The Lord-Lieutenant of Essex unveiled a memorial last weekend to local casualties of the Second World War’s largest airborne assault.
Operation Varsity was the biggest aerial operation in history to be carried out on a single day over one location. On 24 March 1945, more than 16,000 men flew into western Germany to establish a bridgehead across the River Rhine for the main Allied advance.
The aim of the operation was to support a rapid Allied push towards Red Army forces arriving from the east. Rivenhall airfield was integral to the assault, with 60 gliders towed by two RAF squadrons taking off there at 0700 hrs as part of the 6th Airborne Division.
Last Sunday, 23 March 2025, 295 (Witham and Rivenhall) Squadron RAF Air Cadets (pictured in the background below) joined the Lord-Lieutenant to mark Operation Varsity’s 80 anniversary by unveiling a memorial to the 55 airmen and paratroopers who never came home.
During the commemoration, the cadets marched past the emorial to casualties of the airborne assault with 55 of their own members, led by their band, before each young person laid a small cross near the new memorial.
Col Hugh Toler MBE DL, one of Essex’s Deputy Lords-Lieutenant, is a great nephew of Sqn Ldr Toler DFC who commanded the flight out of Essex. Col Toler interviewed a young woman from the local re-enactment society who playhed the role of his aunt—the only WAAF servicewoman to have flown on the mission, without permission from the chain of command.
The commemoration also featured displays from local military vehicle societies, with a fly past by a wartime Douglas Dakota to top things off. Christopher Bullock of the Parachute Regimental Association was the mastermind behind the event’s planning.
The following day, 80 years to the hour after takeoff, local organisations and standard bearers (pictured below) also held a brief parade.
Photo credit ATC group shot: 295 (Witham and Rivenhall) Squadron RAF Air Cadets
