John Hollington Grayburn John " Jack " Hollington Grayburn VC ( 30 January 1918 – 20 September 1944 ) was an English recipient of the Victoria Cross , the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces . Born in 1918 , Grayburn was educated in Dorset and joined the Army Cadet Force before the outbreak of the Second World War . He was initially commissioned into the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry and later joined the Parachute Regiment . At the age of 26 he went into action in the Battle of Arnhem where he was part of the small force that was able to reach Arnhem road bridge . Between 17 – 20 September he led his platoon , and later the remnants of a battalion , in the defence of the small British perimeter around the bridge , but was killed after standing up in full view of a German tank in order to direct his men to new positions . Grayburn is buried in the Arnhem Oosterbeek War Cemetery , and his Victoria Cross is displayed at the Parachute Regiment and Airborne Forces Museum in England . Early life . John Grayburn was born on 30 January 1918 on Manora Island , India , the son of Lionel Markham and Gertrude Grayburn . The family returned to England whilst he was young . From 1931 to 1935 he attended Sherborne School in Dorset where he was a member of Abbey House . After leaving Sherborne School he joined the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation . Grayburn played rugby for the Chiltern Rugby Club between 1927 and 1939 and was a skilled boxer . Grayburn joined the Army Cadet Force and was posted to the 1st ( London ) Cadet Force , The Queen ' s Royal Regiment . In September 1940 he was given an emergency commission to second lieutenant and was posted to the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry . Second World War . Grayburn was promoted to war substantive lieutenant in 1942 and married Marcelle Chambers , with whom he had a son , in the same year . However , the Ox and Bucks remained on the home front and Grayburn became bored with the inactivity . Instead he applied to the Parachute Regiment and in June 1943 he was transferred to the 7th ( Light Infantry ) Parachute Battalion . The following year he was transferred to the regiment ' s 2nd Battalion , under the command of Lieutenant Colonel John Frost , and took command of 2 Platoon , A Company . Battle of Arnhem . The Battle of Arnhem was part of Operation Market Garden , an attempt to secure a string of bridges through the Netherlands . At Arnhem the British 1st Airborne Division and Polish 1st Independent Parachute Brigade were tasked with securing bridges across the Lower Rhine , the final objectives of the operation . However , the airborne forces that dropped on 17 September were not aware that the 9th SS and 10th SS Panzer divisions were also near Arnhem for rest and refit . Their presence added a substantial number of Panzergrenadiers , tanks and self - propelled gun s to the German defences and the Allies suffered heavily in the ensuing battle . Only a small force managed to hold one end of the Arnhem road bridge before being overrun on 21 September . The rest of the division became trapped in a small pocket west of the bridge and had to be evacuated on 25 September . The Allies failed to cross the Rhine , which remained under German control until Allied offensives in March 1945 . Advance to the bridge . 1st Airborne Division ' s commanding officer , Major General Roy Urquhart , originally planned for the 2nd Battalion to lead the 1st Parachute Brigade into Arnhem to secure the road , rail and pontoon bridges over the Lower Rhine . Frost chose Major Digby Tatham - Warter ' s A Company to lead the battalion ' s march from the drop zone s to the bridges , knowing him to be " a thruster if ever there was " . A company was in action almost at once , ambushing a small German recce group near the drop zone . The company moved off through the woods toward the river road , with each platoon taking turns to lead . There was a brief plan to advance the platoons by jeep once out of the woods , but German forces were encountered shortly afterwards and the idea was not followed up . Grayburn had just arrived at a road junction and headed north when the men behind him came under enemy fire . After laying a smokescreen he led a charge that cleared the enemy positions . Tatham - Warter lacked confidence in the Airborne radio equipment and had trained his platoons to use bugle call s ; it was with the charge that Grayburn signalled that the advance could be resumed . A Company was not significantly delayed by the German patrols it encountered later , although the presence of cheering Dutch crowds delayed the whole battalion as it passed through Oosterbeek . As they approached the railway bridge , C Company detached to capture it , but German engineers blew the bridge just as the British were starting to cross it . A Company now encountered