Gelkenhorst in the days of the liberation in April 1945
When writing “The liberation of Wessel, Het Garderbroek and Wencop on Monday 16 April 1945”, published in Oud Barneveld no. 85 in May 2008, I gathered information from Mrs. Van Beek who lived in Gelkenhorst on the Valkseweg. She told me that already on Sunday afternoon, April 15, Canadian scouts had arrived at their farmyard, no. 1 on the map. At that time I was convinced that she must have been mistaken concerning the date, because officially the Canadian forces with their large amount of tanks, had not come any further than the Museum Kröller-Müller in Otterlo on that Sunday. That means that they hadn’t even reached Otterlo. But apparently it has not been officially recorded till where the Canadian scouts came on Sunday. The distance of several kilometers from Otterlo to Barneveld seemed to me much too large even for scouts to be that close to Barneveld. I thus concluded, based on the official documentation, that they could only have reached Gelkenhorst on Monday April 16. I have always tried to be very careful with dates and times of events and I have improved the dates in my manuscript several times and showed it to the people I had interviewed to check, but I now realize that I shouldn’t have changed the Sunday into the Monday. This was very clear when in June last year I brought Mrs. Van Beek a copy of Oud Barneveld no. 85, that included my report on the liberation. She immediately read it and exclaimed: “But I told you that the Canadians were already here on Sunday the 15th .” She explained again that already in the late afternoon on Sunday her husband had seen the Canadians at the farmyard. Her husband had said to her: “These aren’t Germans, they are English”. Just a few moments later there had been German soldiers behind the farm and they had been rude to her husband. At that time there was an armed German canon positioned at about 250 meters from the farm, pointing towards Barneveld. This canon had taken up position somewhat deepened near (1a) near to where the wooden embankment started (1b) along the access road to the farm of – at that time – Family Davelaar (1c), see the map. This canon had been awaiting the Canadians who were expected to arrive from Otterlo.
Map of the site in Gelkenhorst on the Valkseweg
Position of the German canon at 1a. Left: Start of the embankment 1b. Foreground: Shoulder of the access road to neighbor Davelaar 1c.
Right: The Valkseweg. On the background left: Farm Gelkenhorst 1.
When I asked Mrs. Van Beek: “How can you be so sure that these scouts were here already on Sunday afternoon and not only on Monday afternoon?”, she replied: “I am sure about it because the farm hands were always off on Sundays and my husband and I had to milk the cows ourselves. That is when my husband saw them.” During the milking of the cows her husband had gone to the back of the farm and there they were. Now I no longer have doubts that the Canadian scouts had indeed come so close to Barneveld on Sunday 15 April. I have apologized to her and promised to correct it in a later edition of Oud Barneveld. Also in the documentary of LOBEHU (Lokker/ v.d.Berg/v.d. Hudding) in 2008 shown in the Veluwehal by the newspaper Barneveldse Krant, which I have listened to very attentively, she has mentioned the date of Sunday April 15 and she also mentioned then that the scouts had come through the fields and not following the Valkseweg. One wonders if these soldiers had come by foot all the way from Otterlo or partly by road in vehicles? Are there any other people in De Valk or Wekerom who have seen these Canadian scouts in the field or on the roads? If so, please let us know. Mrs. Van Beek has by now passed away, last February, but except from my correction here, I would now also like to inform the interested readers of Oud Barneveld about several new pieces of information that have become available about the events during the liberation in Gelkenhorst. I have visited Gelkenhorst again and have been shown around by the son Henk van Beek, allowing me to draw the following picture of what happened at Gelkenhorst.
Situation before the liberation
On Sunday April 15 there was, close to the start of the wooden embankment along the access road to neighbor Davelaar, later neighbor Van de Brink, a German canon erected. This is to the west of Gelkenhorst and at only a few hundred meters from the farm. One was able to see the tank from Gelkenhorst, despite the camouflage, which means that also the Canadian scouts must have been able to see it on Sunday and they could have reported it to their commander. This may have been one of the reasons that the next day (Monday late afternoon April 16) the long convoy of tanks from Otterlo has turned right at (1d), just before Gelkenhorst, into the Donkervoorterweg, after which it moved into the direction of Voorthuizen through Wessel and Het Garderbroek. However this is not absolutely clear because one expects that in that case also the commander of the Alder II tank would have known about it and he would have been more careful that day. On the other hand we can be almost sure that the Germans have seen the Canadian scouts at the farmyard Gelkenhorst because soon after they had left the German soldiers had appeared, probably to look were the Canadian scouts had gone. Only the next day, in the afternoon, there had been shooting from the German canon and the Canadian tanks, during which battle first the Canadian Alder II tank was taken down by the Germans and after that the German canon by the other Canadian tanks.
