In 2020 the Netherlands will complete a year-long commemoration to 75 years of liberation from five years of Nazi repression.  The Netherlands was occupied in May 1940 after five days of sometimes heavy fighting.  At that time, the city center of Rotterdam was virtually leveled with nearly 900 killed and 85,000 made homeless.  Later, during the German occupation, thousands of civilians died as a result of the Nazi rule and air raids.

An important part of the hostilities during WWII took place in the air.  As the war drew on, the Allied industries began to produce increasing numbers of aircraft.  The inhabitants of the occupied Netherlands witnessed the overflight of huge air fleets on their way to Germany.

Through intensive air bombardments the Allies tried to paralyze the German war industry and break the morale of the population.  Fierce battles over the Netherlands with German aircraft were the result, while the German anti-aircraft guns also took its toll.  Nearly 4,000 U.S. lives were lost during this air combat above the Netherlands.  Of the 3,850 Allied planes shot down in Dutch airspace, one out of five was American.  The Study Group Air War 1939-1945 (SGLO) collects all the data of planes that crashed in the Netherlands during World War II.  On their website, they provide overviews of every one of the 263 American B-17 planes, 94 B-24 planes, 29 B-26 planes, 51 P-38 planes, 147 P-47 planes, 105 P-51 planes and 61 C-47 planes that crashed.

Heroism Remembered and Stories Passed to New Generations

On 12 September 1944, at 10:00 am, the first American ground troops set foot on Dutch soil in the small village of Mesch.  The next day, the capital of the province of Limburg, Maastricht, was reached.  The U.S. 9th Army stayed in the Tapijn barracks in Maastricht from 22 October 1944 until 10 March 1945.  Other American troops remained in South Limburg until August 1945, and as a result, the region became the most “Americanized” part of the country.

After the liberation in 1945, Liberation Day (May 5) was celebrated every five years.  In 1990, the day was declared a national holiday for the annual remembrance and celebration of the liberation.  On May 4, the Dutch hold “Dodenherdenking” – the Remembrance of the Dead – to commemorate those who fought and died.  The end of last year and the first half of this year also have many other special events.

Flag Preserved by Dutch and Presented to the American People

D-day laid the foundations of the Allied victory on the Western Front.  On that day, a 48-star American flag was flown from the stern of U.S. Navy vessel LCC 60.  This ship led the invasion fleet and the first American troops to Utah Beach.  The commander of the first landing craft was Lieutenant Howard Vander Beek, whose father was born in the Netherlands.  Vander Beek took the flag and carried it in his backpack as a lucky charm throughout the rest of the war.  Once at home, he kept the flag in a chest in his basement.  After his death in 2014, the battered flag was offered up for auction and acquired by Mr. Bert Kreuk, an art collector from Rotterdam, who lost family during the bombing of the city in 1940.  Since 2016, the flag has been on display in the Dutch Military Museum in Soesterberg and the Kunsthal in Rotterdam. On July 18, 2019, the flag was presented to President Trump by Prime Minister Rutte during a special ceremony at the White House. The D-Day flag is now on permanent display at Smithsonian.

American Cemetery in Margraten

“When the fighting ended, Europe broke free of Nazi occupation, and thousands and thousands of soldiers had died, including Americans — 8,291 buried in the cemetery in Margraten,” said Commodore Paul Herber, the Dutch embassy’s defense attache.  “In many ways, the cemetery is to the Netherlands what Arlington National Cemetery is to the United States.  It is hallowed grounds.  One cannot walk through Margraten without feeling the sacrifices American soldiers made to free Europe and the Netherlands.”

Dutch families have adopted each grave at Netherlands American Cemetery in Margraten, making sure it is tended.  There is a waiting list to adopt a grave of a fallen soldier.  The adopters bring flowers to the cemetery and research the life of the service member as a way to honor their sacrifice.  Every year, these families lay flowers on the graves.  “They pay respect and honor soldiers’ sacrifices,” Herber said.  “Many Dutch families have connected with the soldiers’ families.  They’ve developed bonds and forged friendships across the Atlantic Ocean.”

All Black Units Honored

The 35^th Infantry Division entered the Netherlands to hold a defensive line along the Roer on 22 February 1945, the division attacked across the Roer on 23 February, pierced the Siegfried Line, reached the Rhine at Wesel on 10 March, and crossed 25–26 March.  It smashed across the Herne Canal and reached the Ruhr River early in April, when it was ordered to move to the Elbe 12 April; making the 295-mile dash in two days.  Part of the 35^th Infantry was the U.S. Army’s all-black 784th Tank Battalion.  James Baldwin is one of the last living African-American soldiers who rolled into Holland in 1945.

