File No.: Case File # 21
Title: "The Mysterious Wolfheze Railway Station Girl"
 Subject: Identifying the "particularly pretty girl attracting a lot of attention"
which Martin Middlebrook mentioned in his 1994 book "Arnhem 1944 the Airborne Battle"
Investigation made at: Wolfheze, the Netherlands
GPS Location: 52°00'19.8"N 5°47'31.6"E
Period Covered: 17-20SEP1944
Date: 14JUN2025
Case Classification: Battlefield myth
Status of Case: Unsolved
Introduction:

In his book "Arnhem 1944 the Airborne Battle", Penguin Books 1994 ISBN 0-14-014342-4, Martin Middlebrook wrote in Chapter 8 "The Vital Hours" on page 117:

"The little railway station at Wolfheze became a center of activity, with many airborne men arriving there from the landing area. One particularly pretty girl – believed at the time to be the daughter of the station master, though this was not so – attracted a lot of attention, including those of ‘a ginger-haired war correspondent’."

Who could have been that girl that distracted not only a war correspondent embedded with the British 1st Airborne Division, but also at least some airborne soldiers with an operational task at hand?

This agency looked into it.

 (click to enlarge)




Fig.: Wolfheze Railway Station today.
The station design is of the “Visvliet” type that was used from 1890 to 1903 for a total of six railway stations in the Netherlands. In 1899 the station building in Wolfheze was opened. The building in Wolfheze is the last of these six still standing and hasn’t changed much over the years.
REASON FOR INVESTIGATION:
The story of an unmistakably beautiful girl keeping British paratroopers and glider soldiers from doing their jobs because her looks distract them, speaks to the imagination of a few members of this agency. The fact that the scene took place on a railway station passed-by regularly, by us commuting to work, fueled a desire to try and answer the question who this girl may have been.

Spoiler alert
We must warn the reader at this stage , that on the day of (the initial) publication of this case file, the riddle has NOT been solved and it is still an ongoing investigation. The reason for publication however, is to share our methods of investigation, give insights in our trains of thought, explain how battle detectives develop hypotheses and use deduction to eliminate unlikely or impossible scenarios.

SYNOPSIS:
 Author Martin Middlebrook has not mentioned the source for the Railway Station Girl story. He boldly stated that rumor may have had it that the girl was the daughter of the station master but that this is untrue. He also mentioned the charming effect that the girl had on a person who could be identified without much effort. Although Middlebrook did use a handful of footnotes in "Arnhem 1944", there are none explaining the origin of the information for this paragraph.
Gripped by the thought of identifying the particularly pretty girl, we therefor had to start from the text of the story.

Railway Station Master of Wolfheze
From a website about the history of railway stations in the Netherlands we learned that until 9 JUN1942, an Albertus Nicolaas Zeldenrust was station master of Wolfheze. His career apparently ended on that date. He was 55 years old at the time. It was not until 1DEC1949 that a new station master named Hendrik Hattuma arrived, who was then 52 years old.
In the section Wolfheze of the telephone directory of 1943, the telephone number of the Station is listed under Dutch Railways: 224.
In the daily reports of the Municipal Police Oosterbeek, it is noted on 17SEP1944 that at
"12.20 De Ruiter, acting station master at Wolfheze, reports bomb attack at Wolfheze station (direct hit), four houses hit by direct hits, everything rubble and dust, people are still in air raid shelters."
(click to enlarge)

Fig. Left: The original page of 17SEP1944 from the Municipal Police of Renkum report book,
kept in the Gelders Archief in Arnhem; retrieved 26JUN2025);
Right: Detail from the page with acting station master De Ruiters message.
(click to enlarge)






Fig.: Now&Then comparisons of damage to buildings close to the Wolfheze railway station as reported by acting station master (De) Ruiter.
From top to bottom:
Top) The hotel next to the railway station;
Center) The Sonneheerdt building on the grounds of the psychiatric hospital
across the road from the railway station;
Bottom) The church on the grounds of the psychiatric hospital

Telephone Directory of 1943
The damage report was almost certainly received by telephone, otherwise it would have said "came to report" or "came to the station", or words to that effect. The caller, deputy stationmaster De Ruiter, probably made the call from the telephone with number 224. He could be the same person as the "J. Ruiter Boschb. De Ginkel" listed in the telephone directory with number 223.
(click to enlarge)

Fig.: Listing of all telephone numbers in Wolfheze in the directory of 1943.

Remarkably enough, that is a single number lower than the number of the railway station.
Also the subscriber with the number 225, an "Otterlo C. v.", is listed as forwarder handling orders for the Netherlands Railways.

