Firsthand Accounts
A resident of Hamminkeln, Klara Kempkes, née Brömmling, remembers the day of the airborne landing:

We - seven children, father and mother – sat in a self-built bunker behind the house and felt safe there. Nevertheless, we were all very afraid. A German soldier was also present in our bunker. When the English troops landed with their gliders and parachutes, father tied a white handkerchief to a stick and surrendered. The English took the German soldier with them and we all had to go out into the hallway and were anxious to see what would happen. The English soldiers occupied our house and after a few hours an order came that we would be picked up at seven o'clock and taken to the Catholic church. We were allowed to go into the house and get blankets, pillows and a few things. At seven o'clock we were then picked up by armed English soldiers. They took all the families from Roßmühlenstraße to the Catholic church. Old people, young people and children, there were also many evacuees from Wesel who were staying with relatives in Hamminkeln. In total there were about 98 people in the church. The soldiers were very nice and friendly to us and also took care of our physical well-being. There was bread, butter, sausage and milk. I was asked to make sandwiches in the parish hall with my neighbour Christine Zerene while my mother made coffee. The bread was then brought to the church in baskets and distributed.
There was a lot of shooting outside over the next few days, including shells fired at our church because an English observer was sitting up in the church tower. An elderly man was hit and wounded in the leg as he went out the side door of the church. Everyone was very scared and there was a lot of praying going on. The English soldiers often came into the church to check that everything was all right with us. I then had to go with two soldiers to the van Nahmen and Köster shops to see if there was anything left to eat, but we didn't find much, just some sausage, rice and sugar. But the English soldiers made sure that there was always something to eat.
(recorded in 1994 by the author of the book “Krieg vor der eigenen Haustür”)


