Private ERNEST LESLIE CANE

Ernest Cane was born in Odiham in January 1920[1].  He was the son of Albert George, an oil roundsman, and Ethel Cane, (nee May), who lived in King Street, Odiham.[2] In 1939 Ernest was living/lodging in Greyfriars Road, Reading with the Deane family. Ernest and another ‘lodger’ are both single and butchers.  Ernest’s date of birth is given in full – ‘24 Feb 1920’.[3]  In 1942 Ernest married Edith Mary Uzzell from Wymering in Portsmouth.[4]

When Ernest enlisted is uncertain, but he joined the 11th (Royal Militia Island of Jersey) Battalion, Royal Hampshire Regiment, which was attached to the 7th Battalion of the Hampshires.   The Battalion had been removed from Jersey after the UK Government decided that the Channel Islands should no longer be defended in 1940. [5]  In 1944, following D-Day and success for the Allies in Normandy, the decision was made to pursue the German Army across northern France and into Belgium.  But there were logistical problems in getting supplies through hundreds of miles from the new front via Arromanches.  The plan to get round this problem was devised by Field Marshal Montgomery and code-named Operation Market Garden.  His idea was to strike north into the Netherlands, thus bypassing the German border defences and opening another route into the Ruhr basin and thus shorten the war.[6] This plan involved the seizure of key bridge by the British and US Airborne Divisions, followed by the British XXX Corps advancing over the bridges and across the Rhine and its tributaries.  From the start line the XXX Corps marched 13 miles to Eindhoven, 53 miles to Nijmegen, and 62 miles to Arnhem.  There were also two smaller bridges at Veghel and Grave en route.  The goal was to liberate the Netherlands, outflank the Siegfried line defences to allow an armoured drive into the Ruhr.[7]