Three students from Holland visited the island to interview a Manx war veteran.

Jan Meijer, Jacco Phillipo and Sander Janssen are working on a project on the Battle at Arnhem, in September 1944.

As part of their project the Dutch students, who are all from the Arnhem area themselves, are travelling through the British Isles interviewing some of the few remaining survivors of the battle.

Their first port of call was the Isle of Man and their first veteran interview was with Bob Quayle of Onchan.

Now, 95, Bob was a sergeant in the 1st Battalion of the Parachute Regiment landed at Arnhem on day one of the battle and was amongst the last to be evacuated when it ended nine days later.

Fred Kissack explained: ’Bob was particularly useful to the students.

’His clear memory and lucid articulation of his involvement with the dramatic and gloriously tragic events of 1944 have given them a flying start on their ambitious project. As well as telling his story, Bob showed his collection of Arnhem photographs and presented them with autographed copies of his published memoir ’One of Eight Manxies who fought at Arnhem’.

The students left the island for the Midlands, where they were due to interview up to five more veterans.

The Battle of Arnhern took place in 1944, after the victorious end of the Normandy campaign, when Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery devised a daring operation in which British airborne forces were landed far behind enemy lines with the intention of capturing seizing a bridgehead north of the Rhine, at Arnhem, to open the way to the Ruhr and hasten the end of the war.

Sadly this campaign, which was memorably portrayed in the classic film ’A Bridge too Far’, ended in failure.

Of the 10,000 men who had landed at Arnhem, 1,400 were killed and over 6,000 captured; only 2,400 paratroopers safely crossed to the south bank of the Rhine in small rubber boats.

The students left the island for the Midlands, where they were due to interview up to five more veterans.