Groups and Single Decorations for Gallantry 27
A fine post-War G.M. group of eight awarded to Sergeant L. Scott, Metropolitan Police, late 21st Independent Parachute Company, Parachute Regiment, Army Air Corps, who gained his George Medal for gallantry in overpowering and arresting an armed and dangerous prison escapee - he had earlier seen combat in Italy and at Arnhem where his Company experienced intensive fighting while trapped within the Oosterbeek Perimeter
George Medal, E.II.R., 2nd issue (Laurence Scott) in Royal Mint case of issue; 1939-45 Star; Italy Star; France and Germany Star; Defence and War Medals 1939-45; General Service 1918-62, 1 clasp, Palestine 1945-48 (5731130 Cpl. L. Scott. AAC.); Police L.S. & G.C., E.II.R., 1st issue (D.S. (2nd Cl.) Laurence Scott) good very fine or better (8)
£4,000-£5,000
G.M. London Gazette 14 February 1967: Laurence Scott, Sergeant, Metropolitan Police, London N.14 (in a joint citation with Sergeants Douglas Frank Albert Davies and Alexander Anthony Eist, Metropolitan Police [both awarded the B.E.M.]): ‘In the course of an investigation into a series of house-breakings, Sergeants Davies and Scott established that the thieves were using a car hired in an assumed name. The car was seen parked outside a house and the officers decided to enter the house. Sergeant Eist and other officers were called in to help. With Sergeants Scott and Eist covering the sides of the house, Sergeant Davies knocked at the front door. While he was speaking to the woman who opened it, Sergeant Scott, watching through the letter box of a basement door, saw a man emerge from a room. He called out to this man that he was a police officer and asked him to open the door. The man returned to the room and later emerged, carrying a rifle, and ran across the passageway into the back garden. Sergeant Scott kicked the door open and followed him to the end of the garden. Here the man sat on a wall pointing the rifle at Scott and threatening to shoot if he came any nearer. Davies and Eist joined Sergeant Scott and Eist at once recognised the man as an escapee from prison. The man was well known to all three officers as a vicious and callous criminal. The man jumped down from the wall and made off across the next garden with Sergeants Scott and Eist in direct pursuit and Sergeant Davies attempting to cut him off from the rear. After covering a short distance, the gunman stopped and aimed the rifle at Scott and Eist in turn and threatened to shoot them. He then backed away from the officers, still levelling the gun at them. They threw flower pots at him and he turned and ran. At the end of the garden he stopped again, put the rifle to his shoulders, aimed it deliberately at Sergeant Scott who was nearest to him, and said he would shoot if he came any closer. Despite the threats Scott and Eist together closed with the man and with the assistance of Sergeant Davies who joined in the struggle, he was soon disarmed and overpowered. The rifle was found to be loaded with three 22 bullets and a fourth bullet in the breach ready for firing. After the arrest Sergeant Davies went to search the car in front of the house. He encountered and challenged a caller at the house who struck out at the officer and a violent struggle ensued in the course of which the two men fell together some eight feet into the basement area. Hearing the noise, another police officer came from the house and helped Sergeant Davies to overpower the second man.’
Laurence Scott was born Laurence Solomon on 13 March 1920 in Holborn, London. Called up on 20 June 1940 to the 8th Battalion, Dorsetshire Regiment, he volunteered for the Airborne Service and joined the 21st Independent Parachute Company, Army Air Corps at Hardwick, completing his jump training in September 1942. Now with the rank of Corporal, he saw combat in Italy during 1943 before his involvement at Arnhem where, on 17 September 1944, the 21st Independent Company jumped at the start of Operation Market Garden, marking the Drop Zones and Landing Zones for the first lift. Amid heavy fighting, the Company became trapped within the Oosterbeek Perimeter together with the survivors of the 1st Airborne Division. When the withdrawal was ordered Scott managed to avoid capture and eventually escaped across the Rhine to Nijmegen:
‘It was Sunday and we were fighting in our last house in Oosterbeek village when we were told that we were to retreat. The house belonged to a Dutch dentist. It was in a mess, and some of his family were hiding in the cellar. We used to throw in sweets and other food when we could. We had heavy mortar and artillery barrage all the time - it was all noise. When the noise stopped we got worried, because then the troops would be coming in. We were told we were to withdraw across the Rhine at 10:00 p.m. When we knew, we went round telling the Dutch civilians. We didn't want to go; didn’t want to leave them behind. We were resigned to fighting, to being killed. I felt so angry. It seemed such a waste. Nine days of fighting and all those people killed and wounded and we had to leave the Dutch people behind. We wanted to stay. We formed up in platoons outside on the grassland in the village at about 9:30 p.m. It was pitch black and raining really hard. We’d cut up bits of blanket and tied them over our boots and bayonets. The tails of our camouflage smocks were loose and it was so dark we had to hold onto each other’s tails as we walked. Some people just sat down and went to sleep, they were so tired. I could see shadows on the ground. We were meant to leave with 1 Platoon but it was so dark that somehow we were left behind. It was lucky that we were left behind as 1 Platoon ran into a machine gun ambush and some were killed and wounded. Our C.O., Major Bob Wilson, was hit by a bullet that scraped the bridge of his nose and he was knocked out. We knew that the British artillery was across the river and were firing shells from two points on the far bank, about half a mile apart. So we knew where to head for and where the boats were going to be to get us across. Somehow four of us got separated from the platoon - Snowy Wheatley, Fred Weatherley, Lol Colbrooke and me. We huddled together in the woods by the river bank. I had my emergency rations of chocolate so we shared it and drank the rain. All the time there were lights going overhead, people shuffling past us -just shadows- and the Germans were mortaring us. We were so tired we carried on plodding along in the woods, past shadows of bodies on the ground - some dead, some asleep and so missing getting the boats and escaping.
We eventually passed Oosterbeek Church and Kate Von Horst’s house and finally came across the tail end of the queue waiting by river for the boats. The front of the queue was in the water. Suddenly about 50 men panicked and rushed forwards to get to the boats. We decided to move away and walk down the river bank. Out of nowhere one of the boats came drifting towards us and into the bank right by us. It had broken down. We got in. It was a Canadian engineer's boat. They got the engine going but it failed again about halfway across. We were meant to have got rid of our rifles but I’d kept a German rifle - much better than ours - and used it to paddle across. When we reached the far bank, one of the Canadians said, “Go that way” and I set off in the pitch blackness and found myself alone. I kept falling into shell craters, climbing out, then falling into another until I eventually reached a road. As I walked on every now and then a British soldier would step out of the darkness and say “not far now” and point up the road. It was actually about five miles, but I was so tired I just kept trudging along. I still had blankets on my boots but I was too tired to stop and take them off.
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