David Maitland

I joined the Army in September 1941, was commissioned into the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry in June 1942 and served with the 1st Battalion or at 71st Infantry Brigade Headquarters until demobilisation in September 1946.

I trained in England as part of 53rd Division until July 1944 when shipped to Normandy. Passing through Falaise my Brigade motored across the Seine, through Belgium to Antwerp. Then during the advance towards Arnhem I was wounded on 20th September outside Eindhoven and evacuated to Stafford, spending the winter there and at Clacton-on-Sea. I returned to Brussels in early April 1945 and remained with the Brigade for the Rhine Crossing and advance through Germany to Hamburg where I spent VE Day (in an alcoholic haze).

After the war ended I became Adjutant of the 1st Battalion Oxf. & Bucks. and served with them in the Rhineland, in Berlin, in the Harz Mountains and finally in Trieste from where I was eventually demobbed.