Astin, Gilbert Leslie, born 26-12-1922 in a suburb of Manchester called Hulme.
to John Philip Astin, who was a dentist and his wife Elizabeth May Hedges, who used to be a professional dancer with the world-famous “Tiller Girls”.
May and John were both born in 1893. They married on 21-02-1914. John Jeffries (Long Bennington, England) and Ad van de Laar (Eerde, Netherlands) recorded the life story of Gilbert Astin.
Shortly after the marriage John joined the Royal Army Medical Corps. In the army hetrained to become a dentist. One year after their marriage, on 01-02-1915, May and John had their first baby, a girl. Her name was Marjory On 10-07-1917 they had another girl. They called her Vera. Marjory became seriously ill, she died from diphtheria at home in her mother’s arms when she was only six years old..On Boxing Day 1922 a son was born. May and John called him Gilbert .The family was then living in Walnut street, Hulme, Manchester.
When Gilbert was 5 years old, they moved to a village called Marple, where his father started a dental practice.
The house they lived in, was in the same street as the primary school where Gilbertwent until he was about 11 years old .In those days every school used to keep a school log. From that log, we learned that Gilbert’s first school day was 09-01-1928. The school was called Ludworth Primary School
and it is still in use today.
After Gilbert finished secondary school, he started to work with a firm of Estate Agents in Manchester. Gilbert had a girlfriend then. Her name was Barbara.
Gilly’s life was running like it should, but then the war broke out. The Germans, with Adolf Hitler as their leader, wanted to control all of Europe, including Great-Britain. The Battle of Britain was mostly fought in the air. German aeroplanes were bombing English cities. About 50.000 British civilians lost their lives. But the Royal Air Force struck back hard. After the Germans had lost about 170 planes in airfights, they left England in peace for the time being. Gilbert was old enough to understand the situation. He wanted to contribute in the fight against the Germans and became a member of the Civil Defence.
This organization guarded bridges and important buildings and was also responsible forair raid warning alarms.Some time later Gilbert joined the Home Guard.
This was a kind of army which was trained to slow down a possible German attack on England. In the time they gained,the regular army would return from campaigns abroad to England. The Home Guard had more than one million members, mostly boys who were too young for the army ormen who were too old for it. When Gilbert was 19 years old, he joined the army. He wanted take part in the fight against Nazi-Germany. Besides that he got a chance to see some of the world, just like his mother had.Gilbert was asked to be a tank driver.
He thought that would be an exciting job, so after a few months he was the driver of a Sherman Tank of the 44th Royal Tank Regiment.
under command of Major-General Gerald Charles Hopkinson
Here you see a Sherman Tank and the symbol of Gilbert’s unit.
Gilbert was sent to Alexandria in Egypt. Together with Australian and South AfricanTroops, his Tank Regiment fought in the northof Africa. Their opponents were not only Germans, butItalians as well. The Italian dictator Mussolini was an important ally of Hitler. Gilbert here in Africa with his friend James Edward (Chick) Hardy. Chick died in battle on 24-09-1944 in Holland, during Operation Market Garden.
In July 1943 the 44th Royal Tank Regiment was shipped to the island Sicily. They had to conquer Italy from the south. Later the British army was shipped from Sicily and arrived on the mainland of Italy in August, From there they advanced to the north. Gilbert celebrated his 21st birthday in Italy. On 09-10-1943 the regiment was inspected by Field Marshall Montgomery,
who would be responsible with General Dwight Eisenhower
for Operation “Market Garden”, a year later. Having successfully engaged with the enemy on several occasions in the Italian Campaign, the regiment sailed back to England on 27-01-1944. On arriving the whole regiment, which had been abroad for 3 years, was granted a well-earned home leave. Gilbert had many exciting stories to tell to his parents and his friends. The months March, April and May were used for training and to restore the regiment’s strength.
After that Gilbert had to leave for France. The Allied Forces had conquered the peninsula of Normandy. This spectacular invasion cost the lives of thousands of young soldiers, but it was the start of the liberation of Europe. An artificial harbour was made in Arromanches. That is where Gilbert’s tank rolled off the boat into France. On 12-06-1944 Gilbert wrote a letter home. He told his parents that he did not like France very much. But Gilbert assured them that they didn’t have to worry.
Under the command of the American General George Patton,
France and Belgium were liberated in a few months. The troops advanced so quickly that it became a problem to get all the supplies to the front in time. So the march to Germany more or less came to a stop.In an attempt to finish the war before the winter of 1944, Field Marshall Montgomery came up with a plan to march briskly into Germany. The plan was that ground forces would move quickly from Belgium through my hometown Eindhoven,
Veghel and Nijmegen to the bridge “Too far” of Arnhem. From there it was easy to take the Ruhrarea and to eliminate the German war industry. If the plan worked, the war could beover by Christmas 1944.The road to Arnhem was crossed by rivers and canals. So parachute infantry, the 101
and 82th
Airborne Divisions was dropped alongside the route to secure the bridges and make it possible for tanks and trucks to go to Arnhem unhindered. This plan became code-named “Market Garden”.
The paratroopers who landed near the small village of Eerde, were Americans of the 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment. under command of Howard Ravenscroft “Jumpy” Johnson
They had only light weapons and they had novehicles. After a few days they were provided with some jeeps, which came from England by gliders. The Americans didn’t have tanks either. But the plan was set upwell. Each American airborne regiment would be assisted by a number of tanks fromthe 44th Royal Tank Regiment. The tank which was driven by Gilbert Astin had to join the 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment in Veghel.
The journey from the Belgian village of Neerpelt to Veghel took Gilbert almost a week. The reason for this was that the Germans first blocked the road at Valkenswaard and on Tuesday 19th September they bombed Eindhoven, so that the tanks could not pass the city. On this picture you see the tanks and trucks waiting in Valkenswaard.
Death and burial ground of Astin, Gilbert Leslie.

On Sunday 24-09-1944 the commander of A squadron, Major Cave, was ordered to go to Eerde and contact the American Colonel Johnson. At that moment there were major problems in Eerde. The Germans were attacking the village with hundreds of soldiers and some tanks. Bullets were flying in the streets and grenades struck the church steeple and the windmill. Many houses were damaged or even shot in flames. A truck loaded with ammunition got a direct hit and all soldiers who were near it got killed. The Americans were suffering badly, but they had to stop the Germans from cuttingoff the road to Arnhem, which by then they called “Hell’s Highway”. At about eleven o’clock in the morning the tanks rolled into Eerde. On the north side of the village was the windmill. Gilbert placed his tank between the windmill and the miller’s house. This would give them some cover. Suddenly they heard an enormous explosion. Another tank, which was behind them in a garden near a house (Kapelstraat 71) was hit by a German tank. The gunners were dead but the driver was able to get out of the tank. The blast blew the commander,lieutenant Hooper, off the tank. He was wounded very badly, but he shouted to the Americans: “My men, get them out !!!!”.The gunners in Gilbert’s tank turned the turret into the direction from which the shot had come from. They fired at the German tank, but missed it. Then another German tank fired a shot and hit Gilbert’s tank. The two gunners were killed immediately by the exploding ammunition inside the turret.Gilbert was wounded too. Gilbert was hit in the side of the body. Soldiers reached him with medical aid very quickly, but there was nothing they could do as he, age 21, had already died in the driving seat of his tank. Some moments later the tank caught fire with Gilbert still in it. Gilbert Astin was buried in the churchyard of Eerde,
together with other British and Americans who were killed. At first the graves were marked by wooden crosses.
Later Gilbert and the other British troopers were buried next to each other, on the spot where they still are today.


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