Municipal Population Registry
In the (Reconstructed) Population Register of the Municipality of Renkum we found that “Ruiter, G.” is listed as follows:
Occupation: forest worker
Date of establishment: 10-10-1941
Address: Buunderkamp 17, Wolfheze
Municipality: Renkum
Originating from: Ede

The Archives
When we visited the Gelderland Regional Archive on Friday 6JUN2025, we were told that the population registers of the municipalities of Renkum and Arnhem were destroyed during World War Two. Hence the addition of "reconstructed" in the name of the collection in the archive. The register only exists in a digital format. After the war information was gathered from all kinds of sources to reconstruct the administration of residents in the towns and villages of the municipality of Renkum. We found that the source of the details about G. Ruiter originates from a publication of changes in the population of the municipality of Renkum in the Arnhemsche Courant of 13OCT1941:
(click to enlarge)
Fig.: Publication by the municipality of Renkum of entry of G. Ruiter
as a resident in Wolfheze in the Arnhemsche Courant of Monday October 13th 1941

Neither the publication nor the reconstructed population register list G. Ruiter’s date of birth or whether more people reside on Buunderkamp No. 17.

Address Buunderkamp 17 in Wolfheze
The 1943 telephone directory however, has a "Noordam, J." with telephone number 221 listed on the address Buunderkamp 17.

From a website about the history of the municipality of Renkum, we learned that Johannes Noordam was born in Zegwaard in 1876, was the director of the "Vereniging voor Melkproducten en Zuivelbereiders" (Association for Milk Products and Dairy Processors) and that he died at this address on 13JAN1967.
A year later  in 1968, his widow, Vroukje Boerstra, passed away.
(click to enlarge)

Fig.: Obituary for the widow of Johannes Noordam in 1968 with childres listed 		From 1968 R. de Roos and C. de Roos - Noordam lived in the house who had already lived their for a stint in 1940:
C. de Roos née Noordam, profession: none, moved in the house on 24AUG1940 and on 14SEP1940 an R. de Roos, profession: none, left the house.
Moreover, the website tells us that also a G.H. Clerkx van Keulen and a A.F.A. de Haas lived on Buunderkamp 17 in 1944.

Battle Detectives visited the Buunderkamp area on 11JUN2025 to find the house on No. 17 in a wooded area outside of Wolfheze. It was a remarkably large house.
It is likely that both mr. J. Noordam, his wife Vroukje, forest worker Ruiter and G.H. Clerkx van Keulen and A.F.A. de Haas lived in this same house on 17SEP1944.

Married couple G.H. Clerkx van Keulen and A.F.A. de Haas
G.H. Clerkx van Keulen and A.F.A. de Haas announced their intention to get married on 10JAN1944 at Oosterbeek in the Arnhemsche Courant of 31DEC1944. The 24JAN1944 edition of the Arnhemsche Courant mentioned their marriage.
(click to enlarge)

Fig.: Announcement of G.H. Clerkx van Keulen and A.F.A. de Haas
to get married on 10JAN1944 at Oosterbeek

Fig.: Publication by the municipality of Renkum
of G.H. Clerkx van Keulen and A.F.A. de Haas' marriage
Hypothesis 1
 Since Middlebrook wrote with cenrtainty that the girl was "believed at the time to be the daughter of the station master, though this was not so", could it be that she did share the same address? That would narrow it down to A.F.A. de Haas, homeowner Noordam's wife Vroukje Boerstra, their daughters C. de Roos née Noordam and A.S. Boenk née Noordam (mentioned on the obituary of widow Noordam in 1968) and possibly another unknown female resident of No. 17 Buunderkamp.

Sacked Station Master
An exciting detail is the personnel file of the previous station master, Albertus Nicolaas Zeldenrust, who was transferred to Wolfheze on 1JUN1937 to be summarily dismissed on 10JUN1942 because of "dishonesty". There are no details mentioned as to the nature of the dishonesty on this day during the German occupation of the Netherlands.
(click to enlarge)

Fig.: Wolfheze station master Zeldenrust’s personnel file
with in bold letters his summary dismissal for dishonesty in 1942

Ginger-haired War Correspondent
The Public Relations team under Major R. W. Oliver present at the Battle of Arnhem consisted of himself, as a Public Relations Officer, two BBC civilian broadcasters (Stanley Maxted and Guy Byam), two newspaper journalists (Alan Wood of the Daily Express and Jack Smyth of Reuters), two censors (Captains Brett and Williams), three men of the Army Film and Photographic Unit (Sergeants Mike Lewis, Dennis Smith and Gordon Walker), and four signallers (Butcher, Cull, Hardcastle, and Noon).
Of these newsmen, Jack Smyth is known to have had red hair.
Smyth was a man of mystery. In 1956 he wrote the book "Five Days in Hell: The Battle of Arnhem, 1944" and was viewed rather disdainfully by Arnhem researchers. His book describes the fantastic claim that he jumped into Arnhem without any parachute training. That Smyth actually jumped is a matter of record as "Jack Smith War Correspondent" is on the jump manifests. However Martin W. Bowman’s 2013 book "Air War Market Garden - So Near and Yet So Far" ISBN 9781783468881, describes the recollections of Lieutenant Joseph Winston "Pat" Glover, the 10th Battalion’s Quartermaster, who mentioned a war correspondent asking him for a crash course on the ins and outs of parachute jumping!
(click to enlarge)