Staff Sergeant John Harold Jenkins, The Glider Pilot Regiment

The officer commanding our small party, Captain Turner, was busily organizing the round-up of all the civilians; the women and children being accommodated in the church and the men, in the church hall. Several Dutchmen, who were on forced-labour, were overjoyed at our presence and were put on their own, in the vestry, to their great delight. … Some of the locals, under escort, were detailed to milk the cows, in order to provide relief for the animals and sustenance for the children, whilst each woman was allowed to go home, also under escort, and bring back one suitcase of necessities. I well remember how my protegé, with her small child, ran the whole way back to her cottage, with repeated fearful glances over her shoulder at the awful "Red Devil" accompanying her. When we arrived at her home, she found that she had mislaid the key and I had to restrain her from scrambling through a window of broken glass, in her terror. I entered myself and let her in through the door and she then hastily grabbed a large suitcase, which was already packed in readiness for emergencies. After a quick search, I gave the OK and we retraced our steps to the church. "But for the Grace of God, these might have been our own women folk", I thought and as graciously as I could, took the heavy bag from her trembling fingers and carried it the rest of the way. In the evening, the Germans counter attacked and used the church spire as an aiming-point for their artillery. We had several casualties amongst the civilians, as one shell burst in the organ loft and another beside the pump, in the courtyard outside.
(recorded for the website “The Pegasus Archive“ www.pegasusarchive.org)
Oskar Treutlein (1934 – 2017), was 10 Jahre years old in March 1945
My aunt Johanna and my uncle Josef were bombed out in Wesel and evacuated to Hamminkeln, as were my mother and I. We lived there with the Möllenbeck family in the Bramhorst area. The artillery barrage began on Friday in the evening, and we went to Schlabes to take cover in the storage cellar, because it was designated as an airraid shelter. The next morning, we wanted to go back home from there but then we heard the sound of planes. We thought it was another air raid on the Ruhr industrial area. It was a crystal-clear spring day, but then the sky got dark - so we went back to Schlabes. Then the glider landings began. From my position at the Schlabes house I saw German soldiers firing Panzerfausts (anti-tank rockets) at the gliders. A Mr. Hesper was already hiding a piece of white cloth behind his back and encouraging the German soldiers to surrender. The civilians were afraid because resistance would put them in danger; they thought the English would smoke us out. A German NCO threatened Mr. Hesper and the rest of us. Then the soldiers entered our cellar to take cover, but the bunker occupants drove them out. It was only later, when the non-commissioned officer was captured by the English, that things calmed down. At around 2 or 3 PM we went back to the Möllenbeck farm. There was a dressing station in the barn, where I saw dying and wounded men – which affected me and still affects to this day. There was a young English soldier man who had been shot in the stomach, his intestines were hanging out and he was moaning "Mother." The medics also took care of German wounded, patching them up. German prisoners were locked up in the cowshed. I was the only child present, and it was all too terrible for me to watch. To keep me from witnessing this any longer, an English sergeant gave me a face-saving order: "Go and bring the German soldiers some water." And thus, I went to the pump carrying a milking bucket. Then came another order: “Pack up, take your emergency suitcase with you!” For that purpose, I had my school satchel with me. We set off for Hamminkeln. The fighting had largely stopped, and I saw the dead lying on the meadows and in the ditches. We were taken to the Protestant church; at first there were about 15-20 of us, but that number grew, and we gathered like a procession. The English were not so friendly; they forbade us to speak. We came to the Protestant church, where a lot of people had already been gathered. Late in the evening or at night, the men were told to go to the ballroom in Neu’s pub. There was something like a wireless or observation post on the church tower. We were supposed to stay in the church; we were not told how long, but there was food: butter, cheese, bread. Bread was being sliced on the altar, butter cut into cubes. People were sitting on the benches; prams were standing in the aisles. The church was very full, but everything went smoothly. On Sunday evening, a Dutch interpreter said that the Germans had been informed that there were women and children in the church: "Don't worry, safety is guaranteed." As we prepared for the night, I said goodbye to my playmate. Then there was a bang, everything went dark, my playmate fell over, I was hit in the hand. Then panic broke out, everyone wanted to get out, stormed out towards Neu’s pub. The beer cellar there was an old vault, we felt safer there. My mother had been shot through in the ear by a shell fragment, my aunt had been shot through in the arm by a fragment. English medics and a doctor took care of the wounds. Mr. Schlabes had been killed, Mrs. Möllenbeck was dead, one woman’s mother and son were also killed in the church. It was quite a mess. The English were reserved but helpful, and there was no reason to complain. I smuggled myself back into the ballroom at Neu’s to be with the men, who had to stay there during the night. On Monday morning, we saw there was chaos all around, but later that day we were released and free to go. The Schroer family – who ran a blacksmith’s shop - took us with them. There was military traffic in the village, lots of tanks rattling through. That's why we had to stay in the house. First there was a curfew, then there were a few hours a day when people could run errands. English soldiers were also billeted in the house.
(Recorded by Alexander Berkel in 1994)
Willi Schlaghecken from Bienen near Rees survived the battle for Bienen in March 1945
I was eight and a half years old at the time. Our family consisted of grandpa and grandma, my parents, us seven children and our aunt Emma. About 80 forced labourers were housed in our barn - they had to build defensive positions here in the area. In the period before the Rhine crossing, weapons and equipment were stored. The farmers also had to transport ammunition from the station at Empel with their horse carts. Sometimes I drove along. On March 23rd, when the attack was launched from the other side of the Rhine, my mother gave birth to her eighth child in the basement. Our house was heavily shelled from the other side of the Rhine. Whole walls collapsed. At a quiet moment I came out of the basement and saw that the church tower burned and that it collapsed and crashed on the school and the teacher’s house. Our basement was hit by a shell, and we had to move to a small, vaulted cellar. To my astonishment, on one of these days I saw a tank down at the local war memorial. It coincidentally turned its barrel at me. I quickly ran into the basement and then there was a shot. The front door flew apart. My grandpa was hit. He had not made it into the cellar. One of his legs was torn off by a shell fragment. The following night our house was fired at by German soldiers. It caught fire. When a shell exploded in front of the basement window, my brother Alfons was hit by a shell fragment. My mother was struck by a load of bricks which hit her in the back. She was in severe pain. Alternately, German and then English-speaking soldiers came into the basement. They fired into all corners. Then English-speaking soldiers came again and asked for blankets. With these they covered their dead comrades. Then they took us out of the basement, and we were separated. Grandma and grandpa and our mother as well as my brothers Alfons and Josef were placed in a jeep. Off it went. They were taken to the dressing-station at Bedburg-Hau. There, my grandpa and my brother Alfons died of their wounds. The rest of us, who had stayed behind, had to go to a camp for refugees from Bienen, temporarily set up at the Aryus farm in Esserden-Reeserward.
(Published in: Josef Becker, Bienen 1939-1945. Erinnerungen, Erlebnisse, Berichte, Bienen 1999)
Hans Heßmer was a German soldier and fought in the battle for the village of Bienen

