Lt William Donaldson
? – 21 Sep 1944 ◐
Lt William Stewart Donaldson (300870).
About: Platoon commander of 11 Platoon, C Company, 156 Parachute Battalion, commissioned from cadet to second lieutenant in November 1943. Hit through the leg and arm on the 21st by Walsh's report (on the thigh, undated, by Murphy's memoir) and killed at Oosterbeek, he is buried at Arnhem Oosterbeek War Cemetery; the day is 21 September on most of the Commission's records and 20 September on its website.
Unit or role: 11 Platoon, C Company, 156 Para Bn; "my Platoon C.O." (Walsh); "My Lt Mr Donaldson" (Murphy). Second lieutenant, Reconnaissance Corps, from 21 November 1943; transferred to the Army Air Corps (Parachute Regiment) on 26 February 1944.
Where: Wimbledon, Surrey, the address in the cemetery register for his wife; killed at Oosterbeek; first buried at Zonneheuvel, map reference 681785; now Arnhem Oosterbeek War Cemetery, plot 21, row B, grave 10.
Evidence: ✓ the five Commission documents; London Gazette, 24 December 1943 and 14 April 1944; Walsh's report; ParaData.
He was commissioned in November 1943: "409780 William Stewart DONALDSON (300870)", a cadet, was made a second lieutenant in the Reconnaissance Corps on 21 November 1943 (London Gazette, 24 December 1943, p. 5583). ◐ By the Gazette's own layout 409780 is the number he held as a cadet and 300870 his officer's number. He joined the Parachute Regiment's list as a second lieutenant "from Recce. Corps, 26th Feb. 1944": "W. S. Donaldson (300870) from Recce. Corps, 26th Feb. 1944" (London Gazette, 14 April 1944, p. 1698).
ParaData has him on parachute course number 108 at RAF Ringway, 20 to 29 March 1944, and then "posted to command 11 Platoon, C company, 156th Battalion the Parachute Regiment" (ParaData; its sources are not stated). The Commission's register has him "Son of William and Lilian Donaldson; husband of Geraldine (Jill) Donaldson, of Wimbledon, Surrey", aged 25 (register page 19). ◐ Aged 25 on 20 or 21 September 1944 puts his birth between 21 September 1918 and 21 September 1919; no record of the birth is held. The Leicestershire War Memorials Project lists him, "Date of Birth -", against the Parachute Regiment memorial at St Mary's Church, Melton Mowbray (the entry); nothing there says he was from Leicestershire.
At Arnhem
Link to the section At ArnhemMajor Powell commanded C Company, and on the Pegasus Archive's account Donaldson was "the only remaining officer in the Company besides Powell" when he was killed (Powell's page). Four accounts say something of how and when, and they do not agree.
Walsh, to MI9 on 7 March 1945. Walsh was a Bren gunner in his platoon, and was beside him:
At about midday on THURS 21 SEP our Coy went in to attack a German MG position in the neighbourhood of OOSTERBEEK (700780 Sheet 5). At the time I was beside Lt. DONALDSON [300870. Lieut. William Stewart Donaldson. 11 Platoon, "C" Company, 156 Parachute Battalion. He is recorded as killed in action on the 20/09/1944. His first burial place was recorded as Grid: 681785, the corner of Zonneheuvelweg] my Platoon C.O. and Sjt. JOYCE [4448773. Sgt. Patrick Peter Joyce. 11 Platoon, "C" Company, 156 Parachute Battalion. He survived as a POW at Stalag 357] who was acting Platoon Serjeant and we were manoeuvring to a flank in order to get a site for my Bren Gun when we received a burst of fire. Lt. DONALDSON was shot through the leg and arm and JOYCE through the chest while I sustained a scalp wound which laid me out for ten or fifteen minutes.
— MI9 · Pte S. Walsh, C Company, 156 Parachute Battalion · report of 7 March 1945 · bracketed notes are the Pegasus Archive compiler's · the report
He goes on:
I then managed to get Lt. DONALDSON to a house about twenty yards to the rear. By this time the Coy had withdrawn and a few minutes later the Germans advanced and DONALDSON and I were taken prisoner. I was disarmed and taken away to what I believed to be Bn HQ, with about a dozen other prisoners, all walking wounded. I have not heard of Lt. DONALDSON since, though I have a suspicion that he was shot. I had not gone more than 10 or 12 yards from the house where I left him before I heard a single shot which definitely came from that house.
