Rank: Trooper

**Service No: ** 14420904

Date of Death: ** 28/03/1945 Age:**19 years

Regiment/Service: Royal Armoured Corps   3rd/4th County of London Yeomanry (Sharpshooters)

Grave Reference: 54. A. 10.

**Cemetery: ** REICHSWALD FOREST WAR CEMETERY

Additional Information:

Alfred was the son of Alfred and Gladys Testi, of Christleton, Cheshire. The Testi Family were the Landlords of the Red Lion in Village Road, ( now the Ring O Bells), and the main lighting in St James Church was given by the Testi Family in memory of their son.

Alfred’s regiment were under the command of 53(W)Div when they were engaged with the enemy in an area near Bocholt. There was an infamous POW Camp at Bocholt Stalag VIF. It is recorded that when the allies landed in Arnhem (Holland) in 1944 the front got so close to Bocholt that it was evacuated to Munster. On 22nd March 1945 the RAF bombed Bocholt.

In my efforts to find out what happened to Alfred, I searched the archives of the war and found out a little about the 3/4County of London Yeomanry. In their Regimental Battle Honours 1945 it records that they served in Hochwald & The Rhine. Following the breakout from Normandy, the Royal Armoured Corps pushed through Belgium into Holland. There followed a long hard winter on the Maas and in the Reichswald, but in March 1945 came the crossing of the Rhine and the final gallop across the North German plain ending with the entry into Hamburg in April 1945. It appears that Alfred was probably killed during Operation Veritable. During the winter of 1944 Allied units had come to a standstill in the area of Nijmegen, Holland near the German border. Operation Veritable turned out to be the decisive turning point in the war. In an effort to cross into the Rhineland vast numbers of British, Canadian & American soldiers were gathered to push into the heart of Germany. Planned by Field Marshal Montgomery, a force of 500,000 soldiers was assembled, with the aim of encircling German forces around the Reichwald Forest. Surviving soldiers describe the Forest as “a slaughterhouse” and Dwight Eisenhower said it was “One of the fiercest and most violent campaigns of the war, a bitter struggle of endurance between the Allies and the Germans”

The crossing of the Rhine on 23rd March proved to be the last set piece battle between the Allies & Germans in Europe. There was a high cost to both sides, and an estimated 23,000men on the Allies side and 38,000 Germans. Many are buried in the Groesbeek Canadian War Cemetery and the Reichswald Forest War Cemetery where Alfred Testi from the village is buried. He is among 7.500+ British soldiers in that cemetery.

Reichswald Forest War Cemetery was created after the Second World War when burials were brought in from all over western Germany and is the largest Commonwealth cemetery in the country. Some of those members of the land forces buried there died in the advance through Reichswald Forest in February 1945. Others died crossing the Rhine.