at the age of 28. (Photo: Becker Collection)
Our anti-tank unit, Panzerjäger-Abteilung 6 of 6th Parachute Division, had been badly mauled before it withdrew from the “Wesel Pocket” to the eastern bank of the Rhine. We spent a few days in a small town near Wesel, then we were moved to the village of Bienen. Our unity was billeted in private houses near the church. I was housed with some comrades at Paul Becker’s. We spent those days in relative calm, and I remember that Mrs. Becker sometimes prepared a delicious milk soup for us soldiers. A few times I accompanied my comrade Heinz Otto to the Bienen parish church which was in our neighbourhood. Heinz Otto was training to be an organist. He played the organ there and I had to blow the bellows for him. We were shown into our defensive positions and were also busy improving these. We were just equipped with our infantry weapons. We did not have any anti-tank guns, which we absolutely needed as an anti-tank unit. We only had the Panzerfaust and the “Panzerschreck” bazooka, weapons that are only suitable for defence at close range. Our company HQ was on Millinger Straße. Our company CO was Helmut Franz. We enjoyed the days of rest in Bienen but knew that they would not last long. It was assumed that the Rhine crossing would take place in this area. About two to three days before it started, a farm worker was killed while ploughing a field by strafing fighter bombers in the immediate vicinity of our quarters. A comrade of mine had to shoot the severely injured horses.
On Friday, March 23, at around 5:00 PM, the preparatory artillery barrage for the attack from the other side of the Rhine began. We soldiers advised the Becker family, who had no secure cellar in their house, to go to a more suitable shelter in the Aryus house. We accompanied the Becker family on their hasty move. The very heavy, concentrated shelling continued continuously until the next morning. Then things calmed down a bit. Reinforcements arrived at several locations in the village, including at our church square. Several tanks and assault guns were moving into position at the church square. These were attacked by enemy fighter-bombers firing rockets during the morning of Saturday, March 24th. We were taking cover, and when the fighter-bombers turned away, we saw what they had done. A crew member of the tank, presumably the commander, who had left the tank before the attack, desperately searched and called for a crowbar. His tank had been hit by rockets, and the hatch wouldn't open from the inside or outside. We heard the desperate cries of those trapped inside, and smoke poured out from inside. Shortly after, there was an explosion—the ammunition inside the tank had exploded. We already knew there was nothing left to save.
The house we had been billeted in was on fire. Suspicious yellowish smoke was rising from one spot on the church roof. In our experience, this could have been caused by a phosphorus shell. A friend and I climbed the church tower from inside, but we couldn't get any further into the attic of the central or side aisles, so we had to go back downstairs. Whether the church caught fire from these phosphorus shells or was hit in the attack by the fighter-bombers, I can't say for sure. Later, I was able to throw another such incendiary shell out of the Aryus house. In the late afternoon of Sunday, March 25th, 1945, the battle for Bienen was decided. Our group was gathered at the Aryus house, and we were about to sneak out to make it to the main road. We were in the hallway of the house when a shell fired by a tank hit us. Some comrades were fatally wounded, and others were seriously wounded. I received a thigh wound. We received makeshift dressing in the basement. The daughters of our host did an excellent job. The Canadian soldiers who arrived shortly afterward took us upstairs and loaded us onto a transport vehicle. We remained on this vehicle at the Aryus house all night without receiving any further care.
(Published in: Josef Becker, Bienen 1939-1945. Erinnerungen, Erlebnisse, Berichte, Bienen 1999)
Maria Tepahs survived the battle of Bienen. With others, she sought refuge in the basement of a pub, next to her parents' house.

