 As well as veterans, the film also features local people like Father Dyker (a Dutch civilian priest who conducts the service in the film) and Kate ter Horst (who reads a psalm to the wounded men in the cellar) re-enacting their roles and what they did for the airborne troops during the battle.Though no credits appear before or after the film, over 200 veterans appeared as actors including Majors CFH "Freddie" Gough and Richard "Dickie" Lonsdale, Lieutenant Hugh Ashmore, Sergeants Jack Bateman and John Daley, Corporal Pearce and Privates Tommy Scullion, Peter Holt, David Parker, George ‘Titch’ Preston, Frank ‘Butch’ Dixon, Reginald Spray, Looker and Van Rijssel and Albert Wood and war correspondents Stanley Maxted and Alan Wood.Each veteran was paid £3 per day by the Rank Organisation.