Dutch town grants citizenship to fallen WW2 soldiers

Sidney Davies and George Pitfield are among those buried at Brunssum

A Dutch town is awarding honorary citizenship to hundreds of soldiers who died there during World War Two.

The honour is being granted to 328 men buried in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery in Brunssum to mark 75 years since its liberation.

It is the first time the award, the town's highest municipal honour, has been granted posthumously.

More than 100 relatives of the soldiers have travelled from the UK, Australia and Canada for a ceremony.

One is Anne-Marie Williams from Wareham in Dorset whose uncle, Bombardier George Sebastian Pitfield, was shot on 13 November 1944, aged 26.

She said his wife, Phyllis, lived to be 96 and never remarried.

Mr Pitfield, of the 94th Dorset and Hampshire Yeomanry Field Regiment Royal Artillery, is thought to be the first person buried at the cemetery.

Anne-Marie Williams travelled from Dorset to Brunssum for the ceremony

Ms Williams said: "I feel very proud to feel that my uncle sacrificed his life for other people and it is amazing that the people of Brunssum still remember that today."

John Davies, from Perth, was three weeks old when his 23-year-old father, Rifleman Sidney Arthur Davies, was killed on 9 December 1944.

He was serving with the Cameronians (Scottish Rifles) when he was wounded near Geilenkirchen, Germany, and died at Brunssum.

He said: "My mother, when my father was killed, she received a wallet which had been in his possession when he died and in the wallet was a letter from my mother to my father telling him that I had been born.

"I've always strived to do the best I can and I always think of my father when I do these things because I never knew him, but I can try my best to make him proud of me."

More than 1,500 British soldiers were killed during fighting around Arnhem in September 1944.

John Davies, from Perth, never met his father who died in Brunssum when he was three weeks old