Searching for 'Teddy' Norris

Searching for Teddy Norris

As told through the words of
Bernard Osborn
Jack Pickles
Norman Walton


B.O. -Well not at that time it was more afterwards
I think later on when we were back home we would say,
‘Do you remember old Teddy, he was always Teddy?’
It’s your Dad but to me and to his pals he was always Teddy.
In fact it wasn’t his name, was it?
A.N. - It was Dennis, Edward was the middle name.

Dad
Dennis
Edward
Teddy

Which name would you answer to now?
Which of these names is you in this picture?
This picture of you gazing
Into the flames of a fire
Sometime in the 1950s.
What are you thinking of here?
Where have you gone in this picture?
And where did you go that night in September, 1944?
We all looked for you, groping in the dark
Following that line of white tape
And the trail of your blood
Down to the river bank.
We looked for you but in the confusion and turmoil
We lost you among the many casualties.
I can hardly imagine the experiences you had
As you, looking youthful and smiling in
Your pilot’s uniform, could have had no idea
Just what was waiting for you in Arnhem

B.O. - It was quite a time in history, if you like to put it that way,
A.N. - Of course,
B.O. - And yet it only lasted from June to September
And such a lot..,’ ‘But a defining moment.’ ‘..went on.’


They taught you to fly in an old Tiger Moth
And later, a horsa glider.
And from your peers you learnt
What camaraderie meant
These comrades who are more than just
A few names written on an old, Dutch bank note.

Bernard Osborn
Jack Pickles
Norman Walton
Sam Wellard

Their names still resonate and after more than 60 years
They speak to me and through their words they reveal
Something of the person you were in your youth
When you were less than half the age that I am now.
But that night, in the dark, we all lost sight of you.

B.O. - No, I first met Teddy some weeks before when I had finished my training and he, either he was needing another co-pilot to go with him. First and second pilots, basically, but we became friends, to each other, friends and co-pilots. And so I met him first of all at Brize Norton not all that long just a few weeks before D-Day, this is probably why I am more attached to Teddy than the average two chaps might have been because he was the older, the senior man and he brought me along quite well. Anyway, we were at Manston when we took off on Sunday September 17th for Arnhem

That Sunday morning you took off from RAF Manston, a member of ‘B’ Squadron one of 56 heavy gliders each laden with troops, jeeps and artillery

A.N. So you and Teddy, you landed. Where were Jack Pickles and Norman Walton at this point?
B.O. Where would they be?
A.N. –Yes
B.O.- I couldn’t tell you exactly because we had all gone our way from now onwards we were in small numbers
A.N. Were they a part of your numbers?
B.O. Oh yes, the same numbered flight, nineteen flight.


Jack Pickles - ‘It was a terrible night, very dark,
And raining heavily.
The area was dominated by the Germans,
And we were under shell fire.
And intermittent machine-gun fire.
After some casualties we reached the river,
But before we could get across
We were quite heavily mortared.

B.O. We had to go from where we were, which was in Oosterbeek down to the river bank where hopefully we would be picked up by some little boats that had come along so far, and that happened in due course. We all had our jobs allocated to us. Teddy was one of those who was standing by the white tape that sees people down to the river. I was put in charge of half a dozen Poles, we didn’t understand each other in the least bit but we followed each other and we got across the river alright.

A.N So, at what point was Dad injured?
B.O. Dad was injured in, as we were coming down chaps were filing down past him to go to the river.
A.N. -I see

J.P. Quite a lot of our men swam across
Despite the strong current. I did not go that way
Because my pal, Staff-Sergt. Norris, was wounded
And I stayed with him until we could be taken across
In an assault boat, when I helped him to a medical dressing
Station about a mile away.’

B.O.- That was the last time I saw Teddy. Quite a momentous four months

And that was the last occasion
That any of your friends
Were to see you.
The last known detail of your whereabouts

One morning in late 1944
Grandfather unfolded the local paper
And found this article on the front page.

In walked the Sergt. From Arnhem
They were still talking about the epic of Arnhem
In the “local” on Friday night when in walked
Sergeant Norman Walton, wearing the wings
Of a glider pilot. There was a short silence.
Drinks were forgotten. His tunic was stained,
His haversack in tatters. He came straight
From the ‘Patch of hell’, that was Arnhem.

Concluding his account of the battle he went on,
‘One of the queerest incidents that happened
During our fight was when Staff-Sergt Ted Norris
Bought a German limousine for 15 cigarettes.
The car, unfortunately, was mortared the next day.’

He added that although you were wounded
You got back safely.
It was the first news Grandfather had had
That you were still alive
And after numerous enquiries
Learnt that you had been hospitalized
And were convalescing here, in Scotland.
Six months later you returned home.
By which time the world had moved on
And contact with your old friends, lost.
‘I had a good war.’ I remember you saying
By that you meant you had survived.

