Monday April 16, 1945 Liberation of Wessel, Het Garderbroek and Wencop
Map of the route taken by the Canadians.
My idea of finding the route of the tanks that liberated us was initiated by a small map I saw about 20 years ago. On this map was indicated with an arrow the movement of the column of tanks from the Valkseweg towards Barneveld-Voorthuizen just passing the forest Schaffelaarsebos. From my own experiences I knew this could not be correct but the incorrect arrow triggered in me an interest in tracking down the actual route of these tanks. I started to enquire with people in the neighborhood, including neighbors who are now no longer alive, but I did not finish my research. However, from that time on I was always attentive to personal stories from relatives, neighbors and other inhabitants of Het Garderbroek. More than 60 years later, it is a rewarding experience to trace the route of the tanks, as I meet friends of that time, now all over 75 years old, and we share our experiences. On the map I have indicated the route; name and other characteristics of the Canadian column of tanks I have retrieved from the liberation chronicle “Noord-West Veluwe” by Evert van de Weerd en Gerjan Crebolder, BDU 1983, nr. 14 in the Schaffelaar series. Apparently we have been set free by a group of the 5th Canadian Tank Division, which had orders - coming from Arnhem - to encircle the Germans on the Veluwe, so that they could not retreat in Utrecht behind the Grebbeline. In the chronicle we can also find interesting pieces of information about the droppings of military SAS specialists, already from the beginning of April 1945, between Voorthuizen and Putten, in which also people of the resistance in Barneveld, Voorthuizen and Nijkerk were involved.
On Sunday morning April 15th we heard heavy firing in the south, and so we knew that the rescuers were coming. The next day the scouts had already reached the Valkseweg on the side of Barneveld, but when they met heavy resistance at Gelkenhorst (1) they decided to move to the north. I quote from the aforementioned chronicle: “Since also a message had been received that the village [Barneveld] was still occupied by the Germans, the commander of the 5th Tank Brigade, officer I.H. Cumberland, decided to move the tank battallion of the British Columbia Dragoons (BCD) to the right of the LSH, through Garderbroek towards Voorthuizen.” This was established on Monday April 16, by moving the long closed formation of tanks arriving from Otterlo along a route as indicated on the map. It was far from easy to pinpoint the route from Wesselseveld (2) and in Het Garderbroek (3) since everyone I asked recalls to have seen some of the tanks close to their own home, driving in various directions. We suppose these must have been scouts. But my aim was to locate the long convoy of tanks that I had seen personally on the Wencopper-weg and the Krollerweg. Mrs. Van Ee-Van Maanen, who lived on the Donker-voorterweg (4) in 1945, could tell me the exact route and also Henk Brink, who now lives in the old people’s home Nieuw Avondrust, informed me that the tanks had completely ruined the roads at the juntion of the Garderbroekerweg and the Kapweg (5). They had also destroyed the parrot cage of grocer Kok and the parrot, who always said “good day” to everyone passing by, had died. Maas Bouwman confirmed this route and I could finally fill in the blanks on the map.
My personal experiences:
A Sherman tank in front of the damaged tower of the Calvinistical Protestant Church in Voorthuizen
Around noon on Monday 16 April, we, children Van Elten, together with our cousins Van de Bor (near 6) were listening to the enhancing noise of the tanks, when a small truck filled with German soldiers rushed in the direction of Kootwijkerbroek. Without halting they shouted to us for directions. We didn’t understand the question, but answered “ja” anyway. When soon after this they noticed the Canadian tanks, the truck returned with high speed, without noticing us now. Something similar must have happened on the Krollerweg, where according to one story, a Canadian carrier, which was at the front of the convoy, followed a German car at high speed up till the Garderbroekerweg. When we could see the tanks on the Krollerweg, looking over the fields, we ran towards them with a group of children. Just when we arrived at the moving tanks at the fork (8), the Canadians fired a machinegun, burning the haystacks of Henk van Ee (9) on the Wesselseweg. This impressed us greatly. I heard from Henk van Ee that his brother Gert just before the shooting had told the people in hiding at Willem van Manen that in their barn there were still some Germans covering. This has been reported to the Canadian scouts in a tank situated on the Wesselseweg near (10), supposedly assuming that the Germans would be captured. This in fact did happen but not after burning the hay and straw stacks in front of the barn. Also the back façade of the farm was fired at, with over 80 gun shots in the wall. Some bullets went through the door and killed four cows, while the daughter Diana, who sat in the front room, was hit by a bullet coming through the partition door, injuring both her legs with one bullet, but fortunately not too serious. Gert van Ee was able to stop the shooting of the tank by raising a white flag and one soldier came down to capture the four Germans. A little later the barn caught fire and three wagons filled with light ammunition burned down with crackling and sputtering noise. The farm with thatched roof almost set fire as well but this was prevented at the risk of lives, by using buckets of water thrown from ladders and with bare hands. A forth wagon carrying a load of shells was pushed away in time with the help of some people in hiding. We followed the tanks to the farm of Willem van Manen and we were amazed by the seemingly endless line of tanks. They looked so much more impressive than the bus carried by two horses and full of German soldiers, which we had seen some days earlier on the Wesselseweg. De convoy of tanks stopped frequently and the Canadians handed out chocolate and Player cigarettes. At some point a Canadian sitting on top of his tank, which had just stopped , signed to us that we