn was buried on the bridge embankment close to where he was killed. His remains were recovered in 1948 and added to the Arnhem Oosterbeek War Cemetery. Although most graves in the cemetery are organised by unit, Grayburn's is separate from the other parachute formations. His VC is in the care of the Parachute Regiment and Airborne Forces Museum and there are plaques in his memory at Chalfont St Giles parish church, and at the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation war memorial in Hong Kong, where Grayburn's uncle worked before the war. A room in the clubhouse of Amersham and Chiltern Rugby Club is named after him. He is also named prominently on the front panel of the plinth unveiled at the new student accommodation in James Wolfe Road, Oxford on 16 August 2019 at the site of Cowley Barracks. In the 1977 film A Bridge Too Far, Christopher Good played a composite character of Grayburn and Tatham Warter.