Arnhem

Many Dutch families took to the air-raid shelters that morning as the Allies’ pre-invasion action to knock out German ground defences intensified, but others ignored the danger in their excitement. In Arnhem, Heleen Kernkamp could not drag herself away from the window, her eyes fixed on the ‘fantastic’ dogfights up among the thin clouds: ‘I felt no fear.’ But at the home of Piet Huisman in the north of the town, bomb fragments and bullets flying around outside came too close for comfort and interrupted the birthday celebrations for his four-year-old son. The family hastily retreated from the drawing room to mattresses in the cellar. At her house close to the river at Oosterbeek, an anxious Kate ter Horst bundled her children inside from the apple orchard where they had been playing when the rik-atik-atik of machine guns broke the quiet of the morning. Seven children and three adults crowded under the staircase as bullets skittered across the slate roof. The little ones clung to their mother’s side. From the church just across the way came a new sound – the congregation, on their feet apparently, and defiantly singing the Wilhelmus, the Dutch national anthem. Gingerly, the family assembled outside and marvelled at the seemingly endless waves of Allied planes.

At the van Maanen house, a neighbour poked his head round the front door, bringing news, but stopped in amazement as he caught sight of Paul. Paul, in turn, went white. He wasn’t meant to be seen by anyone, indeed, had not been seen for months, even by this friend from next door. With lives at stake, secrets were best kept if nobody outside the house knew. But now, it appeared, the days of secrecy might well be over. The neighbour came with incredible tidings: ‘He tells us he has seen parachutists dropping from the skies. Something big is clearly happening. It’s the invasion! We go crazy. We jump and dance around. We shout with joy. This is IT …’ The telephone rang, and their doctor-father came on the line from the police station, where he was manning a casualty post. Excitedly, he told them to go to the roof and look to the west. ‘We rush up the stairs and on to the flat roof. We see aeroplanes with gliders, a glorious sight. When the gliders drop their tow ropes, they dive down into the bushes while the planes that have been towing them come right on towards us, turn above our heads and go back towards England. We wave at them enthusiastically. Planes and more planes are coming from the misty horizon. Freedom is coming from the skies. It really is fantastic. The war is over now. By tomorrow, we could be FREE!’ The moment they and millions of other Dutch people had prayed for and dreamt of for so long was here. ‘Out in the street, people are singing and dancing.’ It seemed almost too good to be true. ‘Is this the long-awaited release from our misery?’ Kate ter Horst asked herself. ‘Can it be true?’¹

Back in Arnhem, Piet Huisman eventually emerged from the cellar and watched in wonder the array of red, green and blue parachutes floating down in the distance. (The different colours identified the type of supplies slung underneath – ammunition, food or medical.) His son whooped with joy, under the impression that all the colour and commotion was in celebration of his birthday. There were so many parachutists dropping, so big an army, that Huisman wondered ‘if the British will liberate us today’.²

The answer to his question came sooner than anyone expected. A friend from Wolfheze rang Heleen Kernkamp to say that she’d come home from church to find a British officer, fifteen men and two jeeps in her garden. Most amazingly, he had saluted her and said, ‘Good morning, madam,’ as nonchalantly and politely as if he had come to deliver the groceries. That afternoon, young Marie-Anne stood at her garden gate and watched a stream of retreating German soldiers heading into Oosterbeek from the direction of Wolfheze. ‘A sergeant had been shot in the leg and he could hardly walk. Some other German soldiers were standing along the road and one would think that they would hasten to help their wounded comrade. But no, the dirty swine just stand there, hands in pockets, watching him. And I thought that soldiers could always rely on their comrades to help them!’ Meanwhile, the German platoon who had been billeted on her family was preparing to leave. They clambered on to trucks and went, calling out, ‘Auf Wiedersehen! Till we meet again!’ It was not a sentiment she could return. ‘I hope I’ll never have to look at another German again,’ she thought to herself.