Beautiful ANZAC Story

Apr 25, 2026

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ANZAC day means different things to many people. I have always attended the
ANZAC day service wherever I am, to reflect on the sacrifices that so many people
have made over the years, so that you and I can sit here today in this hall and later
gather at the memorial on the Cave hill to lay down our poppies.

Yes that is what we do. We lay down our poppies, and read out the names of family
members and friends who rallied to the call to arms, and laid down their lives, so that
we, you and I can be free and enjoy the life style we live today.

We all recall the battle names-Gallipoli-El Alamein-The pacific, where many
ANZACS were engaged. On the Eastern front - Stalin Grad where the Russian Allies
fought a war of scorched earth in wintery conditions and the German forces turned
and started their retreat. Later years saw ANZAC participation in Vietnam and South
Korea. Today we are involved in the Baltic States, Bosnia, Afghanistan and Iraq.

To me coming from Holland, occupied by German forces from May 1940-May1945.
The landings in Italy, Monte Cassino. The Allied landings on the beaches of
Normandy, the big push northward-the battle in the Ardennes when bad weather
conditions minimised the air superiority of the allies- fierce resistance and wintry
conditions slowed any advance. That was the time our hopes of freedom were high
but took two years to be realised.

I want to portray to you life in my occupied country. I was ten years old when in 1940
the German forces invaded the Netherlands, which literally means the low lands.
Through the ages our natural defence had been breaking the dykes in strategic places
and flooding the centre of Holland to stop the advance of the enemy. The famous
Water Line.

However the German High Command dropped their parachutists “Valschirmjager” in
Rotterdam after heavy bombing raids by the German air force. In other words they
just flew across the Water line.

My most vivid memory is sitting at the wireless, hearing the air sirens and screaming
aeroplane engines and the announcer saying that Rotterdam was being attacked. Quite
exciting for a ten year old.

The war lasted two days-Holland surrendered.

My father was a career officer and was rounded up with most of his fellow officers in
the first week of occupation, to be carted off to a prisoner of war camp in East
Germany and later Poland.

My older brother an engineering student was caught in the streets in a big labour
round up – like mustering sheep really. They were put in big pens, identified,
physically examined and if you were strong and old enough, carted off to Germany to
work in their factories.

Brother Dick landed up in an ammunition factory, lost a finger but lived into his
eighties.

That left my mother to care for three children and survive the five year occupation.
As a teenage boy my best friend was my bicycle.

It took me wherever I wanted to go and wherever I had to go. It was very precious.

As the war progressed its pressure tyres were replaced with all sorts of
refurbishments. Outer tubes with wooden inserts, doubled up strips of car tyre, length
of big hose. It just kept on moving. Of course we always bicycled to school whatever
the distance and weather conditions. In winter we often skated on frozen back roads-
no school buses in those days.

We lived in the East of Holland in a sandy forested area. Hard frosts and snow. We
battled for survival.
Chopping down trees was prohibited as the canopy gave protection from Allied air
raids to German forces.

To keep the house fires burning we chopped down small trees - just at waist height.
To make a quick getaway - covered them up and came back at night with two
bicycles, put the tree on the handle bars and scuttled home. Cut up the tree to hide the
evidence of our efforts.

As the war went on we chopped the lower trunk and by the end of the war we were
pulling out the roots to burn.

In the big cities in Amsterdam, The Hague there were not many trees left and people
were stripping the lining of their houses to burn by the end of the war.

Food was rationed and often inadequate but in our area grass was plentiful so we fed
rabbits in cages for meat, and before school scoured the roadsides for grass and
dandelions.

We learnt to gather different types of eatable fungi- while mushrooms ,orange
roostercombs*-brown beefsteak fungi-nourishing and tasty. However some species
were fatal.

Every garden had a vegetable plot and our age group were busy emptying septic tanks
with buckets and rope to get the precious manure, and fertilise the sandy garden patch.
It all had to be dug in straight away. Oh that smell!

Everything was available on the black market but by the end of the war money was of
little value, as the occupation forces just kept printing it-paper guilders - millions of
them. So we had to trade. Jewellery – sheets - furs – silverware - car batteries. I
remember trading a battery stolen from the Germans for a milking goat which ate
grass and produced milk.

We learnt to steal from the enemy forces- anything to disrupt their war efforts.

As the years went on we went further a field on our bicycles to try to trade some milk,
eggs and butter. We traded or stole some sugar beet - swedes with a high sugar
content which we cut into little cubes and then cooked on whatever bit of fire was
going to keep the room warm.
Rye corn grew well in our area and was freely available. Every morning we faced rye
corn porridge-quite bitter with sugarbeet treacle to sweeten it a bit.

