- Location
- West Quebec
Great piece.. thanks
What did the Dutch Resistance use for rifles?
- Thread starter AdrianM
- Start date
Great piece.. thanks
Mick Jagger
Regular
- Location
- Red Deer, Alberta
Thanks for you comment. I do appreciate it.
I always take every change I get to tell everybody that I love Canada.
Link to the WW2 cemetery in my hometown
http://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/memorials/Netherlands/groesbeek-cem
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groesbeek_Canadian_War_Cemetery
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My grandmother doesn't even know most of what happened to gramps in France and Holland. What little he told me about it before he died was pried out, usually late at night after a few Schooners. Most of what I heard was less than pleasant.
Brutus
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
^Yep. I was named after my uncle who served in the Belgian resistance during WWII. No stories passed on from him. But they employed him and his buddies as police constables post liberation.
Mick Jagger
Regular
- Location
- Red Deer, Alberta
Think it depends on the person.
My grandfather told me everything he went true. From a young age he took me into the woods and we where looking for ww2 shells.
We found old shells and we polished them. My grandfather and his brother did this just after the war. And the unfortunate event happened that his brother stepped on a mine and lost a big part of his leg. He told me of piles of German bodies he saw. My hometown Groesbeek was the front line for several weeks. It's only 10km from the German border. He was forced to work in Germany in a ammo plant. He was luckily transferred and 3 days after the allies bombed the places to pieces.
Im lucky he told me so much. I do appreciate liberty since a young age. And I know freedom doesn't come cheap.
My grandfather told me everything he went true. From a young age he took me into the woods and we where looking for ww2 shells.
We found old shells and we polished them. My grandfather and his brother did this just after the war. And the unfortunate event happened that his brother stepped on a mine and lost a big part of his leg. He told me of piles of German bodies he saw. My hometown Groesbeek was the front line for several weeks. It's only 10km from the German border. He was forced to work in Germany in a ammo plant. He was luckily transferred and 3 days after the allies bombed the places to pieces.
Im lucky he told me so much. I do appreciate liberty since a young age. And I know freedom doesn't come cheap.
Thanks, Mick. My father was in the Royal Canadian Engineers and spent January-March 1945 in the Nijmegen-Grave area, doing mainly road maintenance and construction. One of their jobs was to build a corduroy road from Breedeweg to Grafwegen to support the advance through the Reichswald, so Dad would have spent a lot of time in the vicinity of Groesbeek. In March, they were camped just outside Groesbeek getting ready to put a bridge across the Rhine at Emmerich.
That was a rough time for the Dutch people. It made a lasting impression on my father, for sure. I learned never to complain about my mother's cooking because Dad would remind us how they had suffered. "Niks in de winkel, niks in de kelder, alles kapot." Here are a few excerpts from his letters home to his mother.
"26 Feb 1945: We have all been pretty busy lately and in the midst of it all made another move so you can see that we were on the hop. I can’t tell you what we were doing but it is nothing to get steamed up about. We are in houses again but all the people have moved out long ago and believe me they are in for a shock when they get back. This business of war is not so good for buildings. You people in Canada can be most thankful that the was has stayed over here and will be kept here. It must be terrible to be driven out of your home and to come back and find it nothing but a shambles. ....Some places that I’ve seen .... have not a home that can be fixed in any way so you can live in it without starting from the bottom and building everything new.
21 April 1945: I suppose you are still up to your neck in house cleaning. Well it’s at least nice to know that you have a house to clean. Around here they mostly have to build a house before it can be cleaned. Just swarms of people come here every day on their way back home to start repairs, and such a pitiful sight. Some with a bike loaded down with all they own and some with it on their back. Dirty, clothes in rags and shoes with the soles flapping. One girl stopped to have the medical orderly look at her feet and from the ankle down there were at least ten or twelve large blisters that had broken and all swollen up. Still she kept on going, not toward home as it’s not free yet but to any place she could stay. Then there’s the two old men with shoes absolutely gone, a pair of women's slacks with elastic in the tops sleeping in a straw pile for the night. Slave workers from Germany who still can’t go home as it’s occupied as yet. I tell you the people in Canada don’t know what war is and as for me I hope they never do.
