Menu
“On September 17, I went to the first mass in the church in Breugel early in the morning. My father went to High Mass, the second Mass of the day. During the High Mass, Pastor Van Vlokhoven advised all those present to seek a safe haven in connection with the bombing. Everyone present quickly rushed to the woods for shelter.”
“At 1 p.m. the first paratroopers landed at Sonniuswijk. Thousands of paratroopers were in the air. Later equipment, jeeps and 'scooters' were also dropped. These scooters had very wide tires, which made it easier to drive on bad roads.”
A German soldier even took my father's bicycle.
“During the landing of the paratroopers, the farm at Wolfswinkel was set on fire by the English. The English knew that Germans had their shelter there.” The Germans fled from Son due to the invasion of the paratroopers. Drip by drop the Germans walked past our house. You could see that they had been in a hurry to flee, because they had not taken many things with them. Some just a gun. The fleeing Germans took some time to rest under the hedge at the Van Eck family house. A German soldier even took my father's bicycle.”
“The first American soldiers looked for a place to sleep at 9:30 p.m. They knew exactly where to be. They then slept with our neighbors. The next day they walked towards Vressel. My brothers and I stood on the side of the road and we gave the soldiers an apple. This was eagerly used. This was our first contact with the American soldiers.”
“During the war I was already at school. At a certain point we no longer had lessons in that school, because the Dutch soldiers started using the school for their accommodation. The German soldiers commandeered the school. Later the English took possession of the school. During the time when they could not go to the school building, the school children received lessons in a café in Breugel. After the liberation, we could not use the school yet. There had been an outbreak of scabies.”
