August 1939, the Dutch government ordered the mobilization of her armed forces. Men that had been trained years ago were re-enlisted. They’d report to bases all over the country and arrived in cities such as Arnhem, where they were trained.
Interview With My Father
The whole city of Arnhem was nervous. You could see it.
I was a soldier of an army for a country that was classified as one of the riches countries in the world. And that is why Hitler came into Holland, because he could take all those riches away.
Actually, it didn’t happen right away, because he thought when he came into Holland in the morning, at night, he would be at the North Sea. In a day, he would have conquered the whole country and taken everything that was there. He was wrong. Because he had to fight for five days. And in those five days, everything was gone. The royal family was gone to England. The princesses were gone to Canada. The gold was gone. All taken away to England. The marina, all the boats, the submarines. Everything was gone to England. And he had hoped to conquer all those things and right away march with his whole unit to England.
If that would have happened, then I’m scared to think about it, that he would have gone right a way to England. And that would have been horrible. England was not prepared at that time.
So actually, we didn’t fight for nothing. You could just about say this was the beginning of him losing the war.
Menno van Coehoorn Barracks, Arnhem
In those days, when you joined the army, you were given a salary of 99 cents a week minus expenses, so you ended up with about 75 cents a week. Enough for a cup of coffee and a donut a day, and then the money was gone. When we were ordered to mobilize, men who had been in the army before were called up. Everybody had to go to the place where they’d been trained.
Barracks Canteen
So men that had been in the army in Arnhem had to come back, too. Then I had to go to the railroad station and help direct them. They showed me the papers—everyone gets a paper when they leave the army—and they had to bring that with them. But men arrived who didn’t belong here. No, I said. You have to go to Leeuwarden, or to Enkhuizen, or, I looked at their paper and, oh my goodness, no, you have to go to Hertogenbosch, heh. I had to tell them to take that train. And then that train.
It was a mess.
They had to arrive wearing their army uniforms. Some men had the smallest uniforms. When they had trained, they were thin, and now they were big. Their uniform hung around their bodies and were held together with a piece of rope.
And you see also men coming in, tiny as a lamp glass, dragging around in too big of a uniform.
So that was a funny look.
And then after that and it got a little easier at the station.
Horses Needed for the Cavalry
But we had also other things to do. The Captain came and said, boys, you have to take horses. We had to go outside the city to the farms and take some horses, heh. Now that was something. I never, never handled a horse before.
So we had to go to the farms and bring horses back to the kazerne. We gave the owner a note that they must deliver a horse for the cavalry. At that time, a lot of the cannons were pulled by horses. But they didn’t have enough horses to handle all the weaponry. So we went out there, and you know the farmers. If a farmer had two horses, if he had one he could keep, but if he had two, he had to give you one.
Now you know if you have two horses and you have a good one and a bad one, you know which one you give. Oh, man. Now I remember one thing. I had a horse on a rope. That thing was horrible. And I had never handled a horse. But anyway. I made it so far as to the city and near the busy traffic, the tram and cars, and that animal had probably never seen a tram or a car. I had to get him to the kazerne, but I couldn’t handle that thing anymore. He started to hit and jump. So there was a big house there, and I took the horse by the rope, tied it to the doorknob and I said goodbye.
We Couldn’t Go Home
Finally, what happened that day, at the end of the day, we had to come all together and we had to go to the railroad station, take all our stuff with us, and then finally we found out we were going to Enkhuizen. We had to leave. We didn’t get to go home. Every soldier had his own toothbrush and things like that, you know. And your outfit. Of course, your weapons. So then we went on the train to Enkhuizen. That’s what they told us. I don’t know why. But we had to go there.
It took us two hours to get to Enkhuizen…
To be continued.
Blessings,
Johanna
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