Sergeant Albert H Minards

Albert H Minards was the son of Eli and Marion Minards, of Luton and the husband of Poppy Minards, of Sidford, Devon. He enlisted in the Royal Engineers and volunteered for airborne forces.

Sergeant Minards successfully completed parachute training at RAF Ringway and also completed glider pilot training and was posted to C Squadron, The Glider Pilot Regiment, and took part in Operation Market Garden (Arnhem).

Sgt Minards was in Chalk number 374 and took off from Tarrant Rushton, Dorset, in the First Lift, in a Horsa Glider towed by a Halifax. He is shown on the March 1945 POW list. He died from toxaemia (blood poisoning), due to damage to the spinal cord as a result of a gunshot wound, in the Stoke Mandeville Aylesbury Hospital. According to the death certificate this wound was received during war operations at Arnhem on 27 September 1944 (Roll of Honour, 5th revised edition, 2011). He died on 19th August 1947, aged 26, and is buried at Luton Church Burial Ground.

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