8000 jumped, 800 survived

Heroes Remember

8000 jumped, 800 survived

Transcript

There was a. . . .the, the Canadian . . . Well, the troops fought, but what the population have no idea what went on. And in Holland, they have seen the, the older people have seen the fights. They have seen how they had to fight through the cities, and . . . back in, in September, there was the Battle of Arnhem. Maybe you have heard of it. Was on a Sunday afternoon at lunchtime, and all these big planes come over our hometown. And, and you could see the cables that, that, they pulled the gliders with the equipment, and you could see them go over. And, and everybody says, "But they're not going to go very far." And they didn't. They went to Arnhem. Then they got, what, 8000 troops, and there was about 800 left. Oh my God, it was a slaughter, phew . . . yeah. I, I was in, in Toronto once in a, in a taxi cab, and it was a Dutchman and, and he told me that he was from Arnhem and his family . . . he lost his family in the fighting. He was the only survivor of the family. It, it was unbelievable. I, I had my army training in 1946, and this was in Nijmegen, and there was some hard battles fought in that part of the country. And we still found, found grenades, unexploded grenades and stuff. And you found graves all over the place. And you saw a little stick with a helmet on top, either German or Canadian, or whatever it was. My wife went to Holland with my daughter, and my daughter was in Air Cadets and, and they hear a lot about Remembrance Day, and all this and that, and so on. And, and, they went to, over in Nijmegen to the big cemetery. And, and so, that they got there and it was five o'clock in the afternoon, and it was already closed. And so, they talked to this taxi driver, and he says to them, "I'll, I'll take you down." He said, "And tell me how much time you need, hey?" So, they got to the, to the cemetery, and she walked around, and she cried, she cried. She said, "Mom, look at this, the boy is my age." You know, and they were young guys, I mean, you know, every one of them. Just unbelievable. And she cried, she sat down and cried.

Description

Mr. Lammers discusses terrible losses at Arnhem and Nijmegen and their lasting impact on his family.

Henk Lammers

Mr. Lammers was born near Amsterdam, Holland, on March 11, 1926. At the time of German occupation, he was 14 and worked on his and his neighbour’s farms. He offers numerous perspectives on life in Holland during the Second World War. In 1946, Mr. Lammers joined the Dutch Army and served a tour of duty in Dutch Indonesia, namely Sumatra and Java. Mr. Lammers now resides in Ayton, Ontario, where he has been actively involved with the Cadets.

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