Growing tension in Gelkenhorst
The Alder II tank of Sgt. Anfossi that was taken down and had tripped over, with on top the at the time still young, and by now well-know Gerrit de Graaff.
Already before the moment that the Canadian scouts were spotted at Gelkenhorst, a German officer who had come walking from the direction of the Valk had called at the Van Beek family to lay claim to a bicycle. Because of the current claims on bicycles, Mr. Van Beek had tried to hide his bike that morning, moving it from the floor to behind the cows in the barn, and he had denied owning a bicycle. Unfortunately when the officer turned to leave he had noticed the hidden bike. When he tried to pick it up he had bumped his head hard at the “reupels”, which are the vertical poles or pipes where the cows could put their heads in between, and the officer had slipped and fell into the manure of the cows. He had hurt himself and become very dirty and he had left cursing and swearing, strangely enough without the bicycle so moving on foot again into the direction of Barneveld. The tension at Gelkenhorst increased further when German soldiers had arrested a German deserter dressed as a citizen just in front of the farm on the road. The deserter was executed right away at their farmyard behind the haystack. Later that afternoon, when it was time to milk the cows, the tension grew even larger because of the alternate visits of the Canadian scouts and the Germans soldiers. It got really dangerous when they had to find shelter while milking the cows during the battle between the Canadians in their tanks and the Germans firing the canon. Just before the main battle had started, Mr. and Mrs. Beek had already witnessed how a Canadian Alder II tank, driven by Sgt. Anfossi and a companion, had been hit by a German Panzerfaust, close to the access to Davelaar (1c) . After that, one of the caterpillars had been ruined by a German shell. This caused the Alder II to topple over on its right side at (1e) and Anfossi’s companion had been killed. Anfossi himself was unharmed and had been able to reach the ditch on the south side of the Valkseweg after which he had escaped crawling through the ditch. He had even tried to crawl through the culvert under the access road in order to escape to the fields, but he failed. Even so he had arrived safely at Gelkenhorst. He hadn’t shown any gratitude for being alive but had been plain angry at the Germans and had called out for another tank to revenge his companion. After the war Anfossi had a job at a paint company in Canada and he has visited the Van Beek family several times. In the mean time he has passed away. Later that Monday at Gelkenhorst there had been two uniformed German soldiers carrying carbines who had reported to the Van Beek family that they realized the war was over and they wanted to hide inside so that they could surrender to the Canadians later. They were allowed into the house and Mr. Van Beek had negotiated for them later when they turned themselves in with the Canadians. The two Germans soldiers were carefully searched and then also the house had been searched for other German military but no-one had been found.
The battle on Monday afternoon
Henk van Beek could tell me the following details of the battle on Monday afternoon between the Germans and Canadians and the result of this battle, information he had received personally from his father and the neighbors. Some of these stories I had also heard from his mother but several details were added by Henk. On Monday April 16 at about three o’ clock in the afternoon his father had been forbidden by some Canadians who had arrived with a few tanks, to gather the cows to be milked. These cows were at the grassland (1f) on the west side of the farm, which was in fact between the German canon and the farm. One of the Canadian scouts had climbed on the thatched roof of the farm from the east side and had observed the German tank from a position just in front of the second chimney (see the picture) viewing over the edge of the roof, hard to notice by the Germans. Mrs. Van Beek told me before that the Germans did fire a couple of grenades that went through the thatched roof but the shells hadn’t exploded. She hadn’t known if these grenades had been aimed at the Canadians at the back of the barn or were fired to set the barn on fire, but several shells had gone through both reed “blankets” of the farm. In the mean time the tanks on the east side of the farm, hiding behind the buildings for the German canon, had prepared a surprise attack. One of the tanks had come so close to the barn that its left caterpillar had sunk into the slurry pit.
