Sitting in bright sunlight, I looked-up at an aeroplane with circles painted-on. going West, backto England, on May 10, 1940. Later in the summer, I saw the first German soldier on a bicycle. My Mother cried. Holland had surrendered. A grey time followed. Grey skies every year, grey uniforms, dark grey news. One light for our class-room to save electricity. I wondered if it all would clear-up. I see 4 little planes. One after the other tip wings vertically and drop straight done. Close to the ground, the wings level. Still they come steeply downward. The first three fly over our house. The last one comes directly toward me. I can see the top of the plane and two eggs under it. Bombs. It looks as if our house will get a direct hit. A screaming sound right overhead. Our house was spared the hit. Their aim was to hit a railroad-crossing. The bombs had gone into a pond and all th houses around were brown form the big splash. The greyness of war slowly lifted with gun sounds close-by. On a sunny day, I saw a string of something fall from bomber-planes: BREAD. Strange how the sky had cleared. All that grey was…just gone. In the morning of a very sunny day my sister and I went to the main road into Utrecht. The excitement of the people around us became very intense. Trucks and tanks came into view. Holland was liberated. People jumped on the vehicles and kissed the soldiers. Just like that. Back at home, a deep bariton voice, “the war in Europe is all over.” Winston Spencer Churchill. A broadcast from liberated Hilversum radio.
A truck had stopped close-by our house. A Canadian soldier stood with one leg on the footstep to the truck-door. He was shaving himself in the rear-view mirror. :Cigarettes for my Father”, I said. He gave me a whole pack. “Have a sister?”, he said.
Delightful soldier. Gordon. In the evening a few days later, I went out to hear a live band in the park. I go through beautifully decorated streets, our red white blue and a little orange strip everywhere. Lights, lights, lights on all the houses and big buildings. No more grey.
I stop here. The memory is overwhelming me.
THANK YOU BRAVE CANADIAN SOLDIERS this November 10, the eve of Remembrance Day Wim
