John Dutton Frost
|
|
Major-General John Dutton "Johnny" Frost (b. December 31, 1912, d. May 21, 1993) was a British airborne officer, prominent in Operation Market Garden. He served as a Lieutenant Colonel in the British 1st Airborne Division during this battle. Frost, as commander of the 2nd Parachute Battalion, commanded about 600 lightly-armed men who held on to the north side of a bridge over the River Rhine at Arnhem waiting for relief from the rest of Airborne Division to his west, and a tank division to his south. The help never came and Frost and his men were surrendered after four days of fighting. Following his surrender, Frost was held as a prisoner of war at Spanenberg and later a hospital in Obermassfeldt. He was freed when the area was overrun by United States troops in March 1945.
Prior to Operation Market Garden, Frost distinguished himself in Operation Biting, a raid to steal components of the German Wuerzburg radar at Bruneval. By the time of his retirement from the army in 1968, Frost had attained the rank of Major-General and had been awarded the Companion of the Bath, the Distinguished Service Order and Bar, the Military Cross, and was made a Grand Officer of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.
In 1978 the bridge over the Rhine at Arnhem was renamed the John Frost bridge in his honour, reportedly after much reluctance to accept the honour from Frost. His role in the battle was told in the Cornelius Ryan's bestseller A Bridge Too Far. Frost himself wrote a novel A Drop Too Far based on his wartime experiences which was published in 1978. His autobiography Nearly There was published in 1991. Frost acted as a military consultant to Richard Attenborough's film adaption of Ryan's book. In the movie Frost was portrayed by Sir Anthony Hopkins.
References
- An extended biography from arnhemarchive.org (http://www.arnhemarchive.org/john_frost.htm)