Black History Month remembers Black and Caribbean airborne soldiers in local project

Their little-known exploits have been celebrated by South Kesteven District Council’s (SKDC’s) Soldiers from the Sky Airborne Heritage project.

Sergeant Sidney Cornell was the son of African American circus performer, Charles Cornell. Sidney parachuted into France on D-Day with the 7th Parachute Battalion near Pegasus Bridge. He was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal for his bravery in action, carrying vital messages under fire.

For all ranks below commissioned officer, this is the second highest award for gallantry in action after the Victoria Cross.

Sidney’s citation includes the passage: “His courage and many wounds have made him a well-known and admired character throughout not only his own battalion but also the whole brigade. Space does not permit a record of all his feats as he distinguished himself in practically every action and fighting took place daily.”

Sadly, Sidney was killed along with 21 other British troops in the Netherlands in 1945 trying to defuse bridge explosives as part of Operation Varsity.

Trooper Charles Cecil Bolton was a Liverpudlian of Trinidadian descent and served with the 1st Airborne Reconnaissance Squadron. He was a crack shot and his conduct during the battle for the main road bridge at Arnhem – famously ‘a bridge too far’ – earned him a recommendation for the Distinguished Conduct Medal.

He was instead awarded the Dutch Bronze Cross – the second-highest Dutch military award for bravery – in an agreement with the United States and the Dutch Government to commemorate soldiers with foreign awards. Charles survived the battle and became a Prisoner of War.

Sidney and Charles were among several Black and Caribbean soldiers who served with the British 1st and 6th Airborne Divisions.

South Kesteven District Council’s ‘Soldiers from the Sky’ project tells their stories along with the American and Polish forces who gathered in South Kesteven in 1944.

Private Kenneth Roberts served as a Bren gunner with 1 Platoon of 21st Independent Parachute Company (Pathfinders), so one of the very first paras to hit the ground at Arnhem on 17 September 1944.

His father, from Sierra Leone, settled in England after serving with the British Army in World War I, and his mother was from Staffordshire.

On 25 September, Kenneth swam across the Rhine river during the 1st Airborne Division’s evacuation but was hit by machine-gun fire and died from wounds on 29 September. He is buried in the Jonkerbos War Cemetery in the Netherlands.

Corporal Roland James West was the son of Jock and Margaret West of India, enlisted in the Gloucestershire Regiment and then volunteered for Airborne Forces. He successfully completed his parachute training, probably in India as a member of 156 Battalion, the Parachute Regiment, and took part in Operation MARKET GARDEN (Arnhem).

He flew to the Netherlands from RAF Saltby on 18 September 1944 but was killed on 20 September, aged 22. He has no known grave but is listed on the Groesbeek memorial in the Netherlands.

Private Jospeh Dixon served with the Intelligence Section, 3rd Parachute Battalion, and took off from Saltby airfield on Sunday 17 September 1944 aboard a C-47 of the US 314th Troop Carrier Group, bound for Arnhem during Operation MARKET GARDEN.

Moving towards the Arnhem road bridge, his battalion was involved in fierce fighting in western Oosterbeek and Private Dixon was captured on 18 September.

SKDC Armed Forces Champion Cllr Bridget Ley said: “Without our Soldiers from the Sky project these incredible stories would pass from memory.

“Thanks to Lottery funding we have been able to research and gather an incredible resource of not only the presence here in 1944 of soldiers of three nations dedicated to the fight for freedom but of the sacrifices they made.”

Black History Month has a theme of Standing Firm in Power and Pride this year.