Driver Alfred E Bickley

Arthur E Bickley volunteered for the airborne forces after having previously served with The Royal Artillery.

He went to RAF Ringway for parachute jump training on Course 24. This course ran between 23 - 30 August 1942. It consisted of 7 jumps. He is listed with other names of men trained for "Parachute Brigade Reinforcements". After training he became a member of 1st Para Brigade HQ. 

Alfred's trade on enlistment was recorded as 'Labourer'. Whilst in the Army he was a became a licensed HGV driver. He received a 'Wound Stripe' 30 May 1944.

His army Pay Book lists that his next of kin is stated as Dorothea Carol Bickley ( nee Gannon ) which was his first wife. She passed away in childbirth during the war. The son she gave birth to, sadly passed away 3 years old.

Alfred had 2 daughters. Alfred's daughter Ann Dorit Bickley born 15 June 1960. His oldest daughter Margaret Bickley born 1955, sadly passed away 2008.

Per Dahl Christensen, husband of Ann Dorit Bickley recalls this information about Arthur's service in the Army. 

"Alfred joined the army 1939 and went to Scotland for training. From there, we assume, he volunteered for the airborne forces.

We do not know much about his first years in the airborne forces. We do not know which rank he had, however a story was told about him "borrowing “ his commanding officers jeep, and when discovered he experienced a reduction to the ranks, and that more than one time.

He was deployed to North Africa. He talked about it with a friend in Denmark and told that he was captured by the Germans and he forced his way out of the prisoner's camp by killing a German soldier.

Later he went to Sicily and from there back to the UK.

Next was Arnhem. One narrative from there was about the evacuation from Arnhem: He was with a friend from the unit. The friend was wounded during the battle and Alfred had to leave him, hidden under a bush to find a boat to cross the Rhine. He found a boat, but returning to the bush he could not find the friend. He spent some time looking for him, eventually he had to return to the Rhine finding that all boats had left. He was a skilled swimmer, raised in Greenwich at the Thames, so he crossed the Rhine swimming and got rescued. Later the friend wrote him and told that he was found by a Dutch couple that hid him during the last part of the war.

His last assignment was with Montgomery, liberating Denmark and Copenhagen. 

In Denmark he had several Danish friends. He travelled many times back and forth to Denmark. On one of the trips by boat he met the Danish girl Agnete Sørensen on her way to London where she had found a new job. They married in 1953 and moved to Denmark where they lived the rest of their lifes.

Alfred passed away in 1996."