We will remember

 

Here in The Netherlands we remember our war deaths at May 4, but when my father was dying I promised him to remember him, his friend Ron and Father Richard Stoffels at the same time as the English remember those who gave their lives for freedom.

I still don't know which squadron(s) he served, even though I've spend many hours searching.
But in my mind's eye, the photos are engraved, and the memories these men created are still with me even though they're all long gone.
They're so close, that often I feel like I could stretch out my hands and lay them in theirs.

They gave us freedom, and they're still walking in that freedom with me and my family.

It's sad that I want to go to England so much, but I'm never able to go there.
I want to lay a wreath of poppies at one of the war memorials.
They deserve it.

The lost men of WW2 deserve to be acknowledged.
Not all lists are complete.
A lot of work needs to be done.
Sometimes I'm able to find a face and a name together. because of the way a man looks, because of his hair, or because of s smile.
Sometimes veterans can't be found in the records, and they're denied the place in the old veteran's home they deserve.
That makes me so sad.

Each year the tears in my eyes find their way to express how deep I feel about what all these men and woman have done to create freedom.
And I'm glad to say that my children also feel the deep gratitude we all should have.

Many young and also older people are not aware how important it is that tolerance and respect are central in our behaviour.
We should always have peace as a central goal in what we say and do. Other people are not our enemies, but when we're not able to make them our fellow fighters for freedom, they might become our enemies.
Never ever should we need to send so many men and women to free so many people from oppression.
That means that we have to guard our attitude each and every moment.

I try, because their love for peace and freedom has grown in my heart too.


.

For the Fallen

For the Fallen

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,

England mourns for her dead across the sea.

Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,

Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill: Death august and royal

Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres.

There is music in the midst of desolation

And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,

Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.

They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,

They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;

They sit no more at familiar tables of home;

They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;

They sleep beyond England's foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,

Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,

To the innermost heart of their own land they are known

As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,

Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain,

As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,

To the end, to the end, they remain.

By Robert Laurence Binyon (1869-1943), 

published in The Times newspaper, September 21 1914.

.

Richard Stoffels SJ.

 

Talking to veterans always leaves a huge impression, but none so huge as when I had the pleasure of meeting Richard Stoffels.

Richard Stoffels S.J. was the army chaplain of the Dutch forces in the RAF.
He was born in Amsterdam as Richard Marie Paul Stoffels in 1906, at april 1.
He became a Jesuit at september 7th of 1925, and was eager to study and to deal with people.
In 1938, at august 27 he became a priest. He became a retreatleader until 1954 and then worked at the Oostpriesterhulp.
In 1975 he was decorated as Ridder van Oranje Nassau for his work during 1945 until 1948 as army chaplain for the Air Forces.
He died in Nijmegen, at december 23 1999 and is burried at the cementry of Jonkerbos.

He was the first army chaplain for the Dutch Forces and he set the standard very, very high.

The connection with our family dated from the time my uncles visited Canisius College. Richard Stoffels worked and studied there from 1930 until 1935.
I don't know when he saw my father again, if my father was part of his "boys" or they saw each other again at the streets of Wolverhampton or Birmingham.
Fact is that Richard Stoffels took my father under his wings and never ever let him go out of his sight and prayers.

Later they could sit and smoke with a small glass and talk about the good old times and the lesser old times and the lessons they both learned about themselves and other human beings.

Richard Stoffels, Father Stoffels to me, was part of growing up.
We didn't see him often, because he visited all his others "boys" and families too, as far as possible driving his car, but when he was at home my mother gave him "her" chair and he always moved it a few centimeters aside with a small child's pleasure, knowing she hated his harmless way of dealing with her obsessive cleanliness and neatness. She could never get mad, because he valued every little token of welcome. A biscuit beside a cup of coffee was praised as if he got a whole expensive cake all for himself.
Later he would pop-in, unannounced and ask for the remote control. He would call me and ask me to watch TV with him, putting on a program I liked to bits pretending he came especially for that program, knowing my mom wouldn't have granted me to opportunity to watch it if he hadn't been there,

When I married he said he couldn't come because he was expected elsewhere, but soon after he visited us at our own home.
I seemed to have become one of his "boys".

