Career
Born in Pretoria, South Africa, he was involved at the where at the time he was a Captain in the Royal Army Medical Corps (Royal Army Medical Corps), assigned to the 16th (Parachute) Field Ambulance. He is credited with saving the life of Brigadier John Winthrop Hackett Junior when he operated on him for a severe abdominal wound at the Saint Elisabeth Hospital in Arnhem. Kessel had the curious experience of looking out of a window in the Street Elizabeth Hospital and seeing the Division’s General Officer Commanding (GOC) Major General Urquhart, who was in charge of the whole battle at Arnhem, running along the street.
lieutenant wasn’t until after the battle he found out that the General was just about to enter a house where he would stay surrounded by Germans for over 30 hours.
When he first entered the Saint Elizabeth hospital he spoke to the Dutch staff in Afrikaans (which he had learned as a child in South Africa), because he had always been told it was similar to Dutch. The staff took offence at this as to them it sounded like German, and he was told in no uncertain terms to always speak English.
Kessel, who was Jewish, was taken prisoner at Arnhem, but later escaped and has told his story in his book Surgeon at Arms, published in 1958. After the war Kessel became a very successful surgeon based in London, and Emeritus Professor of Orthopaedics at the University of London.
When he died on 5 June 1986 he was buried, as was his wish, in Arnhem Civil Cemetery, in order to be close to the men who died at the battle of Arnhem, who are buried in the nearby Arnhem Oosterbeek War Cemetery.