by Ian Gardner
By the time Galbraith returned to Kiley, battalion HQ had moved forward to Vlokhoven Girls School and established a CP beside a burnt-out German halftrack. As Kiley and Cann were discussing the situation, a disturbing radio message arrived stating that H Co’s 1 Ptn was pinned down, and had taken several serious casualties amongst the officers. Moments later, Maj Horton arrived at the CP and immediately sent Derwood Cann back to H Company for a situation report.
Two hundred yards beyond the halftrack, on the eastern side of the street, was the Catholic Church of Onze Lieve Vrouw van Lourdes (Our Dear Lady of Lourdes). Built during the 1920s, the neo-gothicstyle bell tower overshadowed the surrounding area and was known locally as the Vlokhoven Tower. Galbraith took cover in a ditch close to Kiley, then looked on as the lanky officer walked across the street, and stood obstinately in full view, studying the church and road ahead. Even though the captain’s bars on Kiley’s helmet had been painted out, he could ill-afford to be reckless, “‘Sir,’ shouted Galbraith, ‘Sir – if you don’t get back into cover right now you are going to get your ass shot off by a sniper!’” The boss looked back and replied, “‘If I get down, Bill, so will everyone else.” Moments later John Kiley was struck in the neck by a single bullet and collapsed, his wound pumping out blood.
Galbraith instinctively placed several rounds from his M1 into the arched openings high up on the northern side of the bell tower. Other soldiers quickly followed suit and Galbraith used the opportunity to check on Kiley, who was dead. “I spotted S/Sgt Jerry Beam (I Co 2 Ptn) sheltering in the front garden of the next terraced house,” recalls Bill. He asked Beam if he could join I Company for a short while. “Jerry sympathetically welcomed me and pointed out that Bill Weber and George McMillan had already gone ahead towards Woensel to scout a route. That was good enough for me, so I took off and headed for the church.”
The heavy double doors at the base of the church tower were closed as Galbraith recalls: “Turning the handle I pushed like crazy but nothing happened. Losing patience, I fired several times into the latch with my pistol before trying to barge the wooden doorway with my shoulder. As the door flexed against its hinges, I was thrown backwards into the street, landing unceremoniously on my butt. It was only years later, I learned that the doors opened outwards and were not even locked at the time!”
About a dozen soldiers approached the church as Galbraith headed off along the street to look for his friends. Moments later, Father Eduardus Odemaere emerged, followed by a small number of civilians who had been sheltering inside. When the priest was asked about the sniper, he told the Americans that the tower had been unoccupied. However, the civilians had seen a German soldier running across the open fields directly behind the church. It soon became apparent that the fatal shot had been fired from the shrubbery on the northern side of the tower.
D-Day in Vlokhoven
On the afternoon of September 17, several trucks carrying German soldiers had arrived in Vlokhoven from the direction of Son. The vehicles stopped near the windmill on Anna Mariaweg to unload the wounded into a nearby house. Not long afterwards a couple of halftracks, each towing an 88mm gun, clattered into the large open square. The Germans demanded assistance to manipulate the two guns into position but the locals hid in their homes to avoid confrontation.
On the western side of the square, across the road from Vlokhoven Girls School, a group of very young-looking soldiers were sitting on the sidewalk. Wrapped in blankets, the youths were seen to be shivering as their colleagues pushed the artillery pieces into place. The two fearsome guns, one antiaircraft and the other antitank, had most probably arrived during Dolle Dinsdag and may have belonged to Flak-Brigade 18, part of Kampfgruppe Köppel. One of the cannons was positioned at the southwestern end of the square’s central reservation, while the other 88 was placed in the slip road, diagonally behind the first gun.
As it became dark the Germans evacuated the area, sending the civilians to a large barn at Toonders farm, in Anna Mariaweg. The guns fired over the tops of the houses towards Son for nearly two hours before being withdrawn. Wim Klerkx was evacuated along with his family, who lived in one of the terraced houses on the square. He recalls, “As the guns were firing the sound reminded me of a bed sheet being ripped in half. Bizarrely all the windows in our row remained intact, while other houses further along the street had theirs blown in, leaving the curtains fluttering in the breeze.”
