for conversion it was known as ‘S’ Battalion. However, the War Office then decreed that a regular unit could not be transferred to the Army Air Corps and the battalion remained on strength bolstered by men of the 4th and 5th Battalions. There were 200 or so men of the 2nd Battalion who qualified and progressed to parachute training and they formed the basis of the 10th Parachute Battalion at Kabrit under Lieutenant Colonel Kenneth Smyth, of the South Wales Borderers. The battalion eventually became part of Brigadier John Hackett's 4th Parachute Brigade, which in June 1943 became part of Major General George Hopkinson's 1st Airborne Division. The 4th Para Brigade was held in reserve and unused during the Allied invasion of Sicily but participated in Operation Slapstick, part of the Allied invasion of Italy, in September 1943, and fought briefly in the early stages of the Italian Campaign before returning, with the rest of the division, to England in December 1943. As in Sicily, the division was held in reserve for the D-Day landings and unused during the subsequent Normandy Campaign, before being selected to take part in Operation Market Garden. Battle of Arnhem Queripel was 24 years old, and a Captain in the 10th Battalion, Parachute Regiment, 4th Parachute Brigade, 1st Airborne Division during this battle when the following deed took place for which he was awarded the Victoria Cross. By 1400 hrs on 19 September the confusion and heavy casualties saw Captain Queripel acting as commander of a company composed of the men of three parachute battalions. As they advanced along a main road on an embankment towards Arnhem they came under continuous machine-gun fire. At one point, the fire became so heavy that the company was split up on either side of the road and suffered considerable losses. Captain Queripel immediately began to reorganise his troops, crossing and recrossing the road while doing so, under extremely heavy and accurate fire from a strong point consisting of a captured British anti-tank gun and two machine guns. Whilst carrying a wounded sergeant to the regimental aid post under fire he was himself wounded in the face. Having reorganised his force, Captain Queripel personally led a party of men against the strong point holding up the advance. Despite the extremely heavy fire directed at him, Captain Queripel succeeded in killing the crews of the machine-guns and recapturing the anti-tank