Life Story
Early Life and Military Career
Born on 9 February 1924 in Calcutta, India, to Eileen and Alexander
George Vlasto, he joined the King’s Royal Rie Corps before volunteering
for the elite Parachute Regiment. Commissioned as a War Substantive
Lieutenant in September 1943, he completed Parachute Course 99
in February 1944 and transferred to the 2nd Parachute Battalion by
December 1943.
Operation Market Garden
By mid-1944, Vlasto was posted to A Company, 2nd Battalion, The
Parachute Regiment, part of the elite 1st Airborne Division, under the
command of Lieutenant Colonel John Frost. He assumed command of
1 Platoon (A Company) and was stationed at Fulbeck Hall, Lincolnshire,
the division’s headquarters, as preparations began for what would
become one of the most daring airborne operations of the war. On
Sunday, 17 September 1944, Vlasto’s platoon boarded Dakota C-47
aircraft for the drop zones near Wolfheze, west of Arnhem. Spirits were
high His wartime diary recounts the optimism before the drop:
:
“The weather is glorious… I wonder whether we shall be drinking in
Berlin, or Amsterdam within a week…”
He carried a bugle horn, later deemed “a waste of time and space,”
which a sergeant returned to him post-war
The parachute drop was largely successful; casualties were
light, and the men assembled quickly. Vlasto later wrote:
“The Huns seemed to have cleared out of the neighbourhood in a hurry.”
His platoon joined the 2nd Battalion’s push toward Arnhem, a 7-mile