This month, 75 years on from one of the Second World War's most daring missions, a veteran is returning to the battleground where he was taken prisoner.

Roy Smith, from Clive Road, Sittingbourne, was serving with the Army's Devon and Dorset Regiment and had already taken part in the Normandy landings, when he was called upon to join in the Battle of Arnhem as part of Operation Market Garden.

The bold strategy involved the Allies taking a succession of nine bridges through Holland to force a quick invasion route into Germany.

Unfortunately, the plan went a bridge too far and ended in the capture of many thousands of Allied troops - Mr Smith among them.

The 94-year-old recalled: “In Holland we were about 5km from Arnhem.

"The Airborne had landed on a Sunday and by Wednesday they had all been either killed or taken prisoner.

"We were sent over to them to act as a diversion.

“There are reports that we volunteered for the job, believe me, no-one volunteered for it."

Mr Smith, a former retail manager for Liptons and Maypole, said: “It was pitch black. Some Polish troops were to cross the Rhine at Driel, but they got lost, so we made the crossing.

“The next thing we see is a bloke walking towards us carrying a white and red flag. We thought it was the Red Cross.

“Turned out it was a German and he told us we were completely surrounded, and that we could either surrender or all be killed. We surrendered.”

Mr Smith spent the next six months as a prisoner of war in Germany at Stalag 12A.

He said: “I’ll never forget it. We were split into working parties. I repaired drains which had been destroyed by bombing.

“We had no washing facilities, just cold water and a pumice stone.

"The food was basic - bread, jam, coffee made from acorns. On Sundays we had horse meat.”

Mr Smith joins other survivors on an eight-day battlefields tour leaving on September 17, organised by the Royal British Legion and paid for by the Government.

As the end of the war approached, Roy Smith’s German guards marched their prisoners for a week so they could surrender to the Americans, not the Russians.

Mr Smith recalled: “On the march we lived off whatever there was in the fields.

"I remember one time that there was an old grey horse in a field that the German’s shot and cooked up.

“Once we were with the Americans in Halle, Belgium, we were given new uniforms and then flown from Germany to France in Dakotas.

"A German told us we were completely surrounded, and that we could either surrender or all be killed... we surrendered" - Roy Smith

“From France we flew in the RAF’s Lancaster bombers back to the UK.”

Mr Smith was given leave and sent to the old Butlin’s camp at Lytham St Annes, near Blackpool, to recover his health - he was suffering from malnutrition.

But his war wasn’t over. Once recovered, he was sent back to Germany as part of the army of occupation, and was stationed in Hanover and Berlin until he was eventually demobbed in 1946.

Three years ago, the French government presented Mr Smith with their highest award, the Legion D'Honneur, for his part in liberating their country.

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