In 1984 he came to live near my parents in Berchmanianum.
"Now they consider me old and I should go a bid mad", he often said, "They fuzz about my health, tell me I use too much paper and spend too much time devoted to "my boys". Guess they want me to pray all day and put up the perfect picture of an old priest waiting to go to heaven.
I can't and God will understand."

He was elated when my first son was born in 1986 and grieved with me when my little daughter died soon after birth. He sat with me, my hand in his, said nothing at all, but slowly his tears dropped on the floor.
Now I understood even more how important he had been for all those soldiers who were in his care during the war.

He became more of a granddad for my children than my father's army chaplain.
More boys were born, and finally two girls.
As long as he could drive his small car he would visit us unannounced, whenever he felt to it, and when the children were already asleep he silently visited their rooms and put three crosses on their foreheads. They couldn't have been more blessed.

When the oldest grew up he enjoyed playing with them.
Physically he couldn't do much anymore, and as he became deaf he had to find new means of communicating with them. That wasn't a problem.
because my father told father Stoffels used to sign his name in a drawing he showed it to my children too.
They were fascinated by it.

He told us a lot about he dealt with all the birthdays and anniversaries of "his boys". Each year he wrote all the data in his agenda, so he couldn't forget one, and he wrote them all cards.
Then at one evening he was very sad and a bit mad. We didn't know him like that. He was impatient with his tea. Finally he told why. Someone had told him to stop sending cards to his men because it was too expensive for the place where he lived.
One of the children gave him a hug and that made him a bit calmer.

Not too long after that he expressed more unhappiness.
He had been visiting us and when he came back he was told that they were about to report him missed.
He wanted to keep his independence, but at the same time he felt his life came to an end.

That was the time he started to share his own experiences.
Like when "his boys"came back from bombarding Dresden.
Most of them were very shocked and he decided to go with the first reconnaissance flight so he could see for himself.  He was able to describe his own shock in such detail that I could see it all through his eyes. He made me understand how the soldiers and he were burdened by the knowledge of having killed so many people, but at the other hand they had to find ways to end the war.
He talked about lots of aspects of war my father never had been able to talk about and it enabled me later to talk with veterans about the most intense aspects of being at war.

His visits became more intense and personal, and also more louder as he wanted to bridge his deafness and keep "normal".
The strong man with the enormous presence became an old man who saw he should stop driving his car.
When we wanted to visit him he had the nurse tell us he wasn't at home.
I envisioned him sitting at his desk with his agenda in his hand, looking which one would be the next having a special day.

He died at the age of 93 in 1999, two days before Christmas.
Since then I draw three crosses on the forehead of the little baby Jesus each time I prepare our house for Christmas, to honor "our" Father Stoffels.

.

High Wycombe

One of the places where my father was stationed was High Wycombe.

Because he was so young he was staying with a family.
I never heard him mentioning a man, so I've always thought that he stayed with the elderly lady and her daughter he always spoke very nice about.

The daughter, Lillian, married and went with her husband to Rhodesia.

I know my father kept in contact for a long time.

.

Home and Leaving

My father was one of 7 children, member of a close, but huge family.

With 6 boys and one girl, my gram was thought to be busy with her family full time.
In fact, she was one of the members of a network of family members who were almost all members of the resistance.

The house was large, had entrances in the front and back, a large cellar (with it's own entrance) and could be entered, especially at the back, unseen from rather far away because of the low garden paths which were overgrown by bushes. The gardenpaths were connected in such an unorganized way that people even got lost going to their own home when they entered the area from the other side of the huge block.
And the entrance from the other side...it was near the woods.
So the house was perfect to leave and enter unseen and hide people.

Because we had a large family there was no need to involve strangers in the activities, some of the members were connected to the liasons which were connected to other liasons of other groups of the resistance.

After the war I heard many, many stories about the activities of the family, ranging from exchanging lists of people who should be deported into lists of people who were nowhere to be found, warning young people to lave the city, smuggling goods, decoding messages from England and sending coded messages to England, stealing foodvouchers and falsifying them, and helping crashed airmen to leave the area.

It is believed my father went to England with one or more of the pilots.
He never said a word about how he left, only that he was in England in 1943.