The paratroopers did not want to surrender; at most they wanted to retreat to the rear. At some point on Sunday, the soldiers suddenly received the order: "Out!" They had conferred in the basement and were about to leave. They climbed the stairs and gathered in the large hallway of the Aryus pub. At that moment, an enemy tank came around the corner on the church square and fired directly at the door of the room where the soldiers who had sought refuge with us were standing. The grenade exploded in the hallway. There were dead and wounded. Heinz Otto, a soldier quartered with our neighbours and whom we knew well, was one of those killed upstairs in the hallway. He had previously told us that he anticipated his death and had given us his address so we could notify his parents. Another soldier, Mößthaler, fell down the basement stairs, seriously wounded, after the explosion. We tried to treat his numerous, terribly bleeding injuries with torn bedsheets while he screamed for his mother. But he was beyond saving and bled to death before our eyes. Two other wounded men also lay on a bunk in our cellar. In the adjoining cellar, across the hall, there were injured soldiers, too. One of them, whose leg had been lacerated or torn off, was screaming horribly. My sister Hilde and another woman crawled through the hall into the other cellar, cared for the wounded there, and quenched their thirst with water and the juice of preserved fruit.
(Published in: Josef Becker, Bienen 1939-1945. Erinnerungen, Erlebnisse, Berichte, Bienen 1999)
Josef Becker (1929-2019) lived in Bienen and was 15 years old in March 1945. While the battle for Bienen raged, he sought refuge in the basement of his parents' house
Our basement was now occupied by 27 civilians and several soldiers. Luggage, suitcases, and bags were scattered everywhere. Our clothes were also hanging there from a wire across the basement; shelves of preserves lined the walls. We heard from the Wessels family that the basement of the neighbouring Sent's house had been hit by shells and severely damaged, and after a short time, the Sent family also had to leave their own basement and walked through Giesen's garden to us. They were the father, Johann, and his wife Klara Sent, their daughters Helene and Irene, their sons Hans and Alois, and their son-in-law Theodor Gerritzen. So, these were another seven people, bringing the total to 34 civilians crammed into the small room. Then there were the soldiers of the mortar unit, who weren't always present, but there were always a few of them among us. The Sents reported that a shell had hit their cellar’s ceiling and that they could no longer stay there. Their daughter, Irene Sent, had been injured by several small pieces of shrapnel and was bandaged in the cellar by her father, a medic. We boys usually sat with the soldiers in the small anteroom under the stairs. The shelling, which never really stopped, increased in the evening and at night into a continuous barrage that went on until the early hours of Sunday morning. It's hard to imagine what went on in that small, dark cellar, especially when shells hit the house, and you thought the house would collapse at any moment, or a shell would penetrate the wall or the cellar ceiling. In particular, the children and the elderly screamed, prayed, and cried incessantly. The women and children no longer went upstairs to use the toilet (which had already been shot to pieces), nor could the go outside. All the stench, dust, sweat, and gunpowder smoke, plus the shouting, screaming, and praying of the women and children all night long—all of this was terribly nerve-wracking.
(Excerpt from: “Bienen 1939-1945. Erinnerungen, Erlebnisse, Berichte” by Josef Becker, published in 1999)

After the fighting in Bienen had ended, Josef Becker spent four days in the nearby Grietherbusch, but he and his family wanted to quickly return to their home in Bienen.