* * * * * *


17th February 2005
Letter to Martin Norris, older son of Ted

Dear Martin
Pleased to receive your letter. Yes, I am the ‘Jack’ Pickles
Mentioned in the cutting. Delighted to learn your
Father has survived to old age, like me at 84.
Give him my best wishes.
My recollections of that dark, wet night
When we withdrew from our slit trenches
On the perimeter about the Hartenstein Hotel
Are still vivid. It was a planned withdrawal,
Moving silently in single file around the perimeter
Before striking out through wooded country for the river.
We were heavily laden with arms
And rucksacks and followed a white tape
Laid on the ground.
Nearing the river, we left the wood
And began crossing open water meadows
Much small arms fire, tracers, but the single mortar round
That dropped on the column took us by surprise.
Teddy went down, several of us clustered around him,
Someone applied a shell dressing to his wound
To staunch the bleeding.
My co-pilot, Sam Wellard, and I improvised a litter
From rifle straps and together we three staggered
To the river bank. Flimsy folding boats
Manned by paddling Royal Engineers
Arrived at intervals and the boarding orders in all this confusion
Was that wounded had priority.
When a boat beached nearby
Sam and I struggled to lift Teddy over the gunnels.
Sam hung back, crossing later.
Crossing was hazardous,
The river was racked by machine gun fire,
Water slopped into the overloaded boat.
Reaching the bank we scrambled ashore
And staggered a few yards (and) started
Walking up rising ground the several hundred yards
To farm out-building being used as a Forward Aid Post.
Here I delivered Teddy to the care of the R.A.M.C.
Ensuring that they knew who he was
And the location of his wounds.
At no time do I recall any complaints from Teddy
Yet he must have been in great pain and fearful.

7th April 2005
Letter to Martin Norris from Norman Walton, South Africa

Dear Martin,
Your letter of 4th march arrived… Let me say how pleased I was to have your letter. Jack Pickles had already written advising of your approach….Yes, I remember your father well and am pleased to know he is alive and well – in spite of the smoking! Please give him my regards. We shared some incredible times in the regiment and of course our Arnhem experiences will always live in our memory. But we were the lucky ones, we survived!

9 December 2005,
Letter to David Brook, the editor of The Eagle, from Bernard Osborn, Bromley, Kent

Dear David,
I was very interested to read the obituary written by Norman Walton. I was sorry to learn that Jack Pickles had died during the year. Delighted to know that Norman, Sam and John are well.
The other person mentioned in Norman’s letter was Teddy Norris. I was Teddy’s co-pilot on D-Day and at Arnhem.
He was (is?) a great chap. Most capable
And at Arnhem we were never more than a few yards apart
Until the evacuation over the river on the night of 25th/26th September. Teddy stood by the white tape guiding people down to the river.

23rd January 2006,
Letter to David Brook from Teddy Norris, Great Yarmouth, Norfolk

Dear David,
I am the Ted Norris mentioned by Norman Walton.
I am quite sure if it had not been for Jack and Sam
Getting me across the river, it is doubtful
I would have survived since I spent 6 months in hospital
Thanks to them and hospital staff in the UK I am still here.
January 2006,
Letter to Teddy Norris from Bernard Osborn, Bromley, Kent

Dear Teddy,
Today I received a letter from David Brook giving me your address. I had written to David after reading Norman’s letter in the Dec(ember) 2005 edition of the Eagle, in which your name was mentioned. In my letter I had stated that I was your second pilot on D-Day and Arnhem, and that I had endeavored to contact you.

A.N. - But you had tried to find Teddy
B.O.- Oh yes, nobody seemed to know. It was only when the 50th anniversary came up ( in 1994) that I really thought much about it again and also renewed my efforts to see if I could find anything about Teddy
A.N. - So when you found him 60 odd years later what did you think?
B.O. - Oh, I thought it was wonderful really. We had a lovely chat for about half an hour on the phone, and of course had we known that he wasn’t going to live much longer I’m sure we would have made earlier date to meet.

May I remind you of a little incident at Oosterbeek in 44? I’ve earned more than one meal on recounting this tale! …We were huddled in our two man slit trench. We were being heavily mortared. Suddenly there was a clanking and squeaking of tank tracks and nearby too! You perked up instantly and said “A tank, come on lets get it!”

B.O. - … He said, ‘It’s a tank alright,’ he said, ‘let’s go and get it.’ So, I said, ‘What?’ He repeated his question. I said, ‘Teddy, haven’t we got enough trouble here without going and chasing a blooming great big tank with just rifles in our hands?’ ‘Please yourself.’ he said, somewhat irritated. So, I thought, well, that’ll be the last I’ll see of Teddy I’m quite sure.
A.N. - So he went off in pursuit.
B.O. – He didn’t get anyone else interested, not unreasonably. Anyway about half an hour later he came slumping in sat down in the slit trench. ‘Well’, I said? ‘It had gone by the time I got there.’ he said, most irritably.
It was a blessing wasn’t it. You’ve had him another 60 years, after that, didn’t you? You certainly wouldn’t have done , What chance has one little lad with a rifle have against a tank
A.N. - How did he mean to capture the tank? How did he think he might succeed?
B.O. - Well, one way is, of course, if a tank commander commands his tank properly he really has to have his head out of the turret and I expect he thought that if he got the tank commander he might have thrown things into disarray and the chaps in the tank wondering what they would do next


31st March 2006,
Letter to David Brook from Bernard Osborn, Bromley, Kent

The Finding of Teddy Norris

Having found Teddy Norris after all these years it is very sad to report that his son has told me of his death in hospital. Our reunion was not to be but he was able to see the April, Eagle, article on our locating each other before he died.

Although my brother, Martin, managed to track down and make contact with Dad’s comrades after an absence of more than 60 years we, unfortunately, never did quite manage to reunite Dad with Bernard or Jack, Norman or Sam. But they were, at least, all aware that each had survived to old age. We owe them all so much.