• Casualty list, 4th Bn. The Dorsetshire Regiment, Operation Market Garden

Date of birth:

August 17th, 1922 (Brighton/East Sussex, England)

Service number:

6410343

Nationality:

British

Rank during Operation Market Garden:
(Acting) Lance-Corporal

Rank: U/L/Cpl; MISSING 25.9.1944, POW, SURVIVED

Prisoner of War (POW) details:
POW No. 118144
POW Camps:
- Stalag 11B (Fallingbostel);
- Stalag 12A (Limburg s.d. Lahn).

George Harold Richard Ringshaw was born on 17 August 1922 in Brighton, East Sussex, England. He enlisted into the British Army on 12th June 1941 and joined the Royal Sussex Regiment. He was transferred to the Army Air Corps 1 July 1943, were he joined the 9th Parachute Battalion. On 29 of July 1944 he was transferred to the 4th Battalion Dorsetshire Regiment. As part of the 43rd Wessex Infantry Division he was deployed into operation Market Garden.

In order to make the evacuation of the remnants of the 1st Airborne Division possible, the 4th Battalion Dorsetshire Regiment was ordered to cross the Lower-Rhine at the Westerbouwing Heights, just west of Oosterbeek, on the night of 24/25 September 1944. Clarke was reported missing on 25 September 1944 at Oosterbeek and subsequently reported Prisoner of War in German hands. He was taken to Stalag 11B and Stalag 12A were he spent the rest of the war as a POW until 23 April 1945 when he was released and sent back to the United Kingdom.

Before he enlisted into the British Army he was an Apprentice Printer and would return to this trade after the war.

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• Photo 1: Paul Clark
• - Casualty Lists - Other Ranks 1578(38), 1618(25), 1811(16)
  - Record Details for G H R Ringshaw (Dorsetshire Regiment)
  - German Record cards of British and Commonwealth Prisoners of War
  - Information kindly provided by Paul Clark