大象传媒

"The end of a story"

When I Took up the historic mantle in the beginning of 2001 no one could have expected it's final outcome.
Something started which in the end could be characterised as a major undertaking. But it was all worth while.

The story started in 1986 when a just retired social welfare officer Tony Booth did a public request for help regarding the place of his mining during the attack on Blerick on the 3th of December 1944.

A possible miningplace was shown to Tony Booth. At that spot near Hout-Blerick a very similar story did take place during the events in the beginning of december 1944. Mr. Gerard Kuipers helped together with his sister a crew of a British vehicle which drove with high speed on a mine. One of the crew had a major leg injury and was brought to a nearby farmhouse.
But we all could never be sure and as we decided in the beginning of 2001 to write down all the stories for the 49th RTR regimental history we soon found out it all could be different.

Tony Booth, on the 3th of December 1944 a Kangaroo driver, never knew in which lane of the attack he was. Just he knew that they transported in Armoured Personal Carriers, called Kangaroos, the headquarters of the Royal Scots Fusiliers to an object in Blerick coming from their startpoint Sevenum.

One of the difficulties in the investigation was that it all was already 57 years ago and we had doubts to find a surviving eyewitness. Moreover the whole area had been covered with a total new built neigbourhood. So a lot of the topographical evidence could have gone forever.

But we were lucky.

Very soon we found evidence of topograpical kind as Tony did indicate he drove down a steep slope after he had crossed the anti-tankditch. There was a picture of this kind taken near the lanes he must have had taken coming from Sevenum carrying the RSF. It showed a steep slope near the St-Josephstreet in Blerick in 1957. As we confronted Tony with this photo he indicated that it all looked familiar to him so we expected to be on the right course. After Tony did slid down the slope he drove on farmland and 100 metres behind a group of farms he drove on a couple of Tellermines. The Kangaroo was severly damaged and the gunner badly injured at his leg. The commander was paralysed and rest of the RSF jumped out and ran into the farmhouses leaving Tony Booth alone with his comrades. He got them out and hided for a while in a shellhole when he decided to bring them all into the next farmhouse through the minefield. Untill now he still doesn't know how he managed it, but he succeeded in getting them into the next farmhouse while the area was heavily shelled.
Confronted with this story I took a map and an old airphoto so we made some assumptions on the farm he must have used for his shelter.
It was Mr Gerard Kuipers who knew all the people living in that area. It was astonishing to find out that the most possible farm Tony Booth took as a shelter must have been the farm of Mr Jeu Rutten, married to the sister of my aunt. An amazing coincedence as we all agreed. One of the clues was the steep staircase which all the local witnesses and Tony Booth did mention. Another prime witness was Mrs Anna Houben-Saris who lived in a nearby farm and turned out to be our main source for actually seeing 3 minded tanks. Two of them behind the farm of Mr Rutten from which one was a Flailtank and the other nearby which she couldn't recognise. Moreover she saw another smaller tank some 600 meters to the south of her farm. This brought into connection the observation of Tony Booth as he was seeing another mined Kangaroo on his right about 600 meters distance. It all fitted together like pieces of a puzzle.
But we still had a question, who was the woman who gave Tony Booth help during these dramatic moments. As he told he went out for help in the afternoon when the shelling pauzed for a while and went across the street into a linked together group of farms. It was Mr. Jeu Rutten and his wife Truus Rutten-Grubben who gave the suggestion that it could have been at the farm of Verheijden as they were telling a vague story of an English soldier searching for help.
According to their believe it was Hanneke Verheijden-Nabuurs 35 years old then. It fitted with the description Tony had given so we decided to talk to her daughter who lived in Mill. As we were already familiar to Mill, were we visited the Kangaroo monument before this all started, I was surprised that we came to the place were it now all was coming together. As I made a phonecall to Mia Moors-Verheijden somewhere in June 2001 she was surprised to hear about this unknown story as she actually visited that day since a long time the grave of her mother Hanneke Verheijden-Nabuurs talking to several people about the fine woman she was. She had a photo of Hanneke from 1940 and 1942 so I asked her a copy of these photo's to show them to Tony Booth. Was it accidently that, exactly on the day of Hanneke's death (as we later found out) we had our first meeting with Mia Moors-Verheijden and her brother Pieter Verheijden? That evening I had into my possession the photos of Hanneke and I was going to show them to Tony. I was wondering if Tony would recognise her and how he would react to the more or less shivering fact that Mia as chairman of the local historical society was connected to the Kangaroo monument.

The next day I send over the photo's to Tony when I got back an immediate reaction:

"Hi Henk,
Having looked at the additions to your web site (^{About links}), I am full of thoughts and memories, the photo of Hanneke brought it all back. I am sure this was the very attractive woman who appeared like an angel, to offer a drink, but to be so normal at a time when it seemed the whole world was ending. Then to offer me a chance to look around the farm house seemed unreal, but put my feelings into understanding what the population had gone through and it was her way to say thank you for coming."

The story came finally after 57 years to an end. We had found the place of Tony Booth's mining and identified the persons involved leaving us who were involved in this investigation behind with a great feeling of satisfaction.

On the 19th of September 2001 Tony Booth and his wife Gwen came over from Ipswich England to meet all the people involved in this story.

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