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New, hitherto unseen, first-hand accounts of the battle of Arnhem, the heroic Allied
military operation known as ‘Market Garden’, become rarer as time passes.
“Chig: Sky Pilot to the Glider Pilots of Arnhem” is the story of a choir boy, who
became a country parson, who took part in Operation ‘Market Garden’ as Chaplain to
the men of the Glider Pilot Regiment.
When he left home “Chig” – Rowland Chignell – later the Rev’d Prebendary Chignell,
wrote often to his father. Remarkably his father kept those letters written between
August 1940 and September 1944 before, post-war, returning them to Chig.
Chig died, in 1994, and when his effects were being cleared, among them was a small
bundle of papers, containing 84 dog-eared letters Chig had written to his father.
With them were eight densely-typed foolscap pages. This extraordinary and unique
document, Chig’s account of his time in Arnhem with GPR, recounting first-hand
conditions which got increasingly hairier before ultimately, under heavy fire, came
the withdrawal across the Rhine.
Attached initially to the Parachute Regiment’s Training Unit – when the use of
paratroops in war was still very novel – Chig later was asked to transfer to the
Glider Pilot Regiment.