3rd Bn 506th line of advance into Eindhoven, September 18, 1944
When the 88mm guns were being withdrawn, one of the halftracks broke down on waste ground adjacent to the school and its gun had to be hitched to a horse and towed away. When the cannon reached Woenselsestraat, 11-year-old Albert Roxs was watching: “A group of German soldiers had commandeered a large carthorse but seemed unable to harness the animal correctly. After unsuccessfully trying to cajole the beast into moving any further, the soldiers gave up and reluctantly manhandled the gun along the street.”
Directly after the guns were moved, the Klerkx family returned to their home. About 20 minutes later, two German soldiers arrived on bicycles and dropped thermite charges into the abandoned halftrack, which erupted in a shower of brilliant light. After the intense fire had burned itself out, Jos Klerkx, who was 12-years-old at the time, recalled: “An eerie silence settled over the community and we went to bed wondering just what the next day would bring. The following morning my father took me, along with my older brother Wim and our two sisters, to a special holy mass at the church. During the service we began to hear small-arms fire coming from the street. Luckily the building had a back door, which allowed most of the congregation to escape.”
Because the Klerkx family lived on the other side of the square, they had no choice but to remain with Father Odemaere and an altar boy. “We could hear bullets striking the outside walls and when one of the windows shattered, the priest ushered us through the sacristy and into the cellar of his house,” recalled Jos.
When the shooting stopped, he went outside and quickly returned excitedly shouting, “The Tommies are here, the Tommies are here,” not realizing that they were Americans. Elated we emerged from the cellar and began shaking hands with the soldiers who were moving into town along both sides of the street. We ran across the road to see if mum was OK. She had been watching everything from the house and for a moment thought that the Americans were actually German reinforcements!
In the meantime the entire neighborhood came out to welcome the liberators. My mother brewed cups of Ersatz tea and made sure that it was served in our very best china. There were still pockets of enemy resistance and every time the shooting started we were sent inside. The Americans generously handed out packets of cigarettes and my dad shared his first “Lucky Strike” with me but halfway through I felt sick and had to stop. One soldier offered us sweets and was amused to discover that we couldn’t pronounce the words “chewing gum.” By now all of the kids were looking for souvenirs such as American flag armbands and chocolate. As one guy gave me a handful of cartridges, he joked, “Young man these are a souvenir for Hitler.” Another paratrooper gave me a jump knife, but my mother forced me to give it back. Mum placed a chair outside our house and Captain Robert Harwick came over and sat down. I asked him about the insignia on his collar and he unclipped one of the silver bars and gave it to me. All these years later I still have them, a treasured souvenir from an amazing day.
The euphoria of liberation
After four years, four months, and one day of German occupation, the Dutch could barely contain themselves. It was Bob Harwick’s first experience of a true Dutch “freedom” welcome as he recalls: “Fruit, flowers, sandwiches of dark bread, kisses in abundance, waving Dutch flags or bits of orange cloth, and such crowds that it became almost impossible to conduct our advance with safety. People were running trying to touch us, yelling happily at the top of their lungs. Apples, peaches, water, milk, juice, and trays of foaming Heineken ‘Bier’ were all given to us. It was clear that the Dutc
h hated the Germans but their love for America seemed beyond our comprehension. The Germans we had met so far didn’t have the same spirit as those we’d encountered two months previously in Normandy.”
When things began to calm down, Jos Klerkx recovered an axe from the incinerated halftrack as a souvenir. By midday Col Chase (Regt XO) had established a forward CP inside the Girls School and young Klerkx went over to see what was going on. Walking past a pile of captured German rifles and equipment, Jos bumped into 28-year-old Dutch Liaison Officer Lt Martien du Bois (although he did not realize it at the time). Du Bois explained to Klerkx that his family came from a town called Voorne Putten, and asked if he knew how the war was going there: “It was too far away for me to really know anything about, so I went home to ask my parents. While I had been at the CP my mother had noticed a couple of enemy soldiers entering the air-raid shelter (schuilkelder) at the back of our house and sent me back to tell the Dutch lieutenant. I returned with a couple of Americans, one of whom bravely went into the refuge, but it was empty. As a precaution the other shelters in the neighborhood were inspected. Tragically two civilians were badly injured when a grenade was thrown into a shelter on Anna Mariaweg.”
