Florentius Johannes Maria “ Jan”

       The Dutch Army in the 1930s was shameful neglected for many decades, the Netherlands government hoped to remain a neutral land again in a new war and at the this moment they had only 26 armoured cars, 2 old French Renault tanks, 150 old Fokker (see Fokker) planes and the artillery had guns from 1880. The Dutch neutrality made it for the German spies very easy, as nobody prevented them to "visit" our defence lines and they "inspected" the line until the last day. In 1940 all "old" former soldiers were mobilized because of the German threat, and Jan, then 33 years old, was one of them.  My father, 37 years old, a public servant, had exemption. Jan, without the necessary training, was ordered to the Grebbeline, a small hilly side, organized by General van Voorst tot Voorst (see van Voorst) and General Reynders (see Reynders) and the most important Dutch defence line, near Arnhem and the German border. On 10 Mai 1940, my mother died 10 Mai 1999, age 93, the Germans attacked Holland "unexpected", the battle on the Grebbeline was short but heavy and bloody. The opponent of Jan’s 207^th Infantry Division was the SS-Standarten Regiment “Das Reich”    and already then these SS soldiers had no mercy with anyone in battle. Many German SS soldiers were drunk during this attack, ” is the story” ? On the third day, 13 Mai 1940, Jan was killed in his trench, Holland surrendered on Mai 14^th 1940 and lost 417 soldiers on the Grebbeberg line, the Germans 800 and about 1500 Dutch soldiers total in this short battle.   

        Jan is buried, with 420 other Grebbeline victims, on the Memorial Cemetery of the Grebbeline, nearby the place of his final destiny. Five years later in September 1944, Operation Market Garden, Veghel, my mother's village and the Wilhelmina Channel (see Wilhelmina) Region, were for some days the battlegrounds of colonel Harry Kinnard’s 501^th company   of the 101^st  Airborne Division, which division liberated Veghel. Close by in Heeswijk Dinther the famous Father Sampson (see Sampson) dropped in the moat of the castle  and was rescued by a local farmer. The aunt of my wife Nune Clothilda Peters was killed in the nunnery basement of Veghel with some American 101^st  Airborne soldiers, during a German attack one week after the liberation, by a grenade (see aunt Peters). Harry Kinnard (see Kinnard) reached the rank of General after the war, Harry Kinnard is also famous from Bastogne (see MacAuliffe), the "Nuts" answer of  General MacAuliffe to the surrounding Germans, came from him. He visited as guest of honour the Netherlands and his former battlfields often and we met him several times, a very kind modest man.

 

     Kinnard died at the old age of 93 and is buried on Arlington Cemetery, Section 12. My hometown Eindhoven was liberated by the 506^st  Easy Company   commander Colonel Robert Sink (see Sink) and Dick Winter (see Winter). The commander of the 101^st  AB Division   was Maxwell Taylor (see Taylor). Another friend and Eindhoven liberator, the first Allied soldier to put steps on Dutch soil, in a scoutcar on 11-09-1944, near Valkenswaard, is Jack Brook (see Jack Brook) member of the Life Guards , nickname "Piccadilly Cowboys"   and the III Army of Horrocks.

 

 

  

 

 

                                                                                                                        German graves on the Grebbelberg cemetery, later

                                                                                                 reburied on the German War Cemetery in Ysselstein, 32.000 men,

                                                                                                            one is General Friedrich Kussin, the first killed in Holland.