enemy armoured cars , but successfully skirted them by manoeuvering through the back gardens of the houses on either side of the road At 8pm , as darkness fell , Grayburn ' s platoon led A Company into Arnhem centre and under the main ramp of Arnhem road bridge . Tatham - Warter deployed his platoons around the ramp ; 2 Platoon covered both sides of the northernmost extreme of the ramp where it fed into the town centre . Defence of the bridge . Grayburn did not fire on the occasional German traffic still using the bridge , preferring not to advertise the Allied presence until the rest of the battalion had arrived . Upon his arrival , Frost began securing more buildings around the ramp , and a small section attack was made on the bridge . The German defenders quickly repulsed this however and Tatham - Warter organised a stronger attack , to be led by Grayburn . As soon as it was sufficiently dark , Grayburn led his platoon along the ramp to the bridge , their faces blackened and their boots muffled with strips of torn up curtain s . The platoon moved forward on either side of the girders along the sides of the road , but was quickly spotted by enemy forces on the bridge . Grayburn was shot in the shoulder but continued to press his men on , until the withering enemy fire became too intense and he was forced to pull them back . He was the last person to descend from the ramp into cover . Over the next few days , every man of the 700 or so who had made it to the bridge and whether a combat trooper or not , was engaged in the defence of the British perimeter . A Company was sited in the buildings on either side of the ramp nearest the river , and on Monday 18 2 Platoon occupied a house on the east side . This sector came under increasing attack from tanks and infantry of the 10th SS Panzer Division , and the building was later burnt down . The rest of the division made several efforts to reinforce Frost ' s men , but were unable to break through the German forces that surrounded the bridge . The exact disposition of the British troops subsequently became more confused as the battle developed into house to house fighting . Tatham - Warter took command of 2nd Battalion on Tuesday 19 , and Grayburn temporarily took command of A Company after Tatham - Warter ' s designated replacement was wounded . Grayburn led several fighting patrols that forced the Germans to commit more armour but as Wednesday 20 dawned , the British position was becoming untenable . As the Germans squeezed the perimeter they laid explosives on a section of the ramp crossing a road next to the riverbank , lest XXX Corps should break through and capture the bridge from the south . Grayburn led another patrol that forced the enemy away from the arch while Royal Engineers removed the fuze s . Grayburn was wounded again but quickly returned after being treated , now with his head bandaged and arm in a sling . German infantry later returned to relay the charges and a second patrol went out to remove them . A German tank had come forward to cover the arch , but in order to direct his men to better positions Grayburn stood up in full view of it . The tank ' s machine gun killed him instantly . Frost ' s perimeter gradually shrank as men and ammunition ran low , and Frost himself was wounded on 20 September . A brief ceasefire was held later that day to allow the evacuation of wounded men in danger of becoming trapped and being burned alive in the cellars of wrecked buildings . Despite the best efforts of the remaining men to hold out overnight , they were finally overrun in the early hours of the 21 September . Victoria Cross . Major Tatham - Warter was able to escape German captivity and later led nearly 140 men to safety in Operation Pegasus . Upon his return to England he wrote a report on the action at the bridge , which led to Grayburn ' s posthumous promotion to captain and the award of the Victoria Cross . The full citation for Grayburn ' s Victoria Cross appeared in a supplement to the " London Gazette " on 23 January 1945 , reading : Legacy . After his death , Grayburn ' s body fell into the Lower Rhine . It was recovered in 1948 and added to the Arnhem Oosterbeek War Cemetery . Although most graves in the cemetery are organised by unit , Grayburn ' s is separate from the other parachute formations . His VC is in the care of the Parachute Regiment and Airborne Forces Museum and there are plaques in his memory at Chalfont St Giles parish church , and at the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation war memorial in Hong Kong , where Grayburn ' s uncle worked before the war . He is also commemorated on the Sherborne School War Memorial and in the Sherborne School Book of Remembrance In the 1977 film " A Bridge Too Far " , Christopher Good played a composite character of Grayburn and Tatham - Warter . See also . Four other men were awarded the Victoria Cross at Arnhem :