The Castle at Valkenburg

Route: Ospel to Valkenburg. Distance, about 60 km

I’ve just spent three days with Grandpa’s ghost. Walking in the trees of an abandoned pillbox line, sitting by the canals where he first met the Germans in combat and riding my bike to the very bridge he crossed as part of a counterattack.

I’m sitting the shadow of a ruined hilltop fortress in Valkenburg. The castle was besieged and destroyed by the Hollanders in the middle ages and the city has grown up around it since. Portions of its outer wall are now shops and Beir Hauses grown up around the great stone alcoves and gates of the once formidable battlements. What a perfect setting to sit and relate to you all, the experiences of the past three days in Ospel. Hang on to your socks this is going to be a long damn entry. I may have to split it up into a few. Anyway…..

Part One: Of Glider Pilots and Men

The rain fell on the roof of my tent all night. First it came in little droplets which I heard tic tic tic on the rain fly. I could see water running down the sides. Then it came in buckets reminding me of a good Oregon winter. It was pelting the tent, and I was a little worried about getting wet.
Adam, if you are reading this, thanks for the tent dude. The old thing kept me dry and cozy during the worst rainstorm I’ve had yet. I sat inside writing and listening to the rain. Somehow, I didn’t feel alone in these woods. I felt at home, and there was something else, an embracing of the dripping firs perhaps. I was camping near the first town where I knew for a fact Grandpa had been. Lommel, Belgium.
In the morning, I slopped together the wet remains of my tent, and ran around like a jack rabbit getting all of the sensitive bits of kit like the laptop and my sleeping bag wrapped up in plastic bags. I also have a packet of Grandpa’s letters with me. These are in a blue cardboard folder which is far from waterproof. I’m counting on the yellow rain bags for the panniers to keep these intact and dry as I can’t afford more bags.
I trucked to the McDonalds, my new home base away from home, hoping to get something greasy and terrible like one of those eggs mcmuffin things inside a pancake, hopefully wrapped in something like bacon. Imagine my disappointment when I approached the mikkyd’s, and saw that the damn thing didn’t open till 10:30?! WTF?
Oh well, I was really only there for the free internet anyway. I checked my email to see if Niek had responded. The previous night, I had told him where I was and where I would be (McDonalds, 9am). I had yet to hear from him.
Soon as I saw a grey Jeep Liberty pulling an equipment trailer pull into the parking lot.
“Gavin Wells? From New York?” came the shouted query from inside the cab.
“Yes, how are you?” I replied, walking over to the driver’s side as a middle-aged gentleman sporting business casual and full, but well kept, beard stepped out of the jeep and grabbed my outstretched hand.
“It’s good to meet you!” he yelled in perfect, if slightly accented, English. “Let’s load up your bike! I told you 9am, but there was traffic on the way!” This last sentence rendered with an American-style smile that could have been right at home in a boardroom in New York City.
To say that Niek Hendrix is a dynamic personality is to say that Steven Hawking is a promising scientist. Every word, thought, and motion from Niek is one of purpose and charisma. He works with his family as a managing partner in Hendrix Genetics, a large multi-national company specializing in genetic breeding stock for the poultry industry. This had grown out of a chicken farm that his parent’s had started in 1954, when the ravages of the war were still as fresh as the milk is here in the morning.
It now employed over 1000 people worldwide with offices in the Netherlands, Canada and Asia supplying breeding stock to the world’s leading agribusinesses. “It’s not how much you have it’s who you are inside.” Niek told me in the car as he programmed the location of a meeting we were bound for into the GPS navigation system. Evidently I was to meet his friend, Luke Severns, and a World War Veteran named Bob Meier that morning, without showering, changing, or even drinking a cup of coffee. To say I was fresh from the road would be an understatement.
“I hope you don’t mind,” Niek said, “I drive slow.”
“That’s fine with me.” I said, not quite sure what to expect by slow in The Netherlands.
“Just kidding!” He laughed as he pulled out onto the freeway onramp, with my bike precariously locked to the front framework, at around 80 MPH. Once on the freeway his speed varied between 120 and 160 kph. I’m not sure how fast that is, but it didn’t seem to matter. He knew right where he was going, and exactly how to get there. It was obvious he had spent his entire life in this area.
We were headed to Severun, a city to the north of Niek’s home in Ospel. As we pulled into the driveway of Luke’s place, Neik turned to me and said, “Now you will get real Dutch hospitality. Luke’s wife has made special Netherlands pastry for us, and coffee!”
“Coffee?” My ears perked up like radar dishes. Franky, I was sleepy and I stunk. As we walked into the proper Dutch house, it became only more apparent how much.
The perfectly cleaned white walls and tile floors were separated into formal rooms via doors with the rooms function written in script Dutch on little wooden placards. “Klueten” read the one we entered. Around the formal dining table sat two reporters from the local paper, an elderly looking man across from them spoke in Dutch, while an even older guy dressed in US Air Force blues sat at the head telling a war story.
His head was bald, except for the little strips of grey/black hair circumnavigating it, visible when he removed his Air Force cap. I shook his hand as Niek explained who I was and what I was doing here.
“This is Gavin Wells from New York, his grandfather was 7th armored in my town Ospel, and he is riding his bike to follow his path.”
“Well, I’m from California,” the 87 year old veteran of all the major campaigns in Europe from Normandy to Berlin said to me. “So we you know..” He smiled and shrugged at me indicating that he was kidding.
“Actually sir,” I replied with a grin, “I’m from Oregon, so you know…”
“Oh, ok. I met my wife in Portland. We lived in the west hills for some time!”
“Ahh the west hills! Nice view from up there huh?”
“Yeah, well I haven’t been back since the early 1970’s.”
“Well, not much has changed.” I assured him. Yeah right.