— MI9 · Pte S. Walsh, C Company, 156 Parachute Battalion · report of 7 March 1945 · the report
The reference 700780 is the one Hardy gives for Divisional Headquarters at Oosterbeek, so ◐ it names the village, not the position (the references converted). Walsh thought Sgt Joyce had died; ✗ he was wrong if his Joyce is Sgt Patrick Joyce 4448773, who was a prisoner at Stalag 357 (◐ the Pegasus compiler's identification, nothing else ties the two). Walsh does not name Murphy at this point. Walsh's own story is on his page.
Murphy, in his memoir, c.1998.
My Lt Mr Donaldson was badly hit on the thigh, and I got help and took him into a house, and got him a drink. The Gerries came into the house, then ran out again. Mr Donaldson suggested we surrender, as we had no AMMO and/or head for the RHINE. Another Soldier, Sam Welsh and I intended to carry the Officer, but the Gerries appeared again and immediately shot Mr Donaldson behind the ear. They then marched us off through the village of OOSTERBEK [sic] and eventually to STALAG IIB.
— Thomas Murphy, memoir, page 7, c.1998
On the manuscript the camp's number is two upright strokes before the B, which can be read as II or 11; Murphy's typed memoir has "STALAG 11B" (typed memoir, p. 2).
Murphy's memoir has the Germans shoot Donaldson in the house, "behind the ear", before he and Walsh were marched off. Walsh's report has Walsh leave Donaldson in the house with the Germans, and hear one shot. ◐ The two fit if Murphy was marched off with Walsh; only Murphy puts himself in the house.
Grier's page, on the Pegasus Archive. It has Donaldson, "the commander of No.11 Platoon", "fatally wounded" on "Wednesday 20th September", when "Grier and the no.2 on his Bren gun, Private Lewis Kemp, dashed out and carried him to safety by using a blanket as a stretcher" (Grier). ⚠︎ The page gives no source for this, and it does not put Walsh or Murphy with him (Grier's page; Lewis Kemp).
Powell's page, on the Pegasus Archive. After the 156's withdrawal south of the railway on the afternoon of Tuesday the 19th, "On the following morning" C Company "were ordered to make an attack over their right flank", and "a number of men were killed, including Lieutenant Donaldson, the only remaining officer in the Company besides Powell"; the page has Powell then called to Hackett and ordered to take a hollow, and, "At about 18:00 Hackett called for Powell" to break out of the hollow into the Perimeter (Powell). ⚠︎ That is Wednesday the 20th, a day before Walsh's Thursday, and it has C Company inside the Perimeter by that evening. The page gives no sources for the day's events; it thanks Philip Sturtivant for his help with the biography. Powell's own book, Men at Arnhem, gives every person an invented name and does not name Donaldson (the 1976 text; the 2003 edition's introduction, which names the real men, has not been seen), and its wounded platoon commander "in the thigh" is on the night of 18/19 September on the Dreijenseweg (the note), so it is no help to either date.
MI6, and what Murphy was told after the war. In Edinburgh after demob, Murphy wrote, he met a young soldier who had been with him at Arnhem:
He said MI6 questioned him about me and Sammy Welsh, and how we got on with Mr Donaldson who was murdered. That finished me with the Army. and I ceased communicating with the Airborne.
— Thomas Murphy, memoir, Edinburgh, after demob
His grave, and the day he died
Link to the section His grave, and the day he died
He is buried at Arnhem Oosterbeek War Cemetery, plot 21, row B, grave 10. The register has him 25, "Son of William and Lilian Donaldson; husband of Geraldine (Jill) Donaldson, of Wimbledon, Surrey", and the headstone schedule carries the personal inscription "In glorious memory of a most gallant gentleman and soldier" (the register; the schedule).
Someone has struck out "21st September 1944" on it and written "20th" beside it in red. That correction is where the Commission's website date, 20 September, comes from, as far as the five documents show.
