Airborne Engineers Association
Roll of Honour
George Miller
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On the evening of 9th November 2014 while being driven home from a Service of Remembrance George passed away. Before the war started George lived in Battersea London and had managed to get a place in a Grammar School, but left during the war to take a job with his father in Battersea Power Station. He later left that and joined the Army as a boy soldier and was with the Queens Own Royal West Kent Regiment before being transferred to the Royal Engineers which he loved, and it was not long before he was attached to the Airborne Wing of this unit. On D Day 1944 a few weeks after his 18th birthday he was sent in by glider and was in Normandy for three weeks before he was wounded. After recovering from his wounds he was stuck in another glider as he walked into camp and then found himself in Arnhem and he did talk a bit about being at Oosterbeek during the last days and he was one of the people that laid the tapes for the evacuation back across the Rhine. After returning to the UK it was not long before he was shipped out to Belgium to fight in the battle of the Bulge and from there he was involved in the fighting in Holland and Norway and some years later he was the guest of the King of Norway, but what this was about we never knew. |
Some of the odd bits of information he dropped at times, it would appear that he spent a bit of time in India and that part of the world, and from there he went to Palestine were for quite a while he was attached to Royal Navy and he had to board the Jewish Immigrant ships and disarm the mines on these ships. He was one of the Engineers that had to recover the bodies and clear the debris from the King David Hotel. He worked all over the Middle East until he was wounded again and sent home and later discharged from the Army, but was recalled to colours like so many old soldiers for the unspoken Suez Invasion of 1956.
George made his home in St Leonards, East Sussex, which he loved and became a great part of it, as time went on he owned a number of businesses on the sea front and was generous to a fault with his friends, and to Parachute Regimental Associations in Hastings & Eastbourne along with 9 Squadron Royal Engineers. His wit and good humour always made these events very memorable and his passing has left a large hole that will never be filled.