should move away from the tank a bit, after which he entered the tank. We didn’t understand his signal and stayed put but after he had fired the gun we were so frightened that we all instantly dropped to the ground. Then we ran off in fright to the underground shelter of Van Manen. After it proved safe outside we went back to watch the ongoing queue of tanks. I remained when the other children soon went home. Finally I also decided to go to our farm, walking across the field (11) , when there was gun fire from De Grote Brand into the field. I thought I heard the gun shots sizzle in my ears, but I couldn’t spot any Germans at whom they could be shooting. Then I realized that the tanks which cornered the road (12) at De Grote Brand were firing at me, presumably because I was walking away from the tanks through the fields, partly covered by some bushes. Fortunately I could hide in a hole in the ground. I cursed a group of young cows circling the hole, which gave my hiding place away to the Canadians. But fortunately they didn’t have time to come after me. I managed to escape the hole and crawl to a ditch that runs along the Wencopperweg. I sneaked through that ditch a few hundred meters, till about (13), in the direction of our farm, not knowing that at Marinus Brouwer’s (14) a Canadian tank had taken position close to the farmhouse and the road, almost in the direction of the ditch along that road, so that it was not visible for the Germans in Voorthuizen. This tank must have arrived there earlier to survey, coming from the other direction. Brouwer’s farm hand, Teus Kleijer, told me later that the Canadian soldier in the dome of the tank had already spotted me crouching in the ditch with his binoculars. I still hadn’t seen the tank since I was only concerned with the ones behind me and our farm in front of me. Even when I got out of the ditch at (13) , to walk the last part on the road, he didn’t fire at me. Just at that moment when I got on the road, a big spectacle started at juntion (16) when several German shells came down near the tanks who had just turned the corner coming from Het Garderbroek using the Kapweg turning onto the Wencopperweg. The tanks immediately dispersed. A girl raised her arms and screamed: “I surrender” while Gerrit van de Bor told me later that he had never run home as fast as at that time. One tank had run aground with one caterpillar in the ditch and the other on the wooden embankment of the high farmland in the corner of the Wencopperweg, causing it to almost trip over. Big black balls of earth were flung into the air, somehow without hitting the other tanks or the Labots’farm (17). The commander of the German canons turns out to have been posted in the tower of Voorthuizen. From there he could see across the at that time open field, now the waste disposal site of Vink, watching the tanks corner at (16/17). When the tower was shot by the Canadians from Wencop (19), the shooting stopped. I was impressed by how deep the Kapweg, still a dirt road then, had been dug into by the caterpillars and that the tanks had truthfully followed that single deep track. I do not remember anything else significant of that day, but I do remember the following night we spent in the underground shelter that we had only made a few days earlier. That night there was heavy gunfire from the Canadians on the German troops and assemblies in and around Voorthuizen. We first heard the shells fly over, shortly followed by the bang of the firing moment and a few seconds later the explosion in Voorthuizen. We thought at that time that the canons were located in Wessel (20) but Mrs. Van Beek-Van Gelkenhorst told me that during that night three canons had been situated next to their house, which had been firing to the north. This house is at a far larger distance to our farm than Wessel is. This solved my puzzle why the sounds of firing and hitting in Voorthuizen could reach us so soon after another. Bertus Kampert in Wessel told me about the disorder among the Germans in their farm during the night before, when they had to get ready in the dark for escape. Also Germans quartered in other farms along the Wesselseweg fled, except for
In the barn of Blauwkapel there are still bullet holes visible. Picture: G.J. van Elten
the four at Van Ee’s , having horses and carriers full with ammunition. Wimmie Romijn van Essen (21) said that the next day the Canadian tanks first shot at the buildings to see if any Germans came out . She showed me the barn of Blauwkapel on the other side of the road (22) where high up on the wall there are still bullet holes visible. Also here the Germans had already fled. When I wanted to establish the route of the tanks for the first time, one of the Bakker boys in Wencop (probably Cees Bakker) told me how the German commander in the tower of the Calvinistical Protestant Church in Voorthuizen had been eliminated by a tank that was located near their house. A Dutch speaking Canadian had warned him on forehand. The tank had moved a bit, the canon was aimed en with just one shot the tower was gone. Later this story is corrected a little by Popta from the Prinsenweg in Voorthuizen, who had seen it happen from the other side of the tower. Popta saw that a first shell had gone precisely through the resound holes and a second shot was necessary to blow up the tower. Van Vliet on the Grote Bosweg (23) told me that the Canadian tanks in the evening of 16 April had crossed the railway tracks and ditches, and not at the existing level crossing. Some tanks had been hiding in his orchard but at night the Canadians had to fight off the crawling SS-men with Panzerfausten who wanted to damage the tanks. In the liberation chronicle we can read that the Canadians first tried to reach the former Rijksweg from the west but they had to retreat to Zeumeren. But at the same time in and around Voorthuizen it was still tumultuous. This explains the bombing during the night, supporting the retreating troops. About the way the Canadians have moved through Voorthuizen on April 17 and in the direction of Nijkerk and Putten, we can read in the chronicle, however, personal experiences in Zeumeren and Voorthuizen will need to come from others than myself.
Gert Jan van Elten, Voorthuizen