At the end of the war very efficient little thermal stoves cooked all sorts of brews-
sugarbeet pulp - tulip bulbs.

We went gathering grain in the fields after the crops had been harvested. Pick up the
broken off grain heads, grind them into flour and get the baker to bake a loaf of bread
for somebody’s birthday. Just imagine a whole loaf for your birthday!

We lived in the East - in the West , Amsterdam, The Hague , Rotterdam things were
much worse. The occupation forces commandeered much of the food produced in
occupied countries to feed the German population.

As children we observed all the activities around us. The German troops marching,
singing their victorious songs - they certainly could sing. In summer you would hear
them and smell them - the sweat from heavy uniforms and leather boots.

Even as children we soon learned there were two types of German soldiers - the
conscript Wehrmacht on one side –not too bad, and the Elite volunteer SS trooper on
the other side. The SS were bad news and Hitler’s special forces – they were feared
and hated.

Todays children hear and see the horrors of religious extremism and terrorism on TV.
We were made to face the bodies of victims of reprisal on street corners.

The German forces laid down rules and enforced them, in some cases pretty
ruthlessly.
Rationing of all food and most commodities- ration cards were issued.
We had to hand in all copper and lead artefacts to be made into bullets. Lots of holes
were dug and precious items buried, to be dug up after the war- some very green!!

Black out of lights was strictly enforced. Multi wave radios were to be handed in and
only local wave bands allowed so that we could not listen to radio England.

I can hear the opening morse code V…_ as clear today as 60 years ago.*
Needless to say many a good radio was hidden and old ones handed in.

Each night my mother disappeared upstairs and listened to radio London to hear the
latest news and be encouraged by Winston Churchill. How we admired and loved that
man.

Our royal family had fled and Queen Wilhelmina resided in Ottawa, Canada – where
she rallied The Orange Brigade.

Under our thatched roof was a very small hidden space, where Jewish refugees found
shelter on their way to freedom or further transit.

I just wanted you to realise that those activities if found out carried the death penalty.
And yet people rose up – confronted the enemy in the knowledge of what awaited
them.

Every day people made those decisions strengthened by their faith. Their convictions
or their idealism.
There was no real safety to fall back on. No expat troops to call on. No hope of allied
reinforcements. Just more cloak and dagger and bloody risks!

At the end of the war many houses in our neighbourhood were taken to accommodate
German officers – we were on the path of retreat to Germany.

One day a loud knock on the door saw our fears materialise. German High Command
wanted to share our thatched roof bungalow.
My mother standing tall in the doorway pointed out that as a Dutch officer’s wife she
refused to share her home with German officers.
The Wehrmacht officers respected her request. They took the whole house and put us
in with our nearest neighbours.

We ended up in their reinforced cellar, the safest place at the time as Canadian troops
were advancing and shells falling – Our liberation was near.

In those final days whilst cooking on an outside stove on a beautiful spring day –
retreating German troops passed our gate. The leading officer mounted on a horse
called me over and wanted information on the shortest route to a certain place. I told
him how to get there.
He did not trust me and commanded me to accompany him there.

I had to oblige.

My mother coming out of the cellar to check my whereabouts saw me disappear with
the troops and followed at a distance for many kilometres.
She always said it was one of the most anxious moments of her life.

After all those years – what lay in the future? *
You can imagine her relief when I was released on arrival at the Highway.

A neighbourhood friend and I had one reverent wish. To replace our worn out
bicycles with two speedy new models which were parked under the porch of my
German occupied house – and belonged to the retreating army.

They would be chained.
But worth the risk, or were they?
So close and yet so far.
Still feeding rabbits in hutches in the garden I surveyed the surroundings carefully.

One night while the Canadian shelling was quite heavy, the black out total, armed
with a pair of bolt cutters – we made our night patrol and succeeded.

The forest floor had hidden many a treasure but none like these.

Three days later we were liberated.

We got busy dying sheets red, white and blue to make Dutch flags.

The bicycles were put to good use carting larch poles we cut in a near by plantation to
be erected as flag poles, so that we could raise our new flags to celebrate the long
awaited liberation.

My father was liberated by the Russians and lost his last personal belongings to them.
His watch, fountain pen and pipe were all traded on is way home.
Like many other displaced persons he travelled by any available means but seldom in
a straight line.

Never the less we were all reunited and thankful for our blessings.

I want you to give a special thought to those in the occupied countries. Those who
fought with their backs against the wall to support the allied effort.

And when we leave this hall and place our poppies at the front of the monument to
remember our local hero’s, let us ask ourselves this question.
Would I be prepared to make these same sacrifices they made for me to ensure
freedom and our basic human rights.

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