Bob had been a glider pilot during the war. These guys had onne of the toughest, and most dangerous, jobs in human history. Basically, before helicopters were invented, they used gliders towed by aircraft into combat to deliver troops and supplies. These large high winged aircraft were made of paper, wood and canvas, and were typically connected via a nylon cable to a C-47, the standard cargo/troop carrying plane of the day.
This all meant that Bob’s job was to ride this glider full of gear (landmines in his case) into a firestorm of anti-aircraft and ground fire at around 600 feet altitude and around 150 mph until a controlled crash landing called “touch down” either killed him, or allowed him to get his share of supplies to the airborne troops who needed them.
“I asked the captain one day why we didn’t get co-pilots on our missions”, he said to the table full of journalists. “Why waste two guys!” was his reply.\
Bob had dropped with the 82nd Airborn into Normandy on D-Day. His job was to land the craft, establish a perimeter consisting of himself and a Colt 1911 .45 Automatic pistol, and contact the other troops to make sure that they knew that his load of landmines made it in one piece.
“After this”, he said “They had made no provisions for getting us home. So, we would go to a city and a have one good time I can tell you!” An impish grin and a twinkling of the eye indicated what he meant.
“Seriously though, we were left out there hanging. So much money and training had gone into getting us out there, but no one had even thought about getting us home! So, this meant that we weren’t technically AWOL when we stayed in Brussels for three weeks after Market Garden! Brussels is real party town right?”
“Oh yes!” replied the journalists and photographer. “Still to this day, people party there!”
“Well, finally, Eisenhower had to send out a special order; “All glider pilots return home!” So, we contacted the Army in Brussels. What are we supposed to do? Hitchhike the Army said! So we did, I stuck my thumb out, and we got back by traveling south to Spain, then catching a plane to Tunis, then back to England on a C-46. Once we got back they told us we were back on the duty roster like nothing had happened! They figured if we got back, we got back, so forget about it!”
“One time”, he said after asking the reporter if he just wanted him to recollect, or if had any specific questions, “we were coming into Holland bringing the 82nd Airborne some gear. You guys have probably seen the movies right where they pull open that big red curtain in the ready room, and the mission for the day is on the board? Well, today the mission was for a place called Graves, Holland. Jeez, we all said, we’re supposed to land in a place called Grave!?”
He paused for laughter, and the crowd around the table chuckled.
“Anyway, me and my buddy, Mark Phillipson, we’re flying in together as wingmen. He had been on two drops with me, so he was a veteran and I trusted him. He was my buddy. I had learned this practice called a full stall landing. This is basically where you take the aircraft, and come down in a nose up full stall so when you hit the ground you’re only going about 45 to 60 mph. Some guys used to think that you landed these things at full speed, like 150 mph. and used hedgerows in fields to break the momentum as you slowed down. Well, you guys know that those hedgerows, after centuries of peasants throwing stones from the fields into them, were basically rock walls. If a guy hit one at 150, well, you know, that was that.”
We all looked at each other while Bob paused. His eyes filled with tears as he struggled on with his story, the croaking in his voice becoming more and more evident.
“So, anyway, we were flying into this field. I touched down, no problem. Just then, I saw my buddy’s glider coming in behind me. He was just about to land when a guy with a Panzerfaust who must have been hidden in the trees, hitt him in mid-air.”
Silence at the table.
“He was carrying landmines, so that was it. There wasn’t much left. All I got was a piece of his glider, a little piece of canvas that I have at home.”
Niek spoke up, “Did they ever find the body of this guy, your friend?”
“No, well, they sent a casket home to Chicago, but there was nothing in it.”
“How do you spell the name Bob?” Niek asked respectfully. Bob spelled it out for him, as he and Luke talked in Dutch with the reporters for a while. I used this chance to meet Bob informally.
“Hello Bob, I just wanted you to know that my other Grandpa was a B-17 pilot.”
“Oh he was? When?”
“1944 through the end. Several missions in both B-17s and B-24’s” Bob was trying to be polite and listen to my little introduction, but I could tell he was elsewhere.
“Also, I am a student pilot.”
“Oh you are?” He smiled looking relieved. “How many hours?”
“5” I smiled sheepishly.
“Ok, great, in what?”
“Cessna 172, but I was learning in Alaska so we flew the full stall landing a couple of times?”
“You did?!”, he sounded surprised.
“Yeah, we were flying out of bush fields, no pavement, and my instructor wanted me to learn what it felt like.”
“Well then, I’ve got a story for you!”
Before he could tell me, Niek interrupted.
“Bob, we are talking, and we are going to try and find your buddy for you. I have access to lots of sources, and I can find a lot of things. I will try tonight to put his name in and see if there is anything we can find for you.”
“Oh, ok.” said Bob sheepishly.

