Following on from my earlier
correspondence with Francis, I contacted the local museum in Turnhout to
enquire about the availability of an article entitled ‘In het spoor van de
IJsberen’ (‘Tracing the Polar Bears’) that was published in the local annual
journal Taxandria in 2008. An archivist from the museum duly responded and confirmed
my suspicions that the article, whilst available, is in Dutch (a language over
which I have no command whatsoever).
However, the helpful archivist
also provided me with another contact within the town, a gentleman by the name
of Jacques Boone. I subsequently emailed Jacques with my now well-rehearsed
potted history of my Grandfather’s service, the website and book plans and
within a couple of hours I received the following reply:
Dear
Mr Andrews,
Many
thanks for your interesting mail. Every information about the
11th Btn, the Royal Scots Fusiliers, does interest me very much, indeed.
On 24th September 1944, as a 17 years
old boy, I was living in Turnhout and attended the liberation of the town,( I
kept it vivid in my memory, almost as if
it happened yesterday) by the 49th Reconnaissance Rgt of the 49th Polar Bear
Division, followed immediately by the 11
Btn, the R.S.F. and the 7th Btn, the Duke of Wellington’s Rgt.
My
text on the liberation of Turnhout was published by “Forces War Records”in their
Magazine , issue 10, Special Edition , ‘Your Stories’, December 2015. Some
photographs of me were shot on 24th
September 1944 by a late cousin of mine, on the Turnhout Market square , while
I was fraternizing with the Recces.
A
friend of mine, Ken West, was a member
of the 11th RSF. Hereby some correspondence. I read his book “An’ it’s called a
Tam- o’- Shanter”, Ken’s war memoires.
I opened my contact to him with
my letter of 1st October 2007, I asked him if he knew the 11th RSF man
whose photograph I had taken in Normandy
in 2007. Ken did not; he actually
did not “liberate” Turnhout, on
24th September 1994 he was in an hospital in England, in treatment for severe
burn wounds he had gotten in action on
the Normandy front.
I
am convinced that my friend John Peters (address provided) knows
English very well and I am almost
certain he could give you some interesting data . Tell him I gave
you his address.
With
kind regards,
Jacques
Boone
Member
of the 49th (WR) Infantry Division Association.
Belgian teenagers and British
tank crew on a Humber Mk IV (Jacques Boone is standing third on the left, in a
long raincoat)
Turnhout 24th
September 1944.
(photograph
taken by François Boone and reproduced with the kind permission of his widow Jacqueline
Boone)
I replied, thanking Jacques for the link to his article and the additional contact. I explained that Ken West was indeed a mutual acquaintance and sent on a photograph of Ken and I in Leicester in 2015. In addition,
Jacques bounced back with another prompt email:
Dear Adrian,
Thank you for the nice photograph of you with Ken. The last time of our meeting was in 2014, in Normandy, in front of the Polar Bear monument at Fontenay-le-Pesnel. He was leading an important group of Normandy Veteran Association members. What a pity this association has been dissolved. We met several times in October at a memorial ceremony at Wuustwezel in Belgium next the PBA monument and also one time at Merksplas, at the monument of Cpl John HARPER, VC.
My motto is: Remember ! Often, I attend ceremonies , last week to remember crashes of 3 RAF bomber command bombers, for a Manchester, a Halifax and a Stirling at the village of Kasterlee. I had again the pleasure of meeting there British and Canadian acquaintances to members of the crews. I had to make a speech in English at the Manchester monument.
Kind regards,
Jacques
With Jacques Boone.
Turnhout 24th September 2016.
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