Huge crowd of mourners turn out for funeral of Brit paratrooper who fought at Arnhem after he died with few surviving friends
Denis Icke's family made appeal after war hero, 96, died with very few surviving friends
HUNDREDS of mourners turned out for the funeral of a WWII veteran – after his family issued a plea to make it a service fit for a hero.
Well-wishers lined the Norwich route to bid farewell to former paratrooper Denis Icke, 96, who died recently.
And the service at Earlham Crematorium was so busy that locals had to peer through a door to pay their respects.
Brave Denis was one of the last-surviving soldiers to have fought at Arnhem - a fateful British airborne campaign aimed at ending the Second World War early.
After seeing friends and family pass away through the course of his long life, the great-grandfather’s wife Madge, 94, and son Stewart, 65, feared nobody would turn out to pay their respects.
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But after making an appeal for locals to come out and say goodbye to the war hero, hundreds lined the route to pay their respects.
Stewart had earlier said: “I want to invite people to come to my father's funeral because at their ages my parents had only a very few surviving friends.
“It would mean so much to my mother who thought the world of my dad after they'd been married for an incredible 74 years.”
Young Denis only met Madge at a dance months before the outbreak of war 1939.
They pair would later marry three years later and enjoy their honeymoon in Bognor Regis.
Aged 24 the soldier would endure one of the bloodiest weeks in British military history, as the 1st Airborne Division sought to capture a bridge across the River Rhine and end the war against Hitler early.
But disaster struck as Denis and his colleagues were mown down in the air by machine gun fire.
He would only escape by fleeing to the river banks and swimming back to British lines under heavy enemy fire.
By the end of the battle more than 15,000 Brits were listed as casualties.
Describing the horror of the 1944 assault, named Operation Market Garden, Madge said: “He found out it was a mistake.
“The Germans were already there waiting and our lads were being shot at as he came down on a glider.
“They had the tanks there. The parachutists were being machine-gunned before they hit the ground.
“He was determined he wasn't going to be a prisoner of war and he swam the River Rhine while he was being fired at.
“He was a good swimmer and he swam under water to where he knew his regiment was parked.”
The story of the battle was later made into Hollywood blockbuster a Bridge Too Far, starring Sean Connery, Laurence Olivier, Michael Caine and Gene Hackman.
After the war Denis and Madge went on to design caravans, eventually owning a camping site of their own in Norfolk.
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