Now and then US medical jeeps rigged with stretchers passed through Vlokhoven carrying the wounded towards Son. During the clean-up operation around the village, 3rd Bn captured about 50 Germans, some of whom were wearing civilian clothes. Despite the fact that Capt Kiley’s body was still lying in the road covered by a blanket, the celebratory mood continued throughout the day. Around 1300hrs, a group of PAN members arrived at the CP towing a trailer piled with bloodsoaked German corpses and offloaded them into an open area behind the school. As the day wore on more enemy corpses were brought to the school and placed under a large tarpaulin out the back. That evening, wrapped in a groundsheet, John Kiley’s body was taken to the school and carefully placed on the ground a short distance away from the other corpses. As the sun was setting, Jos Klerkx visited the outdoor mortuary. “Although I felt a deep sadness for Captain Kiley, I also remember thinking that the Germans were also someone’s loved ones and perhaps forced into a war they neither wanted nor believed in.”
The Van der Linden farm was situated 300 yards southeast of the church in Stoutheuvelstraat. Jo van der Linden was 16-years-old at the time of the liberation, and wanted to know more about what was happening:
After the drop we got out our wireless set which had been hidden in a wardrobe and tuned into Radio Oranje. Amongst other things the public information broadcast told us to stay away from all windows and to make use of the bilingual phrasebooks carried by the Allied soldiers.
We milked the cows early and as usual placed the churns by the side of the road but nobody from the milk factory arrived to collect them. After breakfast, I went to our barn with my dad and my brother, where we could see clearly for about a mile beyond the windmill, across open fields towards Tempelstraat.
After hearing sporadic bursts of gunfire in the distance, we opened the barn doors so that the Americans would see it was empty. Over to our left behind the church we saw a couple of German soldiers running alongside a hedge just as a barrage of artillery shells exploded nearby. In the distance we noticed American troops patrolling across the open fields from the direction of Tempel. My father thought it would be safer to stay at the barn and wait for the soldiers to come to us. As soon as the paratroopers were close enough we called out to them that we were Dutch and after the soldiers cleared the barn we offered them all fresh milk. The commander pulled out his phrasebook and by pointing to the relevant words, we were able to indicate where we had seen the two German soldiers earlier.
After handing my father some chocolate and a packet of cigarettes, the Americans moved south towards Nieuwedijk and Woensel. They left behind a camera and a pair of binoculars and my mother told me not to bring them into the house because she thought the Germans might return and punish us. Later around 9.30am a second group of paratroopers [probably RHQ] arrived at the farm. The man in charge asked if he could requisition my father’s horse and cart. Out of concern for his property, dad requested to go with the Americans but they politely refused.
Two soldiers appeared outside Albert Roxs’ house at 43 Woenselsestraat. One of the men spoke to Albert’s mother in Dutch and explained that his name was du Bois, and he had been assigned to the 101st Airborne Division with the DLM. The task of the DLM was to advise Gen Taylor on resistance capabilities, support divisional operations, and co-ordinate the actions of local resistance groups. In case of emergency, the team had been issued with 5,000 guilders (a substantial sum at the time given that the average weekly wage was around 40 guilders). Unfortunately the transmitter that would have provided “Daniel’s” vital radio link to London had been lost on the drop. Albert’s parents invited the men inside and explained about the 88mm guns and also that a small number of Germans had been billeted in the Boys School further along the street.
The battle rages on
Earlier, at around 0800hrs that morning, G Company had been pulled out of reserve and ordered to sweep beyond the right flank of I Company, who had just lost Pvt Victor Deluca. During the engagement, replacement officer 1st Lt Fred Gibbs was killed and Pvt Isaac Brownlow badly wounded in the knee. Derwood Cann believed that the company should have made a wider sweep in order to hit the enemy harder on its extreme left flank. This movement he felt would have relieved pressure on Andy Anderson and enabled I Co to resume their advance.
