Faced with the relentless pressure from the advancing Allied forces and the determined resistance from local Dutch resistance groups, German troops abandoned their positions and fled from Friesland, but not before some heavy fighting in the area in and around Wons, Witmarsum and Hayum. In Hayum, German troops ambushed Canadian infantry of the Queens Own Rifles of Canada. As a result, six soldiers from the Queens Own Rifles of Canada were killed. After support by Sherman tanks of the Sherbrooke Fusiliers, Canadian troops managed to liberate Witmarsum, Hayum and Wons on April 16th.The retreating German forces left behind a trail of destruction and devastation as they hastily withdrew, destroying bridges, roads, and other infrastructure in an attempt to hinder the Allies’ progress. Their retreat of the occupying forces marked the imminent end of the occupation and the approaching liberation of Friesland.

The Netherlands

Graves of Canadian Liberators in Wons

Head of the Afsluitdijk

The fleeing and fighting occupier cornered

The Dutch Domestic Armed Forces (NBS) play a major role in the liberation of Friesland. The NBS in Friesland consisted (from December 1944) of the resistance groups of the KP ("Knokploegen", assault groups), LO (National Organisation for Aid to people in Hiding) and OD (Order Service).&nbsp;&nbsp;Such an underground army needed weapons, of course. 2,500 to 3,000 NBS personnel would be given weapons for the planned acts of sabotage, the occupation of bridges and locks, and capturing the enemy. From pistols and machine guns to sten guns.&nbsp;The weapons literally fell from the sky. From October 1944, Stirling and Halifax bombers flew from England in the direction of Friesland 47 times. At least 24 successful arms drops were carried out at some 14 places in the province. The bombers dropped containers of weapons, ammunition and explosives with parachutes above the Frisian meadows. Groups of NBS operatives would stand ready at night to indicate the drop zone with light signals and then transport and hide the weapons.&nbsp;Like just east of here, at the Hichtum drop zone. During the second drop, a container fell on a foal and killed it. The unwitting farmer reported the dead foal to the police, as a result of which the site could no longer be used for dropping arms.&nbsp;Near Tritzum, just east of here, one successful drop by a Stirling bomber took place on the night of 10 to 11 April 1945. On its way back to England, it crashed into the North Sea off the Wadden Islands, presumably shot down by German flak. One of the crew members is buried on Terschelling, the others are still missing.&nbsp;&nbsp;Through secret transmitters, phrases indicating where and when a drop would take place would be exchanged with London. To liaise between England and the resistance over the drops, Prince Bernhard, as commander-in-chief of the NBS, sends two secret agents from the Bureau Bijzondere Opdrachten (BBO, "Office of Special Assignments") to Friesland. Together with marconist Alfred Springgate and their radio transmitter, Lykele Faber and Peter Tazelaar hid for a long time (from November 1944), in a yacht on the small lake Nannewiid near Oudehaske in southern Friesland.&nbsp;&nbsp;Meanwhile, commandos N. De Koning and R. Groenewoud travelled around the province with fake papers to give weapons training. They were previously dropped from England over Drenthe and brought to Friesland by the KP.&nbsp;Arms drops and the hiding of the weapons regularly led to life-threatening situations. The occupiers were fiercely hunting for hidden weapons. Possession of a weapon was a capital offence. A drop at Aalsum near Dokkum indirectly led to the largest mass execution in Friesland of twenty men in Dokkum.&nbsp;On Sunday, 8 April, "Radio Orange" relayed the long-awaited phrase via the BBC: "the bottle is empty." For the NBS, this was the signal to start sabotage operations 36 hours later. Canadian troops were almost at the border of Friesland. Weapons were taken out of storage. The NBS groups met at secret locations, and weapons and ammunition were distributed.&nbsp;The resistance groups already largely controlled Friesland before the arrival of the Canadians. Only at Harlingen-Makkum did the Germans place artillery for the defence of the Afsluitdijk, and the Canadians had to put up with heavy fighting. Mainland Friesland was completely liberated on 18 April.&nbsp;

Arms drops in Friesland - Witmarsum

By 16 April 1945, large parts of Friesland had been liberated. In the western and south-western parts of the province, that was not yet the case. Several thousand German soldiers had gathered in the Frisian port towns and around the Afsluitdijk. They were trying to make the crossing to North Holland, which was still firmly in German hands.&nbsp;The Canadians wanted to prevent the Germans from increasing their numbers further in North Holland. Partly for this reason, they launched an attack on the head of the Afsluitdijk on 16 April. The infantry of Queens Own Rifles of Canada was one of the units involved. On 16 April, they set off from Bolsward towards the Afsluitdijk, supported by tanks from the Sherbrooke Fusiliers.&nbsp;&nbsp;In the open Frisian landscape, the Canadians on the road were very visible and thus vulnerable. Just before a bridge near Hayum, the Germans opened fire. Canadian Orville Cook was in one of the front vehicles. He wrote the following about what happened next:&nbsp;"I first sat on the right, but later went to the left compartment of our carrier. That was my luck. In the battle with the Germans that followed, I was the only one who was not hit. They let us come a long way and landed three shots. Smoke was coming out of the right compartment of my carrier. I jumped out and ran to the other side to get the sergeant out and how I managed that, I don't remember. I laid him on the road. The driver was the next one I took out and laid down on the road. I gave them both morphine and gave them a cigarette.&nbsp;&nbsp;The sergeant said: go back and tell A company where the fire is and make sure they get those jerry (German) bastards for this one. The soldiers in the forward carrier were dead instantly."&nbsp; &nbsp; The Germans had several pieces of anti-aircraft artillery concealed on the west side of the bridge. The lightly armoured carriers were no match for the 20 mm. and 40 mm. shells. In the forward vehicle, Alexander Cockburn, Walter Leslie Jackson, Gordon William Ouderkirk, Harry Horace Pennell and Walter Samuel White were killed. Furthermore, on the Canadian side, several people were also injured, including the men in Orville Cook's vehicle.&nbsp;Almost immediately after it became clear where the German artillery was positioned, the Queens of Own Rifles, together with some tanks of the Sherbrooke Fusiliers, finally quashed the German resistance. The remaining defenders eventually surrendered.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The battles near Wons and Pingjum would be the last places where soldiers of the Queens Own Rifles of Canada died. It was therefore the explicit wish of the veterans to place their monument in Wons. On this Honour Roll are the names of their comrades who lost their lives from D-Day to liberation.&nbsp;

The final battle, heavy losses 

With liberation approaching, tens of thousands of German soldiers, National Socialists and their Dutch sympathisers were deeply concerned about their fate. What would happen to them, now that a German defeat seemed inevitable?&nbsp;&nbsp;Fleeing towards 'the fatherland' seemed the best option, but the Allies pushed so fast northwards that Germany became unreachable for many. To the still occupied western part of the Netherlands then, and wait out the rest of the war there.&nbsp;&nbsp;In the final days before liberation, Friesland saw many fleeing collaborators pass through, including notorious war criminals. They tried to get away by boat in Lemmer or Stavoren, or by car via the Afsluitdijk.&nbsp;In the chaos of the last weeks of the war, the village of Zurich, a stone's throw from Harlingen, was visited by a procession of luxury cars. Some twelve men, two women and two little girls got out. "Can you entertain my company here today?" one of the men asked the café owner. "We want to travel on across the Afsluitdijk tonight." It was NSB leader Anton Mussert, en route from his Almelo estate to North Holland.&nbsp;The car they were travelling in contained a large supply of drinks. The group was soon intoxicated and ended up on the seafront, laughing uproariously. The NSB members gave an impression that they no longer cared. There was swearing. The café owner's 20-year-old daughter witnessed it. "Don't you to stand in front of me, asshole!" someone shouted at a colleague. One of the women said: "My husband wanted high, he will hang high".&nbsp;However, the NSB members were not the only ones who had some to drink. The liquor car was subjected to close scrutiny by villagers. One of them said: "I got drunk on Mussert’s drink," after which he was put to bed. The next day, the company drove on, towards the Afsluitdijk.&nbsp;Wadden Islands&nbsp;The Wadden Islands also became a haven for collaborators. There were still many German soldiers there, and they hoped that they could be evacuated from there by other means. Personnel from the infamous Scholtenhuis, the SD headquarters in Groningen, for example, ended up on Schiermonnikoog, where the last German soldiers remained until 11 June.&nbsp;&nbsp;Florentine Rost van Tonningen-Heubel, the wife of NSB leader Meinoud Rost van Tonningen, fled to Terschelling, heavily pregnant. "The Black Widow," notorious in her own right for never distancing herself from National Socialism after the war, gave birth to a son on 28 April in the village of Midsland. The delivery caused a commotion: when the islanders found out that a Rost van Tonningen had been born in their village, a small popular uprising ensued. But in the end, it all fizzled out.

Drunk on Mussert's drink 

In the morning of 18 April, battles were still being fought in a few places in Friesland. The head of the Afsluitdijk was still under German control. And Makkum had not yet been liberated either. There, the battle would break out in the afternoon.&nbsp; &nbsp; The German troops had entrenched themselves firmly at the head of the Afsluitdijk. Numerous roadblocks had been set up. And the Germans had constructed many so-called concrete 'Tobruk' bunkers, usually manned by two soldiers with a machine gun. Supported by another piece of 75 mm. artillery and many pieces of light anti-aircraft artillery, they awaited the Canadian attack. &nbsp; &nbsp; The Canadians knew exactly what to expect. The Frisian resistance had made maps of the German positions. And through aerial reconnaissance, a lot of information had also been gathered by the Allies. The Canadians were reluctant to take big risks against such a well-defended position. Moreover, there was a very low chance of civilians getting hit. That is why the head of the Afsluitdijk was shelled with artillery before the Canadians launched the attack. And Allied fighters carried out air raids. Dutch engineers had their hearts in their mouths during the shelling. They feared major damage to the Lorentz locks.&nbsp;On 18 April at 10:00, artillery from the Royal Canadian Artillery opened fire. Half an hour later, the Queens Own Rifles of Canada mounted the attack. They encountered little resistance. The artillery shelling had done its job. The Germans had been defeated. Once Makkum had also been liberated in the afternoon, all escape routes were blocked. This was one of the Canadians' main goals. With the exception of the Wadden Islands, the entire province of Friesland was liberated on 18 April.&nbsp; &nbsp; The Dutch engineers' fears had not been unfounded. The bombing had indeed caused damage to the Afsluitdijk. But most of the damage had been inflicted by German Sprengkommandos before that. From mid-May, several groups of German soldiers also marched across the Afsluitdijk. This time, however, they came from North Holland and were deported to POW camps in Germany.

The head of the Afsluitdijk 

To take control of the head of the Afsluitdijk, the German troops had to be driven out of Harlingen first. On 16 April, that task was assigned to the Highland Light Infantry of Canada. Supported by Sherbrooke Fusiliers and Royal Canadian Artillery tanks, among others, they went on the offensive in the evening and managed to liberate Harlingen completely the next morning.&nbsp;&nbsp;But there were also large groups of German soldiers in the villages of Makkum, Witmarsum, Wons, Zurich, Kornwerd, and Pingjum. And they too posed a threat if the offensive towards the Afsluitdijk was to be launched. The Canadians therefore initially focused their attention on these villages. And so, as in the May days of 1940, they once again became the scene of heavy fighting.&nbsp;The infantry of the Queens Own Rifles of Canada, together with some tanks of the Sherbrooke Fusiliers, mounted an attack on Wons on 16 April. The Germans ambushed them near Hayum. A<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.liberationroute.com/pois/1320/the-final-battle-heavy-losses">s a result, six soldiers from the Queens Own Rifles were killed</a>. Nevertheless, the Queens Own Rifles, supported by the Sherman tanks of the Sherbrooke Fusiliers, managed to liberate Witmarsum, Hayum and Wons later that day. Shelling killed three civilians in Wons. Just after midnight, the Queens Own Rifles also entered Kornwerd. And later that 17th of April, Zurich and Pingjum were also liberated. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.liberationroute.com/nl/pois/1102/pingjum-in-ruins">The battle at Pingjum was fierce. Artillery fire had left much of the village in ruins. Six residents lost their lives.&nbsp;</a>After the infantry of the North Shore Regiment passed Heerenveen and Bolsward, they were transferred to the Makkum area together with a unit from the Machinegun Battalion Cameron Highlanders of Ottawa. On 18 April, they joined tanks of the Sherbrooke Fusiliers in the attack. Canadian artillery shelled German positions and some roadblocks. By early evening, Makkum was one of the last villages in Friesland to be liberated. Seven residents of the village were killed in the fighting, including three evacuees.&nbsp; &nbsp; As elsewhere in Friesland, the Canadians were helped by resistance fighters from the Dutch Domestic Armed Forces (NBS). They suffered several casualties near Makkum. On 16 April, Schelte Bruinsma and Simon Sipma were killed in an attack on a farm in which the Germans had entrenched themselves. The next day, another group tried to occupy a bridge under Makkum. However, the Germans caught sight of them and in the ensuing firefight, Rinnert Anema, Roelof van der Meer and Hendrik Postma were killed.&nbsp;Now that Makkum, Wons, Zurich, Kornwerd and Pingjum had been liberated, the Canadians prepared for the final offensive in Friesland, the attack on the head of the Afsluitdijk.&nbsp;

The battle for Wons, Witmarsum, Zurich, Kornwerd and Pingjum 

By the spring of 1945, it became clear that the German occupier was losing, and many members of the German Wehrmacht, the Dutch Landwacht and NSB members fled to the west. In Friesland, a ‘great migration’ began from the eastern side across the Afsluitdijk on 12 April. Three days later, a group of German snipers settled in Pingjum. They were tasked with defending the retreating German troops on the Afsluitdijk against the advancing Canadians. &nbsp;Witmarsum was liberated by the Canadians on 16 April. In nearby Pingjum, the German soldiers refused to capitulate. In response, the Canadians opened fire, laying a carpet of mortar shells over Pingjum for 24 hours. Most of the population fled to neighbouring Arum, which had already been liberated. &nbsp;When the Germans ignored a second ultimatum to surrender, another attack followed, and the village was all but razed to the ground. It was not until 17 April, at around half past nine in the evening, that the first groups of the Queens Own Rifles of Canada arrived, liberating the battered Pingjum.

Pingjum in ruins

The early years of the war were relatively quiet in Friesland, with only incidental acts of resistance. This changed after the May Strike of 1943. The cause was the German occupier's call for all Dutch prisoners of war released in 1940 to be put to work in Germany. This triggered the resistance in Friesland to become better organised. Existing groups were merged into the Dutch Internal Armed Forces (NBS), which were founded in Friesland on 12 December 1944 on the orders and under the leadership of Prince Bernhard. In Makkum, the resistance was active from the very beginning of the war. The brothers Aart and Thymen van den Berg made their fish canning factory entirely available to the Frisian resistance. Using the weapons, alcohol and smoked eel, the staff of the factory became friends with the most important executioners of the Sicherheitsdienst in Leeuwarden. When the Germans were loosened up by the drinks, the information they spilt was passed on to the resistance. They managed to free 60 imprisoned resistance fighters and knew when to expect raids. The fish canning factory grew to be a hotbed of Frisian resistance. The Sicherheitsdienst in the Burmania house in Leeuwarden was bugged, and the resistance was able to warn people named in interrogations. Other forms of resistance were the distribution of illegal magazines to inform the population about troop relocations, collaborators, or to boost morale. In the summer of 1943, there was a wave of people going into hiding, and the expansive Frisian countryside proved to be very suitable for sheltering people. The resistance also played an important role here. Thugs raided distribution offices and stole huge quantities of food stamps, for example. Towards the end of the war, there was a food shortage and dairy factories, butchers and food producers were targeted. During this period, the first arms droppings like the ones on Kornwerderzand took place. On 13 April 1945, the NBS leadership followed the order to help accelerate the advance of the allied troops. Large parts of Friesland were liberated in Mid-April 1945. &#13;
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Frisian resistance!

The Afsluitdijk was build between 1927 en 1932 and was opened to road traffic in September 1933. At the insistence of the Ministery of War fortifications were build on both sides, on Kornwerderzand and at Den Oever, to protect the country. In total seventeen casemates were build on Kornwerderzand with different functions. During the German invasion in May 1940, 225 Dutch soldiers succeeded to stall the German Blitzkrieg at Kornwerderzand. However, after the bombings on Rotterdam the Dutch Army surrendered and the German Army occupied the casemates. For a long time the German Army had little interest in the fortifications. It was not until 1943, after the Germany Army suffered defeats the casemates were fully staffed. Kornwerderzand became part of the Atlantic Wall. In the Kazemattenmuseum different stories and expositions can be seen in the seven bunkers which are still open for public. The subjects that are discussed are, amongst others, the building of the Afsluitdijk, the Second World War and the Cold War. The goal of these expositions is to propagate and keep alive the historical events around Kornwerderzand.

The Kazemattenmuseum (Casemate Museum) in Kornwerderzand is made out of seven casemates. These bunkers helped the Dutch Army defend the area against the German invaders during the Second World War. The exhibition in the museum provides information on the construction of the Afsluitdijk and on the Battle of the Afsluitdijk in May 1940.

The Afsluitdijk was build between 1927 en 1932 and was opened to road traffic in September 1933. At the insistence of the Ministery of War fortifications were build on both sides, on Kornwederzand and at Den Oever, to protect the country. In total seventeen casemates were build on Kornwederzand with different functions. During the German invasion in May 1940, 225 Dutch soldiers succeeded to stall the German Blitzkrieg at Kornwederzand. However, after the bombings on Rotterdam the Dutch Army surrendered and the German Army occupied the casemates. For a long time the German Army had little interest in the fortifications. It was not until 1943, after the Germany Army suffered defeats the casemates were fully staffed. Kornwederzand became part of the Atlantic Wall.

In the Kazemattenmuseum different stories and expositions can be seen in the seven bunkers which are still open for public. The subjects that are discussed are, amongst others, the building of the Afsluitdijk, the Second World War and the Cold War. The goal of these expositions is to propagate and keep alive the historical events around Kornwederzand.