27 May 1945: I suppose C is still home helping you all he can and getting the house in tip top shape. The other day I saw two girls laying bricks like good fellows to patch the side of their house where a shell had gone through, along a little further were two more putting up rafters to replace those that had been knocked out and a little later were putting the roof on. So if girls over here can do that C should be pretty handy around the house too.
22 July 1945: I went in to Amsterdam ... Met a very nice chap about thirty five years old who is the king of all glass blowers in this country. He took me in to his home and showed me how he did some of his work but had no gas to operate his torch so told me to come back this week and he would give me a demonstration so believe me I’m going if there is any way possible. .... He speaks good English and as he has been in Holland all through the occupation told me a lot of how they lived all the way through. It was more than grim too. No lights, using furniture and door casings to cook with and taking a saucer out to try and catch a cat or dog for something to eat, curfew at seven o’clock (the last nine months if you were out after that you were taken to the Gestapo HQ and you were promptly shot) and a hundred of other things. When the Canadians came in on May 5th he said he was so happy that the first night he couldn’t sleep at all but just roamed the streets all night and the second until two o’clock when he was so tired he had to go to bed."
Best wishes.
That was a rough time for the Dutch people. It made a lasting impression on my father, for sure. I learned never to complain about my mother's cooking because Dad would remind us how they had suffered. "Niks in de winkel, niks in de kelder, alles kapot." Here are a few excerpts from his letters home to his mother.
"26 Feb 1945: We have all been pretty busy lately and in the midst of it all made another move so you can see that we were on the hop. I can’t tell you what we were doing but it is nothing to get steamed up about. We are in houses again but all the people have moved out long ago and believe me they are in for a shock when they get back. This business of war is not so good for buildings. You people in Canada can be most thankful that the was has stayed over here and will be kept here. It must be terrible to be driven out of your home and to come back and find it nothing but a shambles. ....Some places that I’ve seen .... have not a home that can be fixed in any way so you can live in it without starting from the bottom and building everything new.
21 April 1945: I suppose you are still up to your neck in house cleaning. Well it’s at least nice to know that you have a house to clean. Around here they mostly have to build a house before it can be cleaned. Just swarms of people come here every day on their way back home to start repairs, and such a pitiful sight. Some with a bike loaded down with all they own and some with it on their back. Dirty, clothes in rags and shoes with the soles flapping. One girl stopped to have the medical orderly look at her feet and from the ankle down there were at least ten or twelve large blisters that had broken and all swollen up. Still she kept on going, not toward home as it’s not free yet but to any place she could stay. Then there’s the two old men with shoes absolutely gone, a pair of women's slacks with elastic in the tops sleeping in a straw pile for the night. Slave workers from Germany who still can’t go home as it’s occupied as yet. I tell you the people in Canada don’t know what war is and as for me I hope they never do.
27 May 1945: I suppose C is still home helping you all he can and getting the house in tip top shape. The other day I saw two girls laying bricks like good fellows to patch the side of their house where a shell had gone through, along a little further were two more putting up rafters to replace those that had been knocked out and a little later were putting the roof on. So if girls over here can do that C should be pretty handy around the house too.
22 July 1945: I went in to Amsterdam ... Met a very nice chap about thirty five years old who is the king of all glass blowers in this country. He took me in to his home and showed me how he did some of his work but had no gas to operate his torch so told me to come back this week and he would give me a demonstration so believe me I’m going if there is any way possible. .... He speaks good English and as he has been in Holland all through the occupation told me a lot of how they lived all the way through. It was more than grim too. No lights, using furniture and door casings to cook with and taking a saucer out to try and catch a cat or dog for something to eat, curfew at seven o’clock (the last nine months if you were out after that you were taken to the Gestapo HQ and you were promptly shot) and a hundred of other things. When the Canadians came in on May 5th he said he was so happy that the first night he couldn’t sleep at all but just roamed the streets all night and the second until two o’clock when he was so tired he had to go to bed."
