Killed in action 23 September 1944.
Kenneth Stanley Mills was born in India on 14 March 1923 and was the son of Stanley and Hilda Mills, of Bristol.
He was granted a commission in the 8th King’s Royal Irish Hussars and later volunteered for airborne forces.
Lieutenant Mills was section commander of ‘D’ Squadron in the Glider Pilot Regiment, Army Air Corps, and took part in Operation Market Garden.
The 1 Airborne Division was dropped about seven miles from the bridge at 13.30 on Sunday 17 September.
By 20.00 two small units of men had managed to make it to the north end of the bridge – Lt Col. John Frost’s ‘A’ Company of the 2 Parachute Battalion followed by Major Hibbert’s 1 Brigade HQ.
For the next 48 hours, the men held out against heavy artillery, mortar and machine-gun fire but were eventually completely outnumbered.
On Wednesday 19 September Kenneth was among the 120 or so who were rounded up and taken prisoner. On Friday 21 September they were taken to Velp, just outside Arnhem, where they spent the night.
The following morning Kenneth and about 25 others were loaded into a three-tonner truck to be taken to an interrogation centre at Zutphen. In the small village of Brummen, the truck slowed down and two officers, Majors Hibbert and Mumford leapt out of the truck to make an escape.
An SS guard armed with a Schmeisser sub-machine gun opened fire into the truck killing two men and seriously wounding another three.
Kenneth died of his injuries later that evening. He was taken to Enschede, on the Dutch-German border and was buried two days later at the Eastern General Cemetery in Enschede.
