Sergeant Jesse Bosley

Jesse Bosley came from Derby and served in the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) prior to volunteering for the Glider Pilot Regiment.

He was posted to A Squadron, 1st Wing, Glider Pilot Regiment after completing his training. Sgt Jesse Bosley served as second pilot to Staff Sergeant John Harris in a Horsa glider for the Normandy landings in June 1944 and carried either members of the 2nd Ox and Bucks Light Infantry or 195 Airlanding Field Ambulance RAMC over to France.

They were deployed again later that year for Operation Market Garden, as part of the airborne assault by the British 1st Airborne Division to capture the Rhine crossings at Arnhem. Harris and Bosley took six members of the RAF 6341 Light Warning Unit (LWU) and equipment in their Horsa glider, marked for the operation as Chalk 5003.The RAF LWU’s role was to co-ordinate Allied aircraft activity over the ground taken by the airborne division.

German anti-aircraft guns targeted the tugs and gliders of A Squadron about 8 kilometres from their target landing zone (LZ X). Their glider was hit by flak and crashed south of Opheusden alongside the road to Dodewaard. There were no survivors.

In addition to the pilots, the other occupants who died were Fl Lt John Tisshaw; LACs John Anderson, James Brook, Edwin Lascelles; ACs Harold Highton and John Swann, all of the RAF. All eight men were given a field burial near the crash site

Sgt Jesse Bosley died on 18 September 1944 and is now buried at Arnhem-Oosterbeek War Cemetery, in the Netherlands.

Headstone photograph courtesy of Ab Ringma.