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When the German soldiers were shot at from between or from the houses, perhaps by resistance fighters, the situation on Kerkplein became grim and chaotic. The agitated and frightened Germans then took 42 hostages. Godfried Kerkhof was one of them:
“When we came out of the church, a German patrol immediately put us against the wall. They fetched the pastor from the parsonage and then they went further into Kerkstraat and Kloosterstraat and then they went to get some more. And they put them all against the wall.”
And there a bomb fell on the cannon that was there. BOOM!
With their hands above their heads and their noses against the facade of a house, three machine guns were positioned behind the hostages. Father Houtmortels and Father Luykx, who were also among the hostages, were instructed to warn the people that a hostage would be shot whenever German soldiers were shot at.
Suddenly the English liberators of the King's Company of the Grenadier Guards bombarded the church square:
“And there a bomb fell on the cannon that was there. BOOM! Then the Germans forced us into that trench under the lime trees. With me there was a German with a machine gun strap over his shoulder and then they started shooting there, for God's sake. They shoot down two trees there, all those branches fell down.”
The English continued to shell Kerkplein from Norbert Neeckxlaan, but at the same time they made a detour so that they ended up behind the current Baudouin School. From there they managed to kill the German officer in charge of the defense of Kerkplein with one well-aimed shot. The Germans had lost their leader and the north and fled. They crossed bridge 12 into the Netherlands via Lepelstraat and Gestelsedijk. The hostages were free!
“Then we lay there for a while until the Germans left and then one of them lay against that lime tree, I can still see it. Someone stole his binoculars. His head was almost taken off, that boy. And there were also about three or four dead in the gendarmerie. The other Germans jumped on a Tiger tank that came out of Stationsstraat and fled to Holland.”
“And when we got home, I didn't know it anymore. My hair stood straight on my head. Dirt from the sand and the dust and the filth. My father took care of me, and I cried for half an hour straight from the tension. We have been liberated in the literal sense of the word.”
