Bill Gladden, a British army veteran who survived a glider landing on D-Day and a subsequent injury, had a strong desire to return to France for the 80th anniversary of D-Day to honor his fallen comrades. Gladden, who passed away at the age of 100, had continued to remain determined to attend this year’s D-Day commemorations in Normandy, despite battling cancer. Born in 1924, Gladden joined the army at 18 and was ultimately assigned to the 6th Airborne Reconnaissance Regiment as a motorcycle dispatch rider, where he landed behind enemy lines on D-Day, charged with securing bridges for Allied forces.
During his time in Normandy, Gladden spent days making forays into the surrounding countryside, monitoring enemy activity. However, on June 16, he found himself carrying two wounded soldiers into a makeshift field hospital after a battle injury. Two days later, a bullet from a German tank severed his ankle, leading to a series of surgeries and a three-year hospital stay. Following the war, he married Marie Warne, and together, they had a daughter, Linda Durrant. Gladden spent forty years working for companies and continued to survive. He often joined trips to battlefields in Normandy and the Netherlands, organized for Military veterans, where he enjoyed singing wartime songs with fellow veterans.
Despite his reluctance to talk extensively about his war experiences, Gladden meticulously documented his wartime memories in his scrapbook. The scrapbook includes a newspaper clipping about tanks designed to fly, drawings of the glider landings, and memorabilia. Within the scrapbook was a piece of parachute silk, left by a paratrooper who landed in the orchard at Ranville where Gladden was stationed. Gladden had sewed his unit’s shoulder insignia into the fabric as he recovered in the hospital, maintaining the memory of his service. The insignia was also featured on his birthday cake earlier in the year, indicating his unwavering connection to his service.
While Gladden found joy in celebrating his 100th birthday with family and friends, his thoughts were often consumed by a desire to return to Normandy to pay his respects to his comrades. He had especially hoped to honor the two soldiers he had carried into the barn during the D-Day operations, who did not survive. Gladden’s niece’s husband, Alan Thorpe, expressed his belief that Gladden is now in a place where he can pay his respects in person to his fallen comrades. However, Gladden’s passing marks the loss of yet another WWII veteran, leaving behind a legacy of courage, resilience, and unwavering commitment to his fallen comrades and the memory of WWII.
