Overview
- Announcements on Arnhem veterans' forums prompted tributes highlighting his unique place among glider pilots.
- He served with the Glider Pilot Regiment during Operation Market Garden, the failed push to secure bridges in the Netherlands.
- Of roughly 10,000 Allied troops sent to Arnhem, about 2,000 returned after nine days of fighting, and he was among those who escaped across the river.
- Colthup enlisted in 1939 at age 17 with the Essex Regiment before transferring to G Squadron, seeing earlier action in North Africa and Sicily.
- On his 100th birthday, Lieutenant Colonel Richard Piso of the Dutch Embassy presented him with the Dutch Liberation Medal and the Market Garden Medal at his home in Whitstable.