Hey,
I'm new to this forum, so as a newby gift to you all I took some pictures of the remains of manholes dugg by members of the 101 Airborne Division.
I've got the location from a 'Market Garden' Autoroute I bought in the "Wings of Libaration" museum in Best.
You have to search for them, but all of the sudden you stand in the middle of them, and you find out how many were dugged...
Because they are almost in my backyard, I visit them no and then, just in remebrence of those who fought for our freedom. They say more to me than a memorial.

This is the story behind the manholes:

For Operation Market Garden the 101 landed on the open fields near Son. The first landings (paratroopers infantry only at that point) took place at the fields most nearby the channel and the bridge at Best.
When landed on the open field (on a spot where the Germans had a fake airfield strip, as decoy for Welschap airfield!!) they encountered enemy fire (as I believed also from an 88, located at the bridge).
The members of the 101 took shelter by digging manholes in the nearby woodside and regroup.

Some of the manholes remainings:






This was the landingsite of the 101, the line of trees in the back was'nt there during the war, but it marks where the fake airfield / landingstrip was.
Behind the trees the field go one for kilometres and that's where most other landings, including gliderplanes, took place. One of the farms (I guessed it was 'Mariahoeve') was used for air recognation of the location.
There's a memorial for those landings, but for some reason it's on private property and not to be visited...



This roadname "Oude Baan" remebers the old fake landingstrip; Oude = Old, Baan = mostly Road, but also Landingstrip (as in this case):


The old strip was shortly after the war converted into an normal road and still remains:



JOE MANN
The most famous casulty during the fights was Joe Mann, for who's a memorial founded, a few metres away from the spot where he was believed to be killed.
He saw a grenade landing between him and his four mates and decided to throw himself upon the grenade to save the other four. This is the memorial, just a few 100 metres from the canal and about 1000 metres from the manholes.



This is the translation:
On september 19, 1944 gave Joe E Mann as a soldier on this spot his young life to save the life of his comrads.

Thanks for looking!

Paul

Well done, Paul ! .... Thanks for the photo's and remembering our soldiers !

- ralph

Paul
Thank you and your countrymen for remembering and honoring our fallen and all that fought there.
Jerry

Jerry, as this is one of my personal 'manias' - it is worth pointing out, that there are few countries in Europe who have so much respect or make so much effort to commemorate the Allied forces as Holland.

Sadly, oher countries in Europe have done their level best to 're-write' history by minimising the sacrifice of the many thousands of allied troops or to take credit for the actions of others. Holland on the other hand, is a country which has always demonstrated a good understanding of its own history and is adult enough to recognise the help given by others...Jim

Jim,
I don't know about the other countries, but I do know most Dutch are very serious indeed about remembering our libarators.
We did also had our own armoured forces, like the Princess Irene Brigade, but most credit still goes to US, Canadian and British soldiers fighting in an unknown country to liberate unknown people.

For me, the 101-th have a special place in my heart, because that's the division who liberated my hometown and from wich I was told about from since I was a kid (I'm 33 now...)

The only re-writing of history I'm aware of in my country is that there are people stating they were resistance members during wartime, but in fact just joined after the war... This started first direct after the war and this (psygological?) phenomena was common thru whole Europe I guess. It is therefor also mentioned widly in history books. Most of these guys where youngster showing off, and perhaps it is also an understandable thing. That's not bothering me that much.
What IS bothering and what I find absolutely not understandable is that some of those (and other nowdays old) guys (still) claim to be resistance members back then. They walk proudly in defilees and other memorial happenings alongside real veterans and real ex-resistance members. They have a ball!
Our RIOD (Rijks Instituut Oorlogs Documentatie = National Institute War Documentation) is very alert on this and try to 'solve' it in a discreet manner when somebody like that is 'discovered'.
But there was a TV program who faced some of those guys in public with their REAL history... It was horrifying to see they where just telling lies, sometimes copied out of other one stories... Just so shameless... In some cases just counting back their real age was a proof, as they would be 4 years old to be a resistance member in 1945... Yeah right!
I was shocked about this and this also hurts, specially because I can remember how my grandfather suffered from his wartime resistance memories till the day he died. He never wanted to talk about it., never wanted to walk in defilees, never wanted credit. The only thing he wanted was that it never happened

But, those fakers must never be a reason not to remember anymore.
Today I went to Geldrop with had its yearly fair. Geldrop was liberated by mostly Brittish and Commonwealth soldiers. There was a nice ammount of old Olive Drab vehicles and also a little rememberence exposition. And Geldrop was not even celebrating their liberation, because that's in september
It's just a way we use to tell our kids what once happened...

Paul

PS: yes, I took pictures of the vehicles, I will post them soon :-)

Hi Paul

My Dad has a lot of friends in Holland my Dads regiment 53 Welsh Div 2nd Mons South Wales Borderers liberated a place called Hertongenbosh please excuse the spelling and on one visit was givern a wonderful reception by the mayor when he presented a oil painting he had done of his home town in Wales,which was followed by a moving service to comemorate all who did not come back,he has a very wonderful relationship with the people of Holland.
Regards Chris

Chris,

Your father did a wonderfull and very brave job involved the liberation of 's-Hertogenbosch. There were some heavy fightings back than.
Great to hear he still has contacts with the Dutch!
Please bring him my best wishes and thanks.

Paul