Holland Coverage

Sunday, May 8 2005

A sacrifice remembered

Saskatoon man visits grave of pilot brother killed in Netherlands

By Dale Cressman

Special to The StarPhoenix

UDEN, Netherlands -- Bev Cressman still remembers the early autumn day in 1944 that telegram arrived at his farm home near Ceylon, bearing news that his older brother Herb was missing in action.

"We were shocked," said Cressman. "Of course you knew it could happen, but we really did expect him to return."

The memories of that day came flooding back this week, as the retired Saskatoon police officer visited his brother's grave for the first time in this Dutch city, 110 kilometres southeast of Amsterdam.

Cressman is not alone. Nearly 1,500 Canadians, most of them veterans, are visiting the country to mark the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Holland from Nazi occupation. Among the dozens of ceremonies conducted during the week was a memorial service Wednesday for flying officer Charles Herbert Cressman. For Bev Cressman, it was a day he did not know would arrive because until 1998, Herb's body had not been officially identified.

"It's almost like a dream," said Cressman. "I would have never thought years ago that this moment would come."

Cressman's son Jeff, a member of the Royal Canadian Air Force, was overcome with emotion.

"I never knew him, but I feel I knew him," Jeff said. "Not only is he family, but a comrade."

Herb enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1941 and served as a pilot in the ferry command. Married with two young children, Herb was known as a fearless man and a bit of a prankster. While training in Yorkton, he broke regulations to fly over a nearby family farmhouse, dipping the plane's wings to wave to his relatives below. One family legend claims Herb even flew a plane under a bridge over the River Thames in London, later receiving a "proper dressing down" from military brass.

At the beginning of September 1944, Herb was assigned to the 437 Squadron, newly constituted in England and hastily preparing for Operation Market Garden -- a controversial and, ultimately, failed undertaking military planners hoped would provide a final push into Nazi Germany.

On the opening day of the operation, the 27-year-old pilot and his crew towed a Horsa glider behind their twin-engine C-47 Dakota, releasing it into the airspace over Arnhem before returning safely to Blakefield Farm in England.

In the following days, British air dispatchers joined Herb and his Canadian crew to drop food, ammunition and medical supplies for elements of the First British Airborne Division, fighting near Arnhem. By Sept. 21, when the crew joined 53 other Dakotas for supply drops, the Dutch Corridor had become so dangerous paratroopers knew it as "Hell's Highway."

Upon returning from dropping supplies into Arnhem, the column of C-47s encountered nine German fighters. The Dakotas were defenseless. Herb's aircraft went down in the town of Sint-Oedenrode. Eyewitnesses later reported that there were no survivors.

The Cressman family's grief was worsened because Herb's body could not be found. The bodies of seven of the eight crew members were identified: three Canadians on board were interred in the Canadian cemetery at Groesbeek and four British soldiers were buried in the Sint-Martinus Cemetery in Sint-Oedenrode. However, the Department of National Defence finally concluded in May 1950 that its efforts to locate Herb Cressman's body were unsuccessful.

Herb's mother, convinced that her son was alive but without his memory, suffered a nervous breakdown.

"We held out hope for so long that he had survived," Bev Cressman remembered. "We had no closure."

Unknown to Herb's family, his body was believed to be that of an unidentified British airman. His headstone was engraved, "Known Unto God," a circumstance that bothered Lex Roell, a Dutch citizen. Roell was so troubled by the unidentified graves that he decided to spend his retirement gathering evidence that would establish the soldiers' identities. Through eyewitness accounts, physical evidence and the process of elimination, Roell was able to convince the Commonwealth War Graves Commission that the unidentified British soldier buried in Uden was actually Herb Cressman.

When Roell first contacted Bev Cressman in 1996 claiming to have discovered his brother's grave, Cressman thought it might be a hoax.

"I was very surprised," said Cressman. "We had given up hope years ago."

In late 1998, the war graves commission concurred with Roell's findings and agreed to replace Herb's

headstone. The day workers installed the new headstone, citizens in Uden gathered for an observance that was covered heavily in the local media.

Roell's devotion is not uncharacteristic of Dutch dedication to remembering the sacrifice of Allied soldiers.

Thanks to others like Roell, a few dozen fallen soldiers are identified each year, according to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

In Uden, as in other areas, citizens have formed a foundation to organize commemoration services and serve as a liaison between the War Graves Commission and visiting Canadian family members.

Antoon Verbakel, secretary of the Uden War Cemetery Foundation, said he cannot let go of his memories of the war. He still carries the memory of finding dead airmen in farm fields during the war. As a result, Verbakel has made a point of knowing as much as he can about each one of the men buried in the Uden War Cemetery.

"It is one thing to say you are grateful," said Louis Kleijne, a retired schoolteacher in Sint-Oedenrode who

continues to conduct research on behalf of surviving Canadian and British families. "However, it is another thing to do something about it."

Canadians will leave this country feeling plenty of gratitude to their Dutch hosts, who have been so devoted for so long to Canadian war dead.

"It's not about us," said Randy McDonald, a Sault St. Marie piper with the 49th

Field Regiment of the Royal Canadian Artillery. "It's about the guys who served."

Dale Cressman, a freelance writer and journalism professor at Brigham Young University, is in Holland with his father Bev and his brother Jeff, a member of the Canadian Armed Forces contingent.