One hour later, at around 0900hrs, the leading elements of both rifle companies, along with elements of Regt HQ, were pinned down by machine-gun fire as they struck the German main line of resistance a few yards into Woenselsestraat. One of the first casualties of the firefight was Capt Gene Brown (commander of Regt HQ Co), who was wounded in the shoulder and had to be evacuated on a farm cart.
It was not long before 3rd Bn encountered the two 88mm cannons that had been moved from Vlokhoven. The first, a Flak 18 standard antiaircraft version developed by Krupp in 1932, was located on the eastern side of the street outside the Firma AA Notten grocery store, between Tonnaerstraat and Kloosterdreef.* The AA gun was capable of throwing 15 21¼lb projectiles up to a height of 35,000 feet in one minute.
The second gun – a static Flak 18 AT variant with armored shield – was located 150 yards behind the first, in an open area between two houses opposite Kloosterdreef, on the western side of the street. Under normal circumstances the AT gun (which could penetrate four inches of steel plate at 2,200 yards) would have been dug in up to the level of its armored shield. However, both guns were boldly sited, firing on a flat trajectory along the two streets.
Pfc John Agnew from Regt HQ Co got mixed up with Bill Weber and George McMillan as they were trying to find a way of outflanking the first mobile gun in Woenselsestraat. “Agnew had been wounded in the foot by another machine gun firing from a nearby basement window,” recalled McMillan. “We helped him into an empty building where our company medic, Bill Kidder, was able to administer first aid.”
McMillan and Weber ran down a side street into an empty house. “The door was unlocked so we went upstairs but were unable to see the ‘88’ or any other enemy movement,” recalled McMillan. “Returning to the street we fired three white phosphorous grenades over the rooftops into the vicinity of the guns, hoping to get lucky.”
Almost all the houses and shops along Woenselsestraat had front doors that opened onto the sidewalk. Fred Bahlau was inside another house providing fire support. “I couldn’t believe it when a lady came up to put a first aid dressing on my leg and then proceeded to repair my trousers that had been ripped on the drop!”
Harassment from the enemy machine guns forced many to seek shelter in the recessed doorways along Woenselsestraat. A light machine gun from I Co’s 3 Ptn began to return fire, as the first shell screamed in from the 88mm gun further along the street. Around 0845hrs, Jim Melhus was about to run forward, to see what was going on. “Cpl Lewallen stopped me and
said that there would be a couple more to follow. Before I had a chance to go any further, sure enough two more shells exploded ahead of our position.”
Still in search of his comrades, Bill Galbraith took cover in the entrance of the nearest house. “A shell from the first ‘88’ struck the building across the street scattering debris everywhere. Pvt Earl Copperstone (I Co 2 Ptn) was nearby and idiotically announced ‘that was pretty close wasn’t it’? ‘Close, close … it sure as hell was’ I shouted in disbelief as he took off toward the rear!” Seconds later, another high-velocity projectile hit the same building but this time the explosion sent Galbraith tumbling into the street. The force of the blast crushed Bill’s left leg, shredding everything below the knee. Fearful of the enemy machine-gun fire, Galbraith tried desperately to drag himself back to safety when a third shell impacted close by: “I was hit in the shoulder by shrapnel, which completely paralysed my right arm. Ploughing through broken glass and debris, I painstakingly pushed myself backward along the sidewalk with one hand, and managed to get into the doorway of the next house.”
The owner of the property grabbed Galbraith by his equipment straps and hauled him inside. “Bill Kidder came rushing through the open door closely followed by Jim Brown and Joe Madona,” recalled Bill. “Kidder injected me with morphine and as he was bandaging my leg, commented that ‘my war was now over.’ I thanked the Dutch guy, whose name was Peter Klompmaker, for rescuing me. As Jim and Joe Madona left the house, I handed my cherished Colt .45 (that I had taken from 1st Lt Kenneth Christianson at Bloody Gully) to Joe and wished them both luck.”