But not before being tortured and half-beaten to death by either the Gestapo or the Sicherheitsdienst – the intelligence service of the SS - in an attempt to get them to reveal the names of fellow resistance members. And the house itself set on fire as an example. As for my parents, they would have been shot by a firing squad in front of their house. Had we been discovered, Cobb and Walter would have been taken into custody and sent to a German POW camp. Just how risky makes me shudder, even now. Here was an American airman, prancing footloose and fancy-free in occupied Germany territory making house calls! He asked for Cobb and I told him: ‘Get the hell back to the Boot’s home –and don’t talk to anyone on the way!’ Considering the severe wartime conditions then prevailing, my parents and others like them took a monumental risk harboring Allied escapees. He said something like ‘Hi’ – as though everything was normal. Once, I heard our front door bell ringing and there stood Walter. I gave strict instructions to Walter – as well as Cobb – not to contact each other. The Boots lived on the south side of town, the Kapteyns on the north side. “Lieutenant Walter was placed with the Boot family. To put it plainly, he was belligerent, loud and stubborn. Where Cobb was quiet and reserved, Walter was his alter ego. J ohn Kapteyn: “Sergeant Cobb arrived in Sassenheim along with Lieutenant Walter, the co-pilot.
They then continued south, where in late March, 1945 they met up with advancing soldiers of the First Canadian Army. Staff sergeant Cobb and most of his crew eventually made their way to the outskirts of Rotterdam. An unending journey – or so it seemed to me.” As time passed, we moved from place to place – by boat, by bicycle, by milk wagon or whatever other horse-drawn conveyance the underground could lay its hands on. The co-pilot, Lieutenant Harvey Walter, was lodged in the same town and he joined us. and his older brother Boudie – and a daughter, Cobi. I stayed with them from Novemuntil February 12, 1945. “My first home was with the Kapteyn family in the town of Sassenheim. Three days later we were split up and delivered to different Dutch households. They took us to a lakeside building where we exchanged our flying clothes for blue workman’s coveralls, so we’d blend in. “We were soon confronted by a number of Dutch civilians who came running up out of nowhere. Our pilot, Bob Proudfit, brought us down and I can say his wheels-up crash-landing was near perfect – thanks in part to the flat open countryside.
Among the nine-man crew is radio operator Albert Morrison Cobb.Ĭobb: “I helped throw out everything that was loose in the plane, and then started sending S.O.S messages to our home base in England in case we ditched in the North Sea. The doomed aircraft continues its rapid descent south of Amsterdam. The flak-damaged Flying Fortress (ironically named ‘Straighten Up And Fly Right’) enters Dutch airspace with three of its four engines fading. For the Kapteyn family of five, the drama begins inside a crippled B-17 returning from a bombing mission over Germany. Now approaching his 95 th year, John consented to share his memories of those dark days that politically divided so many of his countrymen. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Īt age 23 and living at home with his parents, John Kapteyn and his brother Boudie helped establish a local branch of the Resistance in Sassenheim, a Dutch town of 6,500 inhabitants.
What follows is a first-person narrative of those tense and terrible times. Among the many resistors who participated was a commercial grower of flower bulbs, whose entire family of five engaged in numerous forays against the common enemy. Essentially non-violent in nature, Dutch resistance during World War Two largely centered on gathering intelligence, occasional acts of sabotage, and harboring downed Allied airmen. … AS TRANSCRIBED BY TONY WELCH ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ĭefying the German military regime that occupied Holland for five long years might be likened to a game of chess.
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