Panoramic picture of Gelkenhorst. From left to right: Far left in the distance the site of the German formation at the start of the embankment 1b – the farm – in front of the bushes the former lawn where the Canadian tanks were positioned for the attack and behind the bushes the barn with the small windows and the slurry pit (where there are now two new barns at the back there were two haystacks) – the old farmhouse – the temporary cemetery for the German soldiers killed in action.
It had been able to pull itself out again but while doing that the leaning, nearly toppling and when pulling out also shaking tank had damaged the brick sills of the first and the third barn window and had also knocked the wall out of its joints. See the picture.
Henk van Beek pointing at the damaged wall and the brick sills of the third barn window just above the slurry pit of the barn.
Lucky shot
Suddenly all the tanks had come out of cover, from behind the farm, the barn and the haystacks, completely surprising the Germans when they had simultaneously fired at the canon formation. They had been extremely lucky when one of the grenades had exactly moved into the barrel of the canon, through which the entire canon exploded and also killed several German soldiers who had operated the canon. The Canadians had been very pleased with this lucky shot because the battle had immediately been won. Not so fortunate were the remaining German soldiers, who came crawling through the field towards Gelkenhorst, either to surrender or attack, that remains unclear. All of them have been shot by the Canadians at Gelkenhorst. During the shooting the farm of Davelaar (1c) had caught fire and when Davelaar had gone to the barn to save his horse, the horse had been shot and killed, but Davelaar could escape unharmed. Quite irresponsibly and at the risk of lives, because the Canadians were still nearby and alert, the neighbors had taken the helmets of the killed German soldiers, and these helmets have been used till years later as handy scoops for the flour. That night the Germans retreated from Barneveld , as was reported late at night to the Canadians at Gelkenhorst by the physician Van der Horst, and the Canadians had left that same night to move into Barneveld. The joyous welcome by the citizens has been documented at length in BARNEVELD 1939-1945 by Gerjan Crebolder and Tijs van den Brink.
Small cemetery
According to Henk there had been no survivors on German side and the dead bodies of the German soldiers killed in action were buried temporarily in a small field (1g) on the east side of the old farmhouse. This was in the same location as where the killed German soldiers had been buried in 1940 (in Barneveld?). This cemetery has been photographed in 1940 by the Germans, and a friend of Henk, named Jan Mate Kattebroek from Lunteren, had received a copy of the picture from the relatives of the German officer in charge, who has by now passed away. These relatives owned a picture book with a series of pictures from the officer who had joined in the invasion the Netherlands in May 1940, the occupation of Barneveld and the charge through the Netherlands and Belgium. The relatives had given him one picture from this book, reproduced here.
Temporary cemetery to the right of the old farmhouse, used for killed German soldiers in 1940 and 1945.
Quartering at Gelkenhorst
One of the haystacks served as a popular hangout for the Canadian soldiers quartered at Gelkenhorst.
Mrs. Van Beek told me that directly after the liberation of Gelkenhorst by the Canadians in the field, on the west side of the farm four canons were positioned and these were used intensely already during that night from Monday 16 to Tuesday 17 April, to shoot to the west and to the north. Among others at targets in Voorthuizen, which shells we had heard in Wencop that night, as described in Oud Barneveld no. 85. Furthermore a small airport was made on the other side of the road of Gelkenhorst on the Valkseweg (1h) to accommodate small Canadian scouting planes. Several Canadian soldiers were then quartered at Gelkenhorst. This airstrip has been used intensely for several week, just as the airstrip near the mill in Kootwijkerbroek.
The airfield (1h) with the scouting planes on the other side of the Valkseweg.
In Gelkenhorst the Canadians had slept on the floor with the cows, while during the day they hang out near one of the haystacks, as we can see in another picture, where they had also kept their radio contacts.
From this report it becomes clear that because of its strategic position, being close to the village Barneveld, the farm Gelkenhorst has played an important role during the days of the liberation in April 1945. It has been very fortunate that the barn wasn’t burned down in the process and above all that all the members of the Van Beek family survived the events.
Gert Jan van Elten, Voorthuizen