◐ Most of the Commission's own records give the 21st, not the 20th its website gives, and one records the cause as presumed died of wounds rather than killed in action. ParaData and the Leicestershire War Memorials Project have the 20th, ◐ following the website (ParaData; Leicestershire). The 21st is the day Walsh gives, and 21 September 1944 was a Thursday, as Walsh wrote. The five documents (and what each one is):
| Document | What it says |
|---|---|
| Graves Concentration Report Form, 37 Graves Concentration Unit, 4 Sep 1945 | The field form, signed by a captain, "37 G.R.U.". Unit first written "R.A." and corrected to 156 Bn Para Regt; date and cause of death both "u/k" |
| The same concentration typed up, BAOR/Concen/2514, 8 Nov 1945 | Typed "Unknown" for both date and cause, then annotated in red ink: "on or shortly after 21.9.44" and "PRES./D.W.", presumed died of wounds |
| Graves Registration Report Form, schedule 138, 10 Oct 1956 | Typed, unamended: "300870 Lt. W.S. DONALDSON, 156 Para Bn. Para Regt. A.A.C., 21.9.44" |
| Printed cemetery register, NL.260 p.19 | The book issued to families, printed: "21st September, 1944. Age 25" |
| Headstone schedule, grave XXI.B.10 | Typed "21st September 1944"; "21st" struck through in red ink and "20th" written beside it |
⚠︎ Read the red ink carefully before leaning on this. The 21st on the concentration form and the 20th on the headstone schedule are both in red pen, but nothing held shows they are the same office or hand (the concentration form is BAOR, November 1945; the schedule is an undated Form H/2). ◐ The 21st reads as someone reconciling an unknown date against some other source, not a clean contest between typed fact and later scrawl. On the concentration form the red-ink annotator dated four men whose date was "u/k" on the field form (the field form), one by one, and not alike: Donaldson and Pte Lewington (both typed "Unknown") "on or shortly after 21.9.44", Sgt Bruce and Cpl Mason "on or shortly after 20.9.44"; Lt Strang's typed 19.9.44 has "on or shortly after" added, and Sigmn Wolfe's typed 21.9.44 stands. ◐ So the annotator was probably working from something. What can be said plainly is that two records carry the 21st with no amendment at all, the 1956 registration form and the register printed for families, and that the 20th on the website survives from the amendment made when the stone was cut. Where the 21st came from, and what the clerk was reading, is a question for the Commission's enquiries desk.
Where he was first buried. Both concentration forms give the previous location as an isolated group of graves at Zonneheuvel, map reference 681785, "Oosterbeek Isolated Holland Gp. of graves Area Zonne Heuvel. Sh. 6NW. MR-681785." on the field form. Seven men were lifted from it together (the field form has an eighth entry at the same spot, an unknown "R.A.", plot XXI B grave 15, struck through; the field form, read on the image), the typed form's date of reburial being 3 September 1945 (the field form is dated 4 September): Pte S. A. Chennell (3 Para), Donaldson, Sgt G. Bruce and Pte H. W. Lewington (both 156 Bn), Sigmn D. J. V. Wolfe (Royal Signals), Lt J. H. Strang (7 KOSB) and Cpl D. Mason (1st Airborne Reconnaissance Squadron) (the typed form; what each document is). The Pegasus Archive's compiler gives the first burial place as "Grid: 681785, the corner of Zonneheuvelweg" (Walsh's page), as does ParaData (entry).
Where the sources disagree
Link to the section Where the sources disagree- The day. Wednesday 20 September: the Commission's website, ParaData, Grier's page and Powell's page. Thursday 21 September: Walsh, Murphy's account (undated, but with Walsh), the Commission's concentration annotation, 1956 registration and printed register. Not settled; nothing held says what the clerks were reading.
- How he died. Shot behind the ear in the house, by Murphy; Walsh heard one shot from the house as he left it; "fatally wounded" and carried to safety on a blanket, by Grier's page; "killed" with others in the company attack, by Powell's page; "PRES./D.W." on the concentration form. ◐ Only Murphy's account puts both Murphy and Walsh in that house; Walsh's puts Walsh there.
- Where it was. "The neighbourhood of OOSTERBEEK" by Walsh; the grave group at Zonneheuvel, map reference 681785, is where he was found.
- His wounds. "Through the leg and arm" by Walsh; "on the thigh" by Murphy.
- A note on the typed form. At the foot of the typed concentration form, in red, in a hand running up the page, with "Bruce" underlined: ◐ "Dealt with Bruce only", after a first word read either "Enqy:" (enquiry) or a name, "E Gray", and a date read either 2/12/45 or 12/12/45, so 2 or 12 December 1945 (the typed form, read on the image; G. Bruce). Nothing held explains the note.