Best wishes.
I was told the Dutch made the scope mount plus the pistol grip for the knight sight for the belgian Fal & the M1 carbine I have the M1 carbine that the receiver was milled for the scope mount plus the pistol grip that I am looking for. I have the ban. The carbine in the pic with the pistol grip & the scope mount is in New Zeland.
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Since we're talking about Holland in wartime and the Dutch resistance, there's an interesting little book I have that I could mention. It's by a gent who called himself Lt. Col. Oreste Pinto. On the front cover he quotes Gen. Eisenhower as calling him "the greatest living expert on security".
"Colonel Pinto worked with the French Duxieme Bureau and with M.I.5" in England for many years. Single-handed and in the face of opposition from some of his own high-placed compatriots, Colonel Pinto traced and arrested the notorious Traitor of Arnhem, who was responsible for the failure of the gallant airborne operation."
The man was a Dutch resistance leader who turned traitor. His name was Christian Lindemans, a.k.a. "King Kong" of Castle Wittouck. "Born in Rotterdam, the son of a garage owner."
Interesting read that book.
"Colonel Pinto worked with the French Duxieme Bureau and with M.I.5" in England for many years. Single-handed and in the face of opposition from some of his own high-placed compatriots, Colonel Pinto traced and arrested the notorious Traitor of Arnhem, who was responsible for the failure of the gallant airborne operation."
The man was a Dutch resistance leader who turned traitor. His name was Christian Lindemans, a.k.a. "King Kong" of Castle Wittouck. "Born in Rotterdam, the son of a garage owner."
Interesting read that book.
- Location
- Ottawa, ON
The Sorrow and the Pity is also very good.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066904/
The numbers of active Resistance members may have indeed been smaller than post-war propaganda would have us believe...but to me this highlights the exceptional courage and sacrifice of those who did expose themselves to almost certain torture and subsequent execution. There was no Geneva Convention for resistance members.
With the benefit of hindsight, it's easy to say that resisting was the right thing to do. The reality of 1940 was very different, and the "right" thing to do individually and for France was far less obvious. Popular opinion was very divided, and it wasn't for reasons of cowardice.
We would all like to think that WE would show the individual courage to fight the good fight to defend a principle... to kiss our wife, young children, friends, and very life goodbye -mindful that our loved ones could in turn be left to suffer a similar fate through guilt by association - to harrass a seemingly insurmountable foe. But would we really?
From the comfort of our lives in 2013 Canada we shouldn't be too quick to judge.
My Dutch teacher fought to defend a principle. The nuns smuggled him out after the war to avoid the likely repercussions.
I tried to Google him, and he isn't there.
Being any kind of resistance fighter is an extremely risky proposition. If successful, the resistance fighter is hailed as a freedom fighter. If unsuccessful, the resistance fighter is demonized as a terrorist. Most of the public would not understand that the main difference between the two is perspective written in the history books by the victor.
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Yep. The stories you can piece together from family, friends and books (my Opa comes up in several because of his role in the resistance and military) are mind-boggling from our modern "peace-time" perspective. The crazy part is that those stories are just the tip of the iceberg. Sobering indeed.
The cliche that "Freedom is not free" actually has a whole lot more meaning when you learn what sacrifices had to be made to allow the "soccer moms" of today to live in a world where they can casually sip their "non-fat - soy - organic - fair-trade - latte" on their way to yoga class. It seems that a lot of people have forgotten just how fragile "civilization" really is and that the cost of peace is indeed eternal vigilance.
To your wife's Opa, my own (may he RIP) and all others that stood against great odds in the face of tyranny and those that continue to defend our freedom -- THANK YOU!
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