After eating our Vlaai, a traditional Netherlands pastry consisting of fruit and sweet breading resembling a thin fruit pie, we headed out to the garage where Luke keeps a fully original and authentic Willys Jeep painted in the numbers of the 7th Armored Division. This jeep, as Luke informs me, is 100% original, meaning it actually came here to Netherlands with the US Army in 1944 and was involved in the battles around this area. Luke runs a tour business with vets. He takes them around to specific areas in his jeep, usually places that no one knows about. The profits go to an organization which supports vacations for the disabled. Luke has made his money in this life. It’s pretty cool.

Part Two: Finding Grandpa

Bob, as it turns out, is pretty spry for a guy whose 87. He lives on his own in Orange, California. He walked over, and mounted the passenger seat of the jeep like a 20 year old. “Muscle memory!” He joked. Niek and I followed in his “newer jeep” as he put it, and we headed into the country surrounding the town.
As we left Severun, flat farmland with the smell of cow poop in the air, surrounded by rows of oak and ash trees billowing in the soft breeze greeted us. The fields all had corn, flowers, or livestock slowly munching their cud. In the distance, in all directions, were a number of church towers denoting towns. Ospel, Severun, Weert, Nederweert, Meijel to name a few. These are names that I’m familiar with, having spent a summer reading after action reports. These are also names that in my mind had become synonymous with war.
I was finally seeing the country where Grandpa first saw battle. Here among the oddly familiar fields of The Netherlands, he and his men of the 48th Armored Infantry Battalion of the 7th Armored Division, finally met with the crack troops of the 9th Panzer and the 15th Panzer Grenadier Divisions. 20,000 Germans against 1200 Americans.
This is a battle that almost no one in America has ever heard of. There are a number of reasons. One of the most important is that this area was mostly liberated under the control of the British 2nd Army. Another is that the story of the 7th Armored has been lost to history because it is only recorded, mostly, in Dutch by the people who witnessed it. A third is that this fighting here wasn’t nearly as spectacular or victorious as other battles like Omaha Beach and Bastogne. Here the fighting was a viscious tit for tat affair on ground not suited for tanks, and generally characterized by men dying in the mud for a few meters of roadway.
“I mean, everyone was evacuated man.” Says Niek as we closely follow the Jeep through little gravel roads that I know I’d have no hope of finding on my own. “So, there were only a few people here. My father was one, because he was 17, and the Germans had put out this order than all men between 14 and 65 were to be sent to Germany to be slaves. So, he was hiding out in our village, Ospel, in the basement of his parent’s house.”
I thought about what this would be like for a minute as I watched the tranquil countryside roll by. He had ignored a direct order from the Germans by not assembling for slave duty. He was living in a dirt hole underneath a house made of sod and thatch, without food, power, or water.
“If he was caught by the Nazi’s, of course he would be shot right away. No questions, no trial, just bang; right to the head.” Niek made a point with his finger and mimicked the action of a gun.
“Anyway, he saw the first troops of the 7th Armored Division role into Ospel. Some men stayed in his basement. You will meet him later. But, basically, because either no one was here, or those that were heard English being spoken by the army guys who came to liberate them, well they just thought that they were British you know? They didn’t know the difference between an Englishman and an American. That’s why the 7th Armored, why your Grandfather, never got the recognition he deserves.”
I nodded, and said yes while Niek continued. He was picking up speed. \\
“You see, I’ve had to fight these people here who say that the American’s never came here. It’s crazy. They say that the British saved them, when it wasn’t the British at all. It was the Americans attached to the British Army sure, but who was running the war?”
“Uhh, Eisenhower?” I replied lamely, knowing that it wasn’t the right answer for Niek,
“Army Group 12 under Bradley, who was under Eisenhower of course, but if you look at the staff picture of Army Group 12 what do you see? Do you see any British? No, it’s all Americans. So, the British Army was under the Americans you see? “ Niek was smiling and gesticulating with his hands while now riding up the ass of the Jeep in front and swerving all over the narrow Dutch road. “So, even though the 7th Armored was attached the British 2nd, it doesn’t matter because the British 2nd was under Bradley at Army Group 12! You see?”
I could see that Niek knew his shit. I could also see that Niek was far more knowledgeable than I ever could about the war, and I was getting a sense that his interest in this wasn’t just a hobby, but more a religion.
I don’t think we realize in the US just how important and alive this war is for people in Central Europe. Through the course of our next few days together, I would come to realize that Belgium and The Netherlands are two places were Americans are thought of in almost mythic terms. Here, no one has forgotten the blood spilled to save them from the Nazi’s.
The French, well some French, are still angry with us for bombing their cities. Others, more than is polite to talk about these days, actually allied themselves with the Nazis. For these reasons, it makes sense why I got the reception I did in France, according to Niek. In Central Europe, the Germans turned to fight for the first time since Normandy. Here the people remember the battles. It’s as if this past lives continually in the minds of those who were there.

I just picked a poor drowned grasshopper out of my wine glass. I thought about telling him to spit it out, but he’s already gone. Anyway, back to the show!

The first two stops we made in the jeep were at hallowed ground for the Dutch. One was at a crossroads where the Germans had discovered a boy in hiding who had pretended to be a girl by wearing a dress and bonnet. He made the mistake of talking too loudly near a German sentry and they shot him without hesitation. Then the Germans made the people from the boy’s farm, which was nearby, get a wheelbarrow and take the body home to his mother.
Another was down a narrow stretch of gravel road, really a wagon trail through dense trees. We stopped at a seemingly random place which had a large number of trees to the right and left, as well as a deep ditch running into the woods on the left. Luke pulled out a binder with photos of the area in 1943 and explained that it had been a resistance camp. At one point they had over 60 people living in the woods making fliers, newsletters, underground radio messages to the British and Americans, as well as providing a stop for downed Allied pilots and escaping POW’s.
The thing that I can’t believe about this place is that it had taken us approximately 20 minutes driving time from the center of a major town to get there. “How did the Nazi’s never find it?” I asked Luke.
“Well, they did after one and a half years. Someone turned traitor on them, and the Germans came to attack the place. The people got wind before it happened, so they packed up and dispersed. They found new locations, but nothing ever like this with so many people.”
“The Gestapo would torture a guy for a week straight.” Chimed in Niek, “They would drown them in tanks till they were almost dead and bring them back over and over again. They would do other really bad stuff to people, but always only for one week. After a week, if you didn’t talk, they’d take you and shoot you behind the building.” At this, we all piled into our respective jeeps, reversed back down the trail to the main road.
After a short series of amazingly confusing turns, we found ourselves on a tree lined road heading for a small rise with a grouping of firs on it.
“This is called Fox Hill” Niek told me, “Well, that’s my name for it anyway. The literal translation is Fox Hill, so what the hell right?”
“Right” I said
“So the Dutch army built 7 pillboxes on this hill during the 1930’s because they were scared that the Germans might attack. Of course, they did, and the hill was taken intact by the Nazi’s. Anyway, look to your left down there. Do you see that line of trees?”
“I think so”, I replied seeing about 15 different lines of trees.
“That is the Nord-Wessen Canal. You see to the right, in front of us there?”
“Yeah sure.” I had no idea what he was pointing at.
“That’s the Willems Canal. Your grandfather was between these two, right in these fields here. This was all American before the German attack. They came from across those two canals. Can you imagine? The Tiger Tanks, the artillery firing all across the canals? The troops storming across in bridges and boats? 27 October 1944, they attacked as a wave. The 9th Panzer and the 15th Panzer Grenadiers. They swept right over these canals and pushed the 7th Armored back to this area.”
Our conversation was cut short as we parked the SUV next to the Jeep alongside a pillbox overgrown with fir trees. We all got out, and Luke put a map on the hood of the Jeep. I felt like we were commanders during the war gathering around our CO as he explained our next battle.
Luke pointed to the canals that Niek had mentioned earlier.
“This is where a famous story happened during the German attack over the canals.” Luke said. I looked over and Niek was practically boiling over with enthusiasm. Niek picked up the dialogue while Luke looked on.
“This is Fox Hill. This is where a bunch of US 7th Armored Division soldiers were cut off and in real danger of being killed or captured by the Germans.”
“It was the 87th Recon and the 48th Armored Infantry.” added Luke.
My eyes went wide, and I asked excitedly, “Does anyone now which Company of the 48th? That’s my Grandpa’s unit!”
“It was A company and B company, I think.” Said Luke.
I felt something now in these woods. Grandpa was here! Right where I was standing, staring out across the fields at the German tanks as they got closer and closer, probably wondering if he was going to live long enough to write another letter home.
“So, anyway, they were pretty much surrounded by now,” Niek continued, “and they were really in trouble. All of a sudden, a boy on a bike came over to them and told them that he would lead them out via a secret road through the peet bogs that the German’s didn’t know about.”
“A boy on a bike?!” why not I was thinking. Bikes seem to be integral to this story, not to mention The Netherlands. “So, that could make a lot sense because there is a family story about Grandpa getting cut off with his men in battle, and leading them out. They gave him a battlefield promotion and a Bronze star for this.”
“That was probably right here.” Bob said, and Niek and Luke nodded.
In this lonely stretch of pine trees, on this little rise, my Grandpa retreated with his men into pre-prepared fallback positions. From here, they were out of options. They had given ground, but they hadn’t surrendered, or let the Germans get onto any major roads leading north. They had bent, but not broken. A boy on a bike came up and showed them a way out through the peet bogs. Even the Germans wouldn’t go into these bogs.

Part Three: Niek’s Library

After we had said goodbye to Bob back in Severun, with a promise to meet him tomorrow at the American Cemetery at Margraten, Niek took me to visit a special place.
“I will show a place that no one ever sees!” he exclaimed over and over again as we barreled down the road with my now seemingly forgotten bike bouncing up and down on the trailer at each road crossing. This guy was more American than a lot of Americans I know. Soon, we turned onto a dirt path along one of the Canals.
“This is the Noord-Wessen Canal.” Niek stated while lining up his arm in front of him and gesturing toward the horizon. “Along here, on your right, the Americans were holding a line 23 miles long. To your left, the Germans. The Americans were told to come up here by General Bradley so support the British who needed help in this area. The front was originally supposed to be held by the 7th Armored and the 29th Infantry Divisions. Somewhere along the way, 1rst Army decided that they needed the 29th somewhere else, and the 7th was left to defend this whole area. An armored division doing the job of an infantry division. That’s not what armor is for. Armor is for making quick and strong attacks into the enemy lines, not sitting and holding ground.”
Neik was talking about a long stretch of ground, 23 miles long in fact, on the north side of the canal. They had 1200 men to guard this area from the Germans.
“1200 men?!, that’s a joke! 1200 men for 23 miles? Come on man, you kidding me? They had foxholes 800 yards apart! I mean, the Germans used to walk through the line all the time. Like, every night. They could walk through, and no one knew how they were getting through! They’d blow something up, kill a few guys, and disappear back across the canal.” Niek was getting more excited as we slowly drove along the canal. Finally, he stopped the car and turned off the ignition.
“I don’t know man, some people say that I try to do too much. I mean, I’ve got 4 monuments up for the 7th Armored. No one here believes me that they did what they did. Everyone just wants to forget about it. The British. That’s all you ever here, the British. It was Americans that liberated my town, Ospel. And it was 50 Americans who got killed doing it, not British. Where is their monument? Where is their story being told? There is no 7th Armored museum here!”
“Ok, what are we going to see here?” I questioned just as soon as I could get a word in edgewise.
“Ok, come with me.” Said Niek as we rolled out of the jeep and walked down the canal a bit before turning and walking down into what looked like a ditch, but actually turned out to be a murky green circular pond. He led the way down to a concrete sluice gate platform with a metal railing.
“Ok,” he said, “to see it, you have to get out on the ledge over the pond and lean back as far as you can. Don’t worry, I’ll hold onto you. Just grab the railing, and lean back.”
“Ok,” I said trying not to sound too excited. I grabbed the railing, and stepped out to the ledge which was about 5 feet over the surface.
“Ok, Gavin, you see that little hole way over there in the right side of that duct?”
I saw a brick wall covered with slime, and two little holes above the top of a larger water duct, the top of which was sticking above the water.
“Yes I do!” this I exclaimed while step back over to the living side of the railing. “What is it Niek?” I breathed a little easier.
“That’s the tunnel the Germans used to sneak across the canal! Their HQ was in a Nunnery down the canal; over there behind these trees. It’s gone. It was shelled during the war. The tunnel is very large, and they would sneak 100’s of guys across at a time. The Americans never figured it out! I mean, a tunnel under a canal?! Come on man! That is a very Dutch thing you know!”

As we pulled into Niek’s driveway, I saw that he lived in a very large, by Dutch standards, house complete with an automatic street gate, three car garage, and huge back yard incorporating some acreage. He had definitely done well for himself in the genetics business.
His two boys ages 11 and 14 were in their computer room playing some sort of first person shooter. It was bloody, and engrossing. They both said “hi” to me when I walked in, and got right back to killing online.
“Gavin, come here I want to show you something.” Niek said, glass of soda in hand. “You want something to drink? Coffee, soda, we have cola light?” Before I could respond, Nike was turning a key in the lock of door which stood off the proper Dutch hallway. I could see through the glass panes that it contained a great many books on a huge double height bookcase complete with rolling ladder.
“Here is where I keep the good stuff man!” Niek was grinning like a kid at getting to show off his baseball card collection to someone who would appreciate it as much as I would.
Inside, I found a series of two rooms arranged like a miniature museum with the words “we will always remember” written above the archway of the French doors separating them. There were several glass cases filled with objects.
“All of these are authentic 100% from the period. Most are from the battlefield, and were actually carried into combat. There are many fakes on the market today, but it’s easy when you know what you are looking for. I only collect original stuff. Look at this!” he opened one of the cases and removed a tattered Nazi flag on a broken wooden post.
“That looks like something that a general would have on the hood of his car?” I queried.
“Yeah probably”, Niek said matter of factly “But look at the holes in it. You see these?” He was pointing at several small holes in the middle of the flag which looked like shrapnel damage. “It was probably in a house or on a car, and a bomb or something went off next to it.”
I said wow, looked at it for a second, but was really working my way over to the weapons display. I should mention that all of the items I am about to mention are legal to own in the Netherlands when the firing mechanism has been disabled, which it has in all cases.
“Ok, look at this!” Niek saw me edging toward the weapons rack, and he removed a Tommy Gun complete with 20 round clip. As he handed it to me, I was surprised by its weight. All wood and steel, but it did have a removable stock.
“That was found in Russia, it was probably given as part of American aid to the Soviets. It’s 100% complete and original. The stock can be removed, that made it an idea weapon for tankers.” He showed my by pulling out the dark wood stock and holding the shortened gun in a bear hug firing position. “You know, because there isn’t any room inside a tank.”
During battle, it was common for the tank commander to ride on top with the hatch open so he could see. Only when they came into close contact with other tanks or infantry did they “button up”. Because of this, the tank commander needed a light enough, but powerful enough hand weapon while he was exposed out the top of the tank. The .45 caliber Thompson Submachine Gun had been a favorite of bank robbers and gangsters throughout the 1930’s. If it was good enough for them, it was good enough for the army.
Also, it was a standard issue weapon for officers. I knew Grandpa had one. He writes many times about needing cigarettes so be sent from home. In one of his letters he says he’s convinced that the cigarettes that are supposed to be issued from the Army are being “snatched up by the rear echelon” before they get to the front line troops. “One of these days I’m going to take my tommy gun back and get some of them.” I’m not sure if he meant cigarettes or rear echelon guys. Grandpa evidently had a sense of humor.
In addition to the Thompson, Neik had an M1 rifle; a standard issue semi-automatic infantry rifle, an M1 Garrand; a shortened and much lighter version of the M1 preferred my most ground troops for it’s weight and accuracy, and an original Colt 1911 .45 Automatic pistol; the standard sidearm of any officer in the Army at that time.
Of course, the rooms also contained a million other items of interest. There were banners celebrating the 7th Armored Division and pictures and medals lining the walls like barnacles. The cases were full of old pins, medals, small items like binoculars, trench knives, bayonets, empty grenade shells, spent shell casings from .40 British Boffers anti-aircraft guns to 155 Howitzer, little sweetheart pins that the girls back home would where for their man in the service, as well as a curious olive drab canvas bivvy sack which Niek procured from the case.
“This is called the GI Housewife, and it’s complete.” It actually was called that because the words were printed on the side of the bag which contained pins, buttons, needle and thread, in short all of the things a GI may need to repair a uniform torn in the field.
“I don’t think many women in America would get the joke.” I said, as Niek laughed.
I was beginning to realize that this guy wasn’t crazy. He just cared very much about the war, specifically about the 7th Armored. He cared in a way that few people in this world can. He lived in the same town that was delivered from the Nazi’s by my grandpa and his men in the 7th. Neik’s own father had suffered and been liberated by them. I don’t think I realized the depth to which the war still scarred this area, and these people. It happened here, not in some far distant location over the ocean, but right here. Literally in Neik’s front yard.

Part Four: The Battle

Everywhere we drove together during the next two days, Niek pointed out crossroads, church towers, random looking houses and streets, and told me stories.
“Here is where the resistance shot two Germans in broad daylight!” he exclaimed while we drove past the church in Ospel in the morning. We were on our way to meet Bob and his friend at the American Cemetery in Margraten.
“How did they do that without getting killed?”
“Well, I tell you. They knew that the Americans were close. This is after the German counter attack on 27 Oct. 1944. They could see the 7th Armored Division coming up the road, so they stole German truck and painted it red! Bloody red! Then they drove around town shooting any Germans they saw. They shot up a lot of the town, and killed a lot of Germans before the Americans got here.”
There were several stories that he told me about the actual battle. In one story, a group of men from the 87th Recon are trapped under withering small arms and artillery fire by the Germans in a patch of woods near Meijel. They call for help, and an officer with the 48th Armored Infantry Battalion (not my grandpa) says, “Hang on, I’m coming!”
So he loaded up in a convoy of 7 or 8 Sherman tanks and headed up the road from Ospel as fast as he could. They reached the woods, and pulled behind a farmhouse to load two or three Americans in each tank under fire. By this time, the Germans knew what was happening, and they had lined the ditches on each side of the road with Infantry carrying Panzerfausts.
A Panzerfaust is similar to a Bazooka, except that it is much more powerful, lighter and easier to use. It could blow a hole in a Sherman killing everyone inside with one shot. To put that into context, the American Bazooka could not penetrate a German tank.
So, under threat of deadly fire from either side, the row of tanks hauled ass back to Ospel under fire, with the last tank in the column staying behind so the tank commander could spray the sides of the ditch with his .50 Machine Gun. This he did until all but one of the tanks were clear, then he buttoned up and headed for Ospel. He lived and was rewarded the silver star for bravery.

Part Five: The Remains

Most of the men who did things like that ended up in the ground. We were pulling up to the American Cemetery at Margraten just as Niek was finishing this story. “This is the best cemetery in all of Netherlands. All Americans who died here are buried up there.” He was pointing to the marble and limestone gates which led to a broad walkway up a hill.
“Remember that buddy of Bob’s who was missing? I found him.” Niek smiling and grabbing some papers before we got out of the car.
“You found him?” I asked.
“Yes, and he is here.”
We walked up the steps and into the courtyard. On one wall, there was a huge mural called “The Big Picture” which depicted the entire land war in Europe through a series of red and black arrows next to unit patches superimposed on a map of the continent. The 7th armored was only on there once, in Holland.
Across the courtyard from this, stood an office, which we entered and saw Bob, standing in his US Army Air Corp uniform smiling and ticking his watch indicating that we were a few minutes late, which we were.
“Bob”, Neik said after we had said hi, “I found him. Your buddy, I found him. Here is the paperwork.”
Neik handed Bob a bunch of sheets printed off the web as they compared details like the correct name spelling, the correct serial number, the correct unit and location. The only detail that was wrong is the date of death in 1945. Bob knew for a fact where and when his buddy had been killed. He had seen him blow up. That was Sept 17th 1944.
As Neik and Bob went to talk to the head officer in charge of the cemetery, I wandered around the room. It was well finished, and new smelling. There were pictures of all the curators of the American Monument Association all the way back to General Pershing. Over these was a picture of Barack Obama, President of the United States. How glad I felt knowing that Obama’s picture had replaced that of the previous inhabitant.
The head curator, a large bald man who had obviously been military all of his life until mandatory retirement, was talking to Bob. Neik motioned for me to come forward and meet him. I did, and we shook hands, but the guy was busy, and neither of use really knew why we were meeting. I wasn’t looking for anyone in the cemetery, and Bob was trying to get the Army to update and change his buddy’s date of death.
When the hurried meeting was over, Bob, Bob’s friend Jaque, Niek and I walked out into the misty day and proceeded toward the large obelisk that served as a chapel at the far end of the courtyard. On either side of this were steps leading to the rows and rows of white crosses now visible on the hill above.
At the first step, Bob stopped and looked down with tears in his eyes as he glimpsed the thousands of marble grave markers.
“I don’t want to go, I’ve seen enough. This is fine with me.” He turned around and stopped for a second looking the opposite way out over the courtyard, and beyond to the rolling green countryside.
“Ok, let’s go.” he said after a few moments. He was ready.
We slowly walked up the steps, and onto the white pavement adjacent to the chapel. Neik and Jaque compared notes while Bob and I stood there in awkward silence. When the location had been found out, we walked to our left, all the way over to the edge of the graves, thousands and thousands of white graves, each one arranged in an ark on the hillside. As I walked past each one, I read the names and units. They read like a slice of America. Franks, Walker, Stephano, Diez, Espozito.
Finally, we came to the location. Phillepson, Lt. Mark S. Illinois 1945. Bob, tears in his eyes, stood for a second staring at the stone. Then, snapped to attention and brought up his hand in a slow salute. Then, his shoulders dropped and he edges closer to the stone, finally resting his hand on the top of the white cross. He didn’t say a word.
Jaque and Niek asked is Bob wanted a picture. He did, and turned around slightly red in the face at being caught so emotional in public. He grinned through the pain, like so many of his generation before him, and stood at attention, but kept his hand on the grave marker, while pictures were taken. Neik snapped one with him alone and none with him and Jaque.
Later, over lunch in Maastricht, I asked Bob if he was expecting anything like this when he came to Holland.
“No, I didn’t. This is the first time back for me. Its 65 years after Market Garden. I’m going up to Arnheim to be there for the anniversary.” He didn’t want to talk about it. It was obvious that this episode had brought back all the pain from loosing his buddy as if it were fresh again. “I don’t know what they buried there; I mean it couldn’t have been much more than an arm or leg.”
As we strolled down to the central square of the ancient city, Niek was acting as tour guide. “This is the oldest city in Europe, the Romans came here, and there are roman walls left all around the city. Also, it has the oldest bar in Europe. We walked past this place, called “The Old Ostrich” with the date 1730 next to the sign. The same family had evidently been serving the same beer from this same place since then.
Bob was silent, walking around the city in his old Army uniform. People were staring at him. A few came up to talk to him every now and then. Some kids wanted a picture of the weird old guy in the uniform. I got a few last words with him when Niek went to grab the paper to see if Bob’s article was in it.
“Well Bob, did you ever make it here during the war?”
“No, we went to Brussels to hang out a few times. Never here. You know, I’ll tell you one thing.”
“What’s that?” I leaned in.
“They sure make some pretty girls here in Holland, you ever notice that?”
I laughed, “Yes they do Bob! Yes they do.”


Part Six: The Witnesses

Niek is a family man. His wife, Mariane, gets up and makes a breakfast of toast and coffee for us every day. She did my laundry, and folded it. She made us a delicious dinner of noodles with brown sauce. I asked her what special Dutch dish this was, and she replied “Thai noodles in curry sauce.” When asked if she needs help, she smiles and says no.
Niek’s father joined us for dinner that night. He had actually been there, seen the 7th Armored come into town. The first thing he told me was that he remembered them all coming into his house, and making eggs in their helmets. They were dirty, tired and all had beards. They ransacked the place for food. He got them eggs and fruit for them.
“That could have been your grandpa!” Niek said.
“Maybe”
Later, I sat and went through Neik’s extensive photo and paper collection hoping to get a glimpse of Grandpa in one of them. As I was paging through the 15th binder, I was stopped by a piece of printed paper on which was a story written by a Captain named Phillip Burnham. It was about arriving in combat on his first day as a replacement. In the second paragraph he wrote “I was greeted by Lt. Bob Wells, who was A Company’s CO after the previous Lt. had been wounded at Meijel. He led me down to the Company CP, which was in a hole below a house. There was a catholic priest asleep against one of the sides, and I was greeted by a Sergeant who grabbed my hand and said “Welcome to A Company, you are my 9th CO, you think you’ll last?”
I felt a jolt of electricity in my spine! Here he was. I had found him. I told Niek, and he immediately dropped what he was doing and we got out the directory for the 7th Armored. Burnham was still alive and living in Villanova! We called him, but he was too tired to come to the phone. He is 95. But, there he is! A 2 hour drive from New York lives a guy who knew Grandpa!
When we finally did get him on the phone the next night, his slow but steady voice came across time as he lit up when Niek mentioned Lt. Bob Wells.
“Oh yes, I remember Bob! He was my favorite!”
Through the directory, I was able to locate several other people from A company still alive. I will be calling them all when I get home. One of them lives on Christopher Street in NYC. That’s a 20 minute bike ride from my apartment in Brooklyn!
Neik and I stayed up late talking. “You know that story about the priest in the letter?”
“Yeah”
“That was probably my uncle. He was studying to be a minister when the Germans came. He used to tend to the sick and smuggle supplies to the 7th Armored during the battles. That means that your grandpa was probably sitting in the basement of my father’s house. He still lives there. I put the first monument there. He was definitely one of the men that my father saw cooking eggs that day.”
Niek had arranged to visit a man the next day, a witness, who lived with his wife in Ospel. He had been in the Dutch Army and fought the Germans during the 1940 invasion of Holland. Subsequent to this, he was probably in the underground, but no one really ever knew. He was over 90 and had spent most of his life stuck in those times, according t Niek.
When we entered his house, his much younger wife answered the door. She was friendly and smiled a lot while Neik explained who I was and what I was doing there. She led us to a large shop with a tall ceiling. It was filled with old tools and various war related items including a wall of German helmets, uniforms, various knives and radio components, ect.
Hunched over a wide wooden work bench was a frail looking gentlemen in a blue workmen’s coat. He looked up, and smiled at me as Neik explained who I was. He was a little hard of hearing and didn’t speak very much English. He walked over to me holding a long green cylinder in his hands and gesturing with his arms as if you say poof poof.
“It’s a panzerfaust”, Niek explained.” He is working on it, of course it’s missing the warhead, but the stock is complete. It was found around here and he is restoring it for his collection.”
I looked over the long wooden cylinder in the old man’s hands. It was old and covered with faded army green paint and German writing in black letters. It resembled a straight baseball bat, but it was hollow. It was easy to see why this weapon was much feared by the allies. It was simplicity itself. A rocket attached to one end, and a guy held the stick in a bear hug or over his shoulder. He pulled a release pin which activated the rocket and away it went. A child could do it. Indeed, toward the end of the war, children were doing it.
“The biggest problem with these is that they are hollow you know?” Niek said this while aiming it in a bear hug with the back end of the tube braced against his ribcage. “The blast from the rocket killed more men operating it than did tanks during the war.”
During Neik’s entire explanation, the old guy was puttering around showing me things and speaking in Dutch. He would hand me a helmet, and talk for a second. Then his trembling hands would grasp for a knife, he would hand it to me and talk more. I couldn’t understand a word he was saying, but I didn’t have to. I understood his story completely.
After the Germans took over The Netherlands, he had lived in occupied Ospel along with Niek’s father. He had a brother who was killed during the initial attack in 1940. His family was probably killed when he went into hiding. I never did get that straight, but it was implied pretty heavily.
“Come here” were the only two words he seemed to speak in English. He puttered over to a case with some radio equipment in it. Smiling, he plugged the old German radio in, struggled to flip a switch on the wall, and low and behold, the old thing worked! I watched as he dialed in a German station on the huge black dials. “German!” He said as he patted the huge radio.
He then proceeded to explain to me in a series of Dutch with a few English words punctuated by hand gestures how he had got the radio. “Hey you, go over there!” he said as if to the German’s back in 1943. He had apparently gotten a group of Germans to leave their radio car long enough for him to steal the radio. “I got it!” he said with a sly grin accompanied by his arm reaching out and grabbing the air in front of him.
“Ok, it’s time to leave!” Niek said to anyone who would listen, in the same tone that my parent’s used to take with my great grandmother during a visit. Pulling away slowly but firmly from the old guy, I tried to follow Niek out the door of the garage. A slow whimper pulled me back inside.
He was crying. He removed his glasses, and pulled out a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe his eyes. In a trembling voice he said “Der Kinder… Germans.” He made his hands into a machine gun and said “rattatatatat” in a slow arc about him. “They killed them.” I said thank you to him. Thank you for all that he did for us. He smiled weakly, replaced his glasses, and shuffled back into the shop to go back to working on his Panzerfaust.
“He never got over it. He lives it everyday this guy. You can only take so much. He’s had to put up with the whole village thinking he is crazy because he saw the 7th Armored come and liberate Ospel, but no one believed him. For 40 years he fought with the people here trying to get a monument for the 7th. They all thought he was just a nut, and he is obviously affected by the war even today. He was one of the reasons why I got my monuments up.”
Niek has been one of the real power brokers behind the erection of 4 monuments around this area for the 7th Armored. The official museum at Overloon still doesn’t recognize the contribution of the 7th to the war. It is a matter of controversy here because the people in these towns don’t like being told that the British saved them. They also don’t like having Americans being told something that isn’t true about the war. It’s easy to see that without Niek and his passion for the 7th Armored, there would be no monuments today. The last one is set to be opened on Oct. 27th in Meijel on the 65th anniversary of the German attack.
After our brief but powerful meeting with the survivor, Niek and I headed over to the German War Cemetary at Eiselstien. It’s just inside The Netherlands, and is four times the size of the American Cemetery.
“You are the only American from New York to see this place.” He said. “no one comes here, not even the Germans.”
Neat but forelorn rows of slate grey German Crosses dotted the fields. Far into the horizon they vanished. There were over 100,000 of them, all in straight little rows of grey under the shade of several pines. Here there was no office with a curator making updates for family members. There was no parking area for tour buses filled with Veterans and baby boomers eager to see the graves. Here there was now chapel, no bells tolling the hours, and no fastidious crew of groundskeepers forever tidying the grounds.
Cross after cross only said “Ein Deutcher Soldat”. One German Soldier. Over and over again. Here is where it struck me. This war was just as senseless as all the others to these guys. So many came here on both sides and never left. So many more Germans than Americans.