Colonel John Maurice Arthur Tillett (4 November 1919 – 14 December 2014) was a British Army officer who had a critical role in the planning of the capture of the Caen canal and Orne river bridges on D-Day, 6 June 1944, during the Second World War. He was one of the last surviving British Army officers to have served with the 6th Airborne Division in Operation Mallard, on 6 June 1944, and in Operation Varsity, on 24 March 1945. He later commanded the Ugandan Army.
Early life and Second World War
John Tillett was born in Ipswich, Suffolk, on 4 November 1919, just under a year after the end of the First World War. His father, Major A. R. Tillett, served with the Suffolk Hussars. He was educated at Ipswich School and went to Germany on a school hockey tour in 1936, where he encountered the Hitler Youth organisation, which made him an honorary member. In Germany, he saw army manoeuvres in the Harz mountains which convinced him that war was approaching and he enlisted in the 4th/5th Battalion, Suffolk Regiment, a Territorial Army (TA) unit serving as part of the 54th (East Anglian) Infantry Division, in 1937.
However, Tillett was commissioned as a second lieutenant into the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry (Ox and Bucks) on 24 August 1940, eleven months after the Second World War began, and was given the service number of 145422. He was posted to the 2nd Battalion, Ox and Bucks (also known as the 52nd), which had recently returned from India. The battalion formed part of the 31st Independent Brigade Group, which in December 1941 was converted into the 1st Airlanding Brigade. The brigade, comprising the 1st Battalions of the Royal Ulster Rifles and the Border Regiment and the 2nd Battalions of the South Staffordshire Regiment and Ox and Bucks, commanded by Brigadier George Hopkinson, was now part of the 1st Airborne Division, commanded by Major General Frederick Browning. The battalion was now part of the British Army's expanding airborne forces and underwent training as a glider infantry unit. Transferring from the 1st Airlanding Brigade, alongside the 1st Ulster Rifles, to help form the newly created 6th Airlanding Brigade, under Brigadier Hugh Kindersley, which itself was one of three brigades of Major General Richard Gale's 6th Airborne Division, the battalion spent many months in training for the eventual Allied invasion of Normandy, in which it would play a leading role.
Normandy
He became adjutant of the 2nd Ox and Bucks early in 1944 and was closely involved in the planning of the coup de main operation, led by Major John Howard, Officer Commanding (OC) of the battalion's D Company to capture two vital bridges: Pegasus Bridge and Horsa Bridge in the opening minutes of D-Day. On 6 June 1944, Tillett's glider, piloted by glider pilots from the Glider Pilot Regiment, landed near Ranville, Normandy, at approximately 21.00hrs, along with the rest of the battalion, as part of Operation Mallard. After holding the line on the Breville ridge and sustaining many casualties, Tillett and the 2nd Ox and Bucks in August 1944 took part in the British break-out and advance to the Seine (see 6th Airborne Division advance to the River Seine), known as Operation Paddle. The battalion, along with the rest of the 6th Airborne Division, returned to Bulford Camp, Wiltshire, in early September 1944, after three months of nearly continuous action.