Fig.: Left) Eileen Smyth and her husband Jack Smyth photographed after World War Two.
Right) Jack Smyth's photo enhanced and colorized with Artificial Intelligence

Particularly Pretty Girl
We had good hopes that Jack Smyth’s book would give a clue or, better yet, a repetition of the story of the pretty girl in Wolfheze. We found, however, in Chapter V "The first prisoners" on page 34 the only story in the book involving Wolfheze in connection to a female:
"[…] As we passed the sanatorium, doctors, nurses and convalescents crowded round us cheering hysterically and clapping us on the backs.
During the diversionary bombing of the surrounding woods their kitchen had received a direct hit, they said. But they didn’t care. The only food they could offer us was fresh fruit and milk. These they brought out from the sanatorium in huge quantities. The fruit was piled high in wicker-baskets; the milk overflowed from huge, earthenware jars.
Then, one of those things happened that can only happen to me. I had removed my jump-helmet to wipe the sweat from my forehead. And an old lady spotted my red hair. She hobbled on crutches over to me, waving excitedly a piece of paper.
It was an Irish Hospitals Trust Sweepstake ticket on the 1939 Grand National. The nom-de-plume on the back read: "Granny’s Lucky Day".
I said: “Sorry, but I’m afraid that race is over, Grans."
"Yaw! Yaw!" she croaked back, and everyone howled with laughter.
Having enjoyed our first taste of Dutch hospitality, we pushed on through the woods until we came to a large clinic standing in the center of a clearing."

Hypothesis 2
Because Jack Smyth was married he may have not wanted it to be known to the general public, and much less to his wife, that it was he who was so impressed by a Dutch girl that he forgot to report on the ongoing battle. This may have resulted in him telling a story that may have involved an astonishing young lady in Wolfheze whom he changed into an old lady on crutches.

Case Chart
We mapped our investigative leads, discoveries and working hypotheses in the following chart:
(click to enlarge)

Fig.: Chart showing leads, discoveries and conclusions of the investigation

Artificial Intelligence
To get an idea of what the scene described by Martin Middlebrook must have looked like, we asked Chat GTP to recreate the image of the pretty girl at the railway station talking to British soldiers and a ginger-haired war correspondent. The software created these images:
(click to enlarge)

 Fig.: Images created by Arteficial Intelligence
 
CONCLUSION:
After following up on the leads about the station master and the girl and the subsequently developed working hypothesis that J. Ruiter was the acting station master, we still have some unanswered questions:
1) Did J. (de) Ruiter have a daughter?
2) Why did Jack Smyth not mention the girl?
3) Who was the lady with the lottery ticket?
4) Who were G.H. Clerkx van Keulen and A.F.A. de Haas who lived in the same house on No. 17 Buunderkamp as J. Ruiter in 1944?
5) How old were the daughters of the owner of No. 17 Buunderkamp, C. de Roos née Noordam and A.S. Boenk née Noordam?
6) Moreover: What was Middlebrook’s source for his paragraph about the girl and him stating that she wasn’t the station master’s daughter?
The reader is encouraged to compare notes and share any insights, information and thoughts that could potentially shed more light on the mystery of the girl in Wolfheze.


EXHIBITS:
AI images that did not make it to the original paragraph about Artificial Intelligence. This was either because of bad habits shown, or depicting a more frivolous version of the girl than what this agency had in mind when envisioning the Wolfheze Railway Station Girl.

(click to enlarge)
         

UPDATE 29JUNE2025:
CASE SOLVED!
The announcement on our Latest News-page, and on social media, that this Case File would be published caused quite a stir. Especially the fact that we used one of the artificially generated images to draw attention to the article itself triggered a lot of comments and response. Not everyone is charmed of AI to create illustrations. One reader advized this agency to read the 1996 Dutch publication "Blik Omhoog" ("Look Upward") about wartime Wolfheze. Also, the good people of the Wolfheze Glider Collection reacted and invited us to visit their exhibition today. 



Fig.: Sunday 29JUN2025 at the Wolfheze Glider Collection from left to right:
the owners the glider collection, a battle detective
and the historian who tipped us about the "Blik Omