Tragedy at the Woudpoort bridge

It was Saturday, 14 April 1945. The Allies were approaching from Drachten, and most of the Germans were now fleeing the city. Landwachters from Dokkum and Aalsum had been arrested by the resistance in the morning. They were locked up in the Marechaussee barracks on the Bronlaan, not far from the Woudpoort. 

Around noon, a passenger car with armed Landwachters entered the city from Leeuwarden. They were ordered to free the Landwachters imprisoned in the barracks. Two random citizens were plucked off the street in the centre of the city to serve as a human shield. They were forced to sit on the front of both fenders of the car. 

Meanwhile, on the south side of the Woudpoort bridge, the resistance had taken up positions to defend the city. They received a message that Germans were approaching from the centre of the town. When the passenger car approached the bridge and people fled the streets in panic, it looked as if German soldiers were approaching. The resistance fighters started shooting, and a violent gun battle ensued. 

During the shooting, Pieter Eekhoff (15) was fatally hit and Oege Monsma (56) was seriously injured. They were sitting on the car as a shield. Piet Eekhoff was the son of a prominent resistance fighter from Dokkum. Oege Monsma died six days later in hospital in Leeuwarden from his injuries. The driver of the car was also killed. One Landwachter, Lammert Wiersma, was captured and nearly lynched on the spot. The others managed to escape on bicycles. 

Early in the evening the Canadians drove into the city via the Woudpoort, with Piet Oberman, a wood merchant from Dokkum, in full glory on the front tank. He was the Regional Operations Leader (GOL) of the Frisian National Domestic Forces (NBS) and had been travelling with the liberators from the south of Friesland. People clapped and cheered for Oberman and the 1st Armoured Car Regiment of the Royal Canadian Dragoons. The vehicles were held up considerably by the crowd. Dokkum was the first of the eleven Frisian cities to be liberated. 
 
The Aftermath 

One of the prisoners in the Marechaussee barracks was NSB member and police commander Petrus Mous. Until then, he had always managed to escape the death sentence of the Veemgericht, the secret court of the resistance. Mous was a notorious traitor of people in hiding and he was present at the largest execution of twenty prisoners on the Woudweg in Dokkum. 

When Oberman heard about the imprisonment of Mous, he, as GOL, together with the District Operation Leader (DOL) of Dokkum, ordered the sentence to be executed. A controversial decision, which was further investigated by the authorities after the war, though without any further consequences. 

Four days after the liberation of the city, Mous was put in front of the firing squad at the site of the large fusillade on the Woudweg. Eight Landwachters were forced to watch and transport his corpse in a coffin to the Catholic cemetery.