Ex-Armed Forces minister, who quit Starmer’s government over defence spending, jumps from a Second World War-era Dakota
ARNHEM, Netherlands, Sept. 20, 2026. Al Carns, the former Armed Forces minister, parachuted over the Dutch city of Arnhem from a Second World War Dakota C-47 to commemorate Operation Market Garden, the Allied airborne assault of September 1944.
Carns said he touched down safely, though he told followers he had “just missed an electric fence” on the way in.
Remembering Market Garden
Market Garden was the largest airborne operation in history. Roughly 35,000 American, British and Polish troops dropped into Nazi-occupied Netherlands with the aim of seizing nine strategically important bridges. Success would have opened an invasion route into northern Germany.
The operation fell short of its central goal of securing the bridge over the Rhine at Arnhem. The Allies took heavy losses trying to take and hold it, a story dramatised in the 1977 film A Bridge Too Far.
“What makes our country great”
Carns used social media to explain the jump. He said that in dangerous geopolitical times, Britain should focus on the things that make it great, and he described the event as a tribute to those who gave their lives for others’ freedom. He put the number of men who jumped in and around Arnhem at about 40,000 and noted that many never returned home.
He also said the commemoration reflected the best of Britain and a bond with European neighbours that runs deeper than any treaty.
Political backdrop
Carns left Sir Keir Starmer’s government after accusing the prime minister of failing to fund defence adequately. He followed John Healey, then defence secretary, who quit in protest at Sir Keir’s defence investment plan. Andy Burnham has since named Healey as Chancellor.