(Photo: Becker Collection)
I walked into Bienen and came to the parish common, where the community center is located today. I approached a Canadian sitting in one of the small, agile tracked vehicles and asked him in plain German: "Wo Kommandantur?" He looked at me briefly, then raised his pistol, which he must have been playing with, aimed at me, and said: "Here Kommandantur!" Understandably, I opted for a swift retreat, didn't ask any further questions about the commandant's office, and ran home through the devastated village. Here I met my mother and siblings, who had just returned from Schlütter’s house. As far as I remember, everyone else had stayed behind at Schlütter’s house. The Canadians who had occupied our house had already left. After a short stay, I went back to Grietherbusch, and returned to Bienen with my father the next day. Now we were all reunited. It was Easter Monday, April 2nd – a very rainy day - and Bernd and I sat on the damaged roof, trying to at least keep the kitchen dry from the rain. ... However, we were all happy that the war was over for us. Now things were starting to improve again. That the war would be lost had long been clear to most of the residents here. The truly new thing, in a negative sense, was that the village of Bienen was almost completely destroyed— one wasn't really able to get the full picture at the time, though. Fellow citizens had been killed, and about 70 fallen German soldiers were buried scattered throughout the village or had yet to be buried. Two cemeteries for fallen British and Canadian soldiers had been established on the outskirts of the village. All large livestock that had stayed behind and had been killed in the area had to be buried. Most of the carcasses were dragged into the trenches, emplacements, and bomb craters. All around us, there were burnt-out ruins. Knocked out or abandoned armoured vehicles and other vehicles littered the roads. The beautiful, peaceful village was no longer. The new era initially brought other problems as well. It is known that Canadian soldiers stole watches, rings, and other valuables from the pockets and bodies of civilians. We could name many people who suffered this fate. The Canadians showed no regard for material goods, furnishings, furniture, etc. They willfully littered, smashed, and carried off many things.
(Excerpt from: “Bienen in Bildern, Erinnerungen und Berichten” by Josef Becker, published in 2010)
In 1945, David Dickson (1921-2014) served as a major and company CO in the Canadian Army and fought at Bienen

Dickson was wounded as a Canadian soldier in Bienen. Josef Becker experienced
the fighting as a teenager and later became a chronicler
of the war's history in Bienen. (Photo: August Becker)
We, my company, D Company, was given the task of following a dyke up along and on the west side of Bienen, and getting into the town. Unfortunately, Bienen was very stoutly defended by a large number of machine guns and we suffered great casualties there. There were I think 18 members of my company were killed. There were 40 killed in the North Nova Scotia Highlanders that afternoon, it was a Sunday afternoon, Palm Sunday, 1945. I suffered a wound while crossing the dyke, trying to get into the buildings of the town. I got a bullet through me which penetrated my right side and came out the middle of my back, and went through my lung, liver and kidneys and the kidney, one kidney which it took out. [The bullet] broke several ribs and went through my diaphragm, and so on. I was very lucky to live because I fell on top of the dyke…my wife used to send me John Cotton pipe tobacco from England and I never could keep a tobacco pouch. I used to keep the tin of tobacco down inside my battle dress blouse. When I was pulled off the dyke ultimately, after one of my sergeants had been killed almost on top of me by a mortar shell. I was pulled by another artillery signals corporal off the dyke, a fellow by the name of Bob Muir. And he, when he got my jacket off, the tin of tobacco fell out and he said, my God, look. He said, the bullet went right through the tin of tobacco. So as the bullet missed my spine by only half an inch where it came out the back and made a big hole, I always felt that perhaps that tin of tobacco saved me from being incapacitated for the rest of my life. Or being dead for the rest of my life, I guess. But, anyway, I was evacuated and I was very lucky to live. Muir incidentally turned me over to a couple of North Novies who were wounded in the hand and in the arm, respectively; and they dragged me back a couple hundred yards to the regimental aid post.
His account - told in his own voice – can be accessed here:
https://webapp.driftscape.com/map/1114b27e-a017-11eb-8000-bc1c5a8f0f67

It commemorates the Canadian and British victims of the fighting, as well as the
Dutch forced laborers who died and were maltreated in Bienen. The memorial
was created through a joint initiative of Scottish and Canadian veterans,
Dutch survivors, and in collaboration with Josef Becker and Bienen residents.
(Photo: August Becker)

outside of Bienen. This was the regimental aid post where Dickson
was taken after being wounded. (Photo: August Becker)