James Baldwin (center) served in the Army’s all-black 784th Tank Battalion

In February 2020, the Embassy of the Netherlands honored Baldwin and hundreds of other black soldiers as part of its commemoration of the 75th anniversary of liberation.  “The citizens of the Kingdom of the Netherlands express their sincere appreciation and gratitude for your sacrifice, courage, and willingness to fight for freedom while enduring the hardships of war,” the embassy wrote.

“We took 23 cities in three days,” recalled Baldwin, “We were really moving. We were taking the cities. We came in and freed them. We liberated them. To know I had a role in the liberation of Holland means a lot.”

Genealogical Search for Families

Commodore Paul Herber said, the Dutch who adopted the graves of the 172 African-American soldiers buried in Margraten have had some difficulty finding family members still living in the United States.  Because of missing records, African-American soldiers, who fought in segregated units, were often unjustly overlooked by history.

In 2009, the Netherlands began trying to correct that oversight.  Historians in the Netherlands and in the United States began work on a black liberators project by trying to find descendants and relatives of the 172 who gave their lives to defeat the Nazis.  “We are determined to find each and every one of the families,” said Ric Murphy, national vice president for history of the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society.

Researchers working on the black liberators project have found families of 24 black soldiers, including LaVonne Taliaferro-Bunch, whose great-uncle Lynwood Taliaferro was killed in the Netherlands in May 31, 1945.  “His body rests in the Netherlands at the Margraten cemetery,” Herber said. “For many, this is an unknown story.”

In 2014, Dutch author Mieke Kirkels published the book “From Alabama to Margraten” about the role of African-Americans in relation to Margraten cemetery. It was a tribute to life of Jefferson Wiggins and the African American soldiers of WWII.

Christmas in the caves

On Christmas Eve, 1944, a special mass was celebrated in the caves of Maastricht, attended by more than 250 American soldiers, who were based in Maastricht and surrounding areas.  This was an emotional Christmas celebration for many young men who knew they would soon be going into battle.  The Schark Cave was a place of brief refuge in wartime.  After the Mass these young soldiers signed their names in charcoal on the cave wall.  In the final days of 1944, they found themselves fighting in the Battle of the Bulge, which many of them did not survive.  The Dutch foundation “Commemoration of the American Christmas Celebration 1944” (SHAK 1944) organizes an annual commemoration each Christmas Eve to honor the event.

Starvation and Allied Assistance

The Hongerwinter was a famine that took place in the German-occupied Netherlands, especially in the densely populated western provinces north of the great rivers, during the winter of 1944-1945, near the end of World War II.  A German blockade cut off food and fuel shipments.  Some 4.5 million people were affected.  Many ate tulip bulbs in an effort to stay alive, but many died.  From September 1944 until May 1945, the deaths of 18,000 Dutch people were attributed to malnutrition as the primary cause, and for many more it was a contributing factor.

Operation Manna (British) and Operation Chowhound (American) were humanitarian food drops, carried out to relieve the famine.  They were undertaken by Allied bomber crews during the final days of World War II in Europe.  Between 1-8 May 1945, Chowhound was an operation by the U.S. Army Air Forces which, together with Operation Manna, dropped a total of over 11,000 tons of food into the still-unliberated western part of the Netherlands to help feed Dutch civilians in danger of starvation.  As they flew, grateful Dutch civilians spelled out “Thanks Boys” in the tulip fields below.  Many Americans who flew in Operation Chowhound would say that it was the best thing they did in the war.  In 2006, a monument was unveiled in Rotterdam to commemorate the food drops.

Battles for Liberation Memorialized

All across the Netherlands, in small towns and villages, there are memorials and commemorations of the brave deeds of American soldiers.  An example is the bridge in Nijmegen that opened in November 2013.  It is called de Oversteek (the Crossing), and it is built on the location of an important river crossing by the Allied forces during Operation Market Garden in WWII, 20 September 1944.  The plan was to liberate the area and secure the bridge, which they managed to do, but with great losses.  To remember the 48 American soldiers that died at that crossing, the bridge was designed so that every night 48 pairs of streetlights will go on one by one, from north to south.  Research found that 12 American soldiers, including five who took part in the river crossing, had received the Netherlands’ highest honor for bravery for liberating Nijmegen — a remarkably high number, given the town’s small size.

The operation that saved Nijmegen is remembered here in other ways as well.  A monument was built at the northern end of the crossing in 1984, and a primary school has since adopted the memorial and changed its own name to “the crossing.”  Dorine Steenbergen, a local journalist, went to the United States to find the families of the 48 fallen soldiers.  The resulting book, “The Crossing: A Dutch Tribute to 48 American War Heroes,” is on display at local bookstores in the Netherlands.

Tremendous sacrifices were made by American troops to free the Dutch, including the 8,291 Americans buried in the cemetery in Margraten.  But they are remembered every day by the people of the Netherlands who honor them.

Author: Kevin Burns

Kevin is the 2021-22 Area 5 commissioner and chairman for The American Legion Department of California Aerospace Commission.