When we were in France he suddenly appeared to understand the language quite well, which was amazing, because he only spoke Dutch and English, and he knew his way around in Paris. Which was suprising as he always said he'd never been there.

.

I'm looking for Family Brotherton

 

My father

I'm looking for members of Family Brotherton who used to live at 11 Grange Road Wolverhampton.

My father stayed with a Family Brotherton during WW2.

He was able to escape from The Netherlands and he wanted to serve in the RAF.

Because he was too young to stay on the militairy terrain 24 hours a day, he stayed with a family.

There were a couple of daughters (one called Sally) and one or more sons.

One of the daughters was called Catherine/Cathy.

She married John Brotherton.

My dad (Jan Geertsen) and I visited them in 1968 and we were welcomed like he was their brother and I was their daughter.

We've had a marvelous time.

Catherine Brotherton was a small woman with a huge heart. She was very kind.

She sang in a church choir.

If I remember well they had a few children: Sarah (or was it Bernadette?), Catherine, Littl John and Marc-Anthony.

I also remember an older person, the oldest son (or brother) called Tony/Anthony.

Later he married Carol, a teacher, and they lived in Walsall.

She took me a year later to the school she was teaching. It was a kind of international school with very enthusiastic people full of inspiration.

I was very moved by the story that aunt Cathy's younger brother (when I remember well) died during the war. Dad and she went to the war memorial near Wolverhampton.

(Brotherton Norman Frederick Sergeant (W.Op/Air Gnr) 95684976 Sqdn Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve Son of Lillian Brotherton of Wolverhampton. Died - 13 August, 1941. Aged - 21. Memorial - Becklingen War Cemetery, Germany. 21 A6  Quoted from: http://www.wolverhamptonwarmemorials.org.uk/memorial_pages/Men%20of%20Wolverhampton/wolverhampton_roll_of_honour_WW2.htm )

The neighbour of the Brothertons was Ron.

He also served in the RAF and took us to the Lake District to show us where his squadron trained for a special mission.

I was young, 12 years, I was very impressed by the lake and the nature around and  didn't pay much attention to what both my father and Ron were saying. Only later I realized he'd probably served as a Dambuster.

Ron took dad and me to a lot of places in England and Wales. 

We also stayed a couple of days with Ken Brotherton and his wife in Kendal.
Ken was a Royal Engineer an he was one of the designers of the bridge of Deventer or Zutphen.
I've seen his sketches.

In 1969 or 1970 we went back to the Brothertons with my mother and sister.

My parents stayed with Cathy and John, and my sister and I stayed the nights with Tony and Carol.

Later Cathy and John moved to another house with a bay window.

When my father was dying we were able to talk on the phone and I arranged for dad a wonderful flowerarrangement in the colours of our flags: red, white and blue, as a present from Cathy and all the family.

He was very moved to have his english family so close to him during his last days and one of his last looks in this world was on the flowers of the people he loved so dearly.

A few years later my mother was informed that aunty Cathy had died. She said she wasn't able to reply back because she didn't have an address.

When my mother cleared my father's things the addresses were lost, she said.

I've always hoped I would find the addresses again or find the family online.

My stay with aunty Cathy has had a great impact on my life and now I'm older I would love to meet the family again.

So please contact me when you know them.

.

Mystery

 

I wrote in 2015:


Isn't it strange: I can't find any records of my father, nor from the highly decorated army chaplain Stoffels, not in the RAF-files, nor in the Dutch files, and I'm sure they both served in the RAF.

I've seen enough paperwork they both had in their possession, I've spoken with people who were with them in England, I've seen photos.
Lots of them. With my father in a Lancaster, in front of Spitfires, in front of a WW2 wireless console, with his colleagues, etc etc.
My dad had a desk with long drawers which were divided in two parts. The front part for everyone to see, and the back part one could only access by pulling out some hidden parts at the side of the desk.
He kept photos there from his English family, as we called the Brothertons, letters, some army stuff, reconnaissance photos with his handwriting on them, a badge, a flight cap, a letter with  thank you for his war efforts, a logbook, booklets with instructions and some other WW2 items.

There's absolutely no doubt he served in the RAF.
Yet, there is nothing to be found.


Later I found out more and I've put it all in this blog.