A BRAVE glider pilot who fought in two daring missions during the Second World War has been laid to rest.

 

Former Staff Sergeant Geoff Thompson, 97, from Pocklington, was a member of the York branch of the Parachute Regimental Association, and was described as a war hero during a packed service at York Crematorium.

 

Mr Thompson, a grandfather and great grandfather, was given a guard of honour by fellow veterans.

 

The service heard how he was called up for National Service in February 1940 and joined Glider Pilot Regiment in July 1942.

 

He flew troops and equipment into Normandy during D-Day in June 1944 and later did the same in Arnhem, Holland, during Operation Market Garden the following September.

 

It was during the failed raid on Arnhem by The Allies where Mr Thompson was captured and became a prisoner-of-war.

 

He was subjected to gruelling “Death Marches” and would walk between 20km and 30km a day during the horrendous winter of 1944/1945, leaving him emaciated and weighing just six stone.

 

He eventually ended up at a camp in Frankfurt and he was transferred back to Seacroft Hospital, in Leeds, when the camp was liberated in 1945.

 

After the war he had two children, Jacky and Richard, with his wife Joan, who he married in 1943.

 

He worked as a manger for a grocery chain and was a manger for Prudential insurance before joining a confectionary company as a salesman until retirement. Mr Thompson did not speak about the war for 30 years and only joined regimental organisations in the 1970s, before re-visiting Arnhem in 1984. In 2005 he was awarded Chevalier of the Legion D’honneur, the French equivalent of an OBE medal and France’s highest military honour. A family tribute said he was “a loving caring father, grandpa and great grandpa and will be very sadly missed.” His son Richard said: “We recognise outside the family what a great man he was and lucky to have survived the war. “As a family we were very proud he was a war hero.” Mr Thompson died on February 27. He is survived by nine grandchildren and 10 great grandchildren.