大象传媒

This story was given to us by Reg who served as a Troop Corporal Tank Comander in the second Northamptonshire Yeomanry. Reg's army number was 7892098. Reg commanded a Cromwell Tank.

My story begins in the small village of Nordewick in Belgium, September 1944. I was serving with 1RTR of 7 Armoured Division, having joined them from 2nd Northants Yeomary (2NY). My squadron,B,was on the Albert Canal facing a town named Herentals at the time of the Arnhem battle. We watched the planes towing their gliders going on their way to Holland.

We were withdrawn to our village of Nordewick for 48 hours to clean up and prepare for our dash up through Eindhoven in Holland and up through the Corridor which was being created by air-borne troops and the Guards Armoured Division, and finally to cross the bridge at Arnhem and to exploit the country beyond.

After our rest period in our village we started our march to Holland. The time wore on and we understood we would cross the border into Holland during the night. The normal practice occurred of our convoy going like the clappers one minute, then coming to a halt or at best a slow crawl. At one point we came to a complete halt for a rest period. We were in an area of scattered dwellings so there were civilians along the roadside in penny numbers to greet us.

Suddenly a man scrambled up the side of our Cromwell and proceeded to embrace me with a great deal of emotion and tears. I gathered from the way he spoke we had most likely arrived in Holland.(I must explain now that in Normandy and France, the German troops were referred to as Le Bosche, and in Belgium as Les Allemanges. At this moment in time I did not know that the Dutch people referred to the German troops as Deutsch-soldats, and when an English person says Dutch or Deutsch, it sounds very much the same word; so you will now understand my story better).

Anyway when I was able to get a word in, I said "Are we in Holland"
He said " Yah,yah,Holland, Holland"
I replied by saying "So you are Dutch"
(now comes the misunderstanding). "Nay, nay!!! Hollander, Hollander!! Nix Deutsch!!"
It was quite obvious he had a great panic on because he thought that I thought he was a German. Anyway I pacified him with a few tins of bully beef and biscuits and he gave me his 2陆 guilder coin to show his gratitude for his liberation
At the time we ( my crew) had a good laugh about it; being young and fit we were quick to see the humorous side of it.

In 1947 with my family we visited our friends I had made in Bruge (during my recuperation time from hospital) and during our swapping of stories, I told Gaston about my 2陆 guilder coin and how I had come to have it. He then told me of how when the Germans first occupied the Low Countries, they were making great efforts to be friendly, but as the war went on, as it did for everyone else times started to get hard for the Germans. One of the things they did was to call in all coins which had any quantity of nickel or silver content for their war effort. Gaston told me that for that Dutchman to keep until September 1944 a 2陆 guilder coin to give to the first Allied soldier he met to show his gratitude would have cost him at least a prison sentence or deportation to Germany.

So for me, my very treasured 2陆 guilder coin has three qualites - humour, sadness and courage. To my unknown Dutchman, I say Thank you.

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