Date of birth:

September 1st, 1917 (Batavia/Java, Dutch East Indies)

Date of death:

October 2nd, 1944 (Vorden/Gelderland, the Netherlands)

Buried on:

Commonwealth War Graves Vorden
Grave: 16.

Service number:

73147

Nationality:

British

Raymond Bussel was born in Batavia, the son of a trading company director and later British vice-consul and the daughter of a Dutch attorney general. After graduating from the Sandhurst Military Academy, he served with the East Staffordshire Regiment and fought in Sicily.

In May 1944, he was assigned to the 3rd Parachute Battalion and landed near Wolfheze during Operation Market Garden on 17 September 1944, where he was wounded in the arm on the same day. After the temporary ceasefire on 24 September, he ended up in the King William III barracks in Apeldoorn and from there on a train to a prisoner-of-war camp in Germany.

Together with several other officers, he managed to escape from the train and, with the help of the Dutch resistance, remained out of German hands for several days. After being arrested together with his colleague Cambier, they were taken to the temporary headquarters of the SD in Villa “t Selsham in Vorden. There they fell into the hands of the notorious SD-Untersturmführer Ludwig Heinemann, who personally shot them in the head with a captured stengun for 'resistance activities”.

Bussel and Cambier were buried in the garden in front of the villa and, after the liberation, were identified and reburied in the General Cemetery in Vorden. After the war, Ludwig Heinemann was sentenced to death and shot by a Dutch firing squad on 10 February 1947.

In 2022, Omkijkpunt published the book “De 20 geallieerde gezichten van Vorden” (The 20 Allied Faces of Vorden). This book tells the stories of the 20 Allied soldiers buried in Vorden, including that of Raymond Bussell.

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• Photo 1: Omkijkpunt
• Photo 2: Jan de Jager
• - FREERK BOEKELO & ROBERT ELLENKAMP, De 20 Geallieerde Gezichten van Vorden, Omkijkpunt, 2022.
  - Lieutenant Raymond Meyrick Bussell | War Casualty Details 2648314 | CWGC
  - https://vriendenairbornemuseum.nl/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Ministory_100.pdf - https://paradata.org.uk/content/4641657-lieutenant-raymond-bussell

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