“INTO THE LION’S DEN”
“I WAS PROUD TO BE A SOLDIER IN THE PARACHUTE REGIMENT, ESPECIALLY AS A LAD OF 18 WHERE I WAS PUT IN WITH NORMANDY VETERANS. I WANTED TO DO MY BIT FOR KING AND COUNTRY”
The Western Allied invasion of Germany began in earnest when the US 12th Army Group crossed the River Rhine on 22 March 1945. Two days later, paratroopers from the British 6th Airborne Division and US 17th Airborne Division launched Operation Varsity – a huge aerial attack to enter northern Germany. Varsity involved almost 17,000 paratroopers and several thousand aircraft. One of those parachuting soldiers was Private Fred Duffield, an 18-year-old medic whose drop into the Third Reich was his first ever combat jump. For this already battle-hardened teenager, Varsity was just the beginning of over a month’s fighting in Germany that would only end on VE Day.
“Honing a sharp knife”
Born in Staffordshire in April 1926, Duffield was conscripted into the British Army shortly after he turned 18, “I was called up in May 1944 but I was expecting it. I first did my basic training at Shrewsbury before we took different ‘trade’ tests. They told me I could either go in the REME, Service Corps, Royal Engineers or the Medical Corps. I told the officer that I’d like to join the Medical Corps because my father had served in it.”
After joining the Royal Army Medical Corps, Duffield learned the art of treating wounded soldiers in the field, “I was trained to bandage people up with a ‘shell’ dressing. This was a dressing with disinfectant in a waterproof pouch. All you had to do was rip this off and you had a pad with a bandage that was ready to put the dressing on. We also carried various slings for different wounds as well as morphine, aspirins and Gentian Violet.”
During this time, Duffield was given an opportunity to
