AT just 18 Dennis Cramp was the youngest Allied soldier when he was dropped into occupied Holland on September 17, 1944.

Now aged 88 and living in Accrington, the former paratrooper is one of just a handful of veterans being treated to an all expenses paid trip back to the country to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Arnhem.

Mr Cramp, originally from Slough, was part of the British First Airborne Division when he was parachuted into the village of Oosterbeek, 5km from the city.

The retired lorry driver will return to the area tomorrow to attend a number of wreath-layings and memorial services to the almost 2,000 British troops killed during the failed attempt to cross the Rhine via the Arnhem road bridge.

Mr Cramp said he was among the first troops to land in Holland ahead of the mass invasion.

He said: “We were the first in. Our job was to lay the luminous landing signals and smoke signals. It was meant to shorten the war by six months but it failed miserably. The Germans knew in advance we were coming.”

When the call came to evacuate Mr Cramp pulled back to Nijmegen, then Brussels and then back to England.

After the war he married Maria, who died seven years ago, with whom he relocated to East Lancashire in the 1960s.