Clinton News-Record, 1985-5-8, Page 47Fi
Canadians arrive
In May 1940 German soldiers descend-
ed on I pliand. In five days their mission
of dent uctton was Complete. The Dutch
army bad surrendered, the provinces
had been captured and the Netherlands
would never be the same.
For five years the country was held in
the grip of Hitler's rule. Death and fear,
robbery and poverty reigned.
By the spring of 1945 there were faint
glimpses of hope in Holland. News was
spreading rapidly north that the Cana-
dian Army was pushing that way, driving
the Nazi troops lowly before them.
The hidden radios spoke every day
about those Canadians who seemed to be
able to beat the Germans. The frightened
Dutch people remained hidden in their
shelters, but they silently hoped and
prayed for their Canadian heroes and the
future and new life in freedom.
On the evening of April 16, 1945, the
Canadians reached the perimeter of the
defensive bridge -head the Germans had
estal?lished at the enourmous dike, stret-
ching across 20 miles of the North Sea
and the Zuyder Zee and connecting
Holland proper in the west with
Friesland in the east.
It had taken the Canadian army a
month to reach the shores of Friesland
against stubborn German resistance.
One hour before sundown the Canadians
drove through town, and only half an
hour before, buses and trucks full of hag-
gard looking Germans had passed
through the village, their loaded rifles
pointed through open windows at
deserted sidewalks. Their departure was
swift and nobody bade them farewell.
Those moments when the eyes of the
liberated populace saw for the first time
the young faces of their liberators, have
crystallized an affection for life for the
people of Canada. It's no shame to ex-
press one's indebtedness in matters of
life and death to strangers. But though
they came from a faraway country, no
strangers they remained, as all Cana-
dian soldiers will tell you who partook in
the campaign of freedom in Holland.
What would have happened to the
population of Holland if the Allied offen-
sive had failed, is impossible to deter-
mine. It seems that the Nazis had in mind
to transport the people en route te
Poland, to fend for themselves. The
We..-
cultivated lands of those intractible
Dutch would go to the Nazi elite.
However, the Canadians decided the
issue and those very moments when a.
notorized group of Canadian soldiers roll-
ed through the village in the twilight
hours of April 16, 1945, are etched with in-
delible clarity on the screen of memory.
Page 21
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