A reason to leave?

Young people went into hiding during WW2 because the Germans took them from the streets and transported them to Germany to work in the war industry.
My father was at a much desired age, so we never doubted it was one of the reasons he went to England.

Another problem was that his face was spotted at different places in town at a regular basis. The Dutch just noted it (I was told by someone in the neighbourhood), but the Germans took notice.
He became a danger for his resistance group.

So we always thought those were the reasons he left the country.
He used to say: "to free our country from the sky."


Roaming online to learn more about the resistance in a rural area nearby I found a name I recognised from the conversations between gram and other family members who were in the resistance.
I tried to reconstruct his activities during WW2 and then suddenly saw our family name.

To make a long search short:

One of the family members was a priest working at a cloister south of the city.
He had been hiding people and his cloister was also a hub in the escape route of RAF military on their way home.

He was betrayed.
The Nazies interrogated him, but as the resistance group was his own family he didn't say anything at all.
They tortured him, but the lives of his family members were far more important than to break.
As they couldn't get through to him, they shot him.

That was end 1942.

So maybe that was also a strong reason for my father to leave the country and go to England.

A long time ago someone told me dad went with one of the aircrew on the escape route and went with him all the way.
There is no proof of that at all. Or is there?

He knew the way through small streets in Paris.

He was transported to Nova Scotia in spring 1943.

So he went through Europe in the winter....HOW??

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Training in Canada

Only once my father mentioned he had been in Nova Scotia.

In my small child's mind I imagined him struggling through the Northpole snow as Nova Scotia for me sounded like the end of the world.
That he arrivd by boat only added to the ideas put in my mind by my interest in the polar expeditions.

Later I found out it was not the end of the world, but a place in Canada.

Researching the disembarkment lists one by one of all the ships that arrived with military from the UK, finally resulted in finding my father. (Later confirmed by someone who had a look at those lists too.)

His name was changed into Geartson, but date and place of birth were right and his other names were not too far from the real ones. It was him.

He arrived in Nova Scotia in spring 1943.

I copied the list.

Lost it before I was able to print it due to a computer crash.


I couldn't find anything else. Not where he trained, no photos with him.

He must have gone to the wireless school. He had a wireless badge and when he returned to The Netherlands he immediately found work as a wireless operator for the National Telephone and Telegraph Company (PTT)
He has also menioned he worked as a flight mechanic/engineer.

I haven't found any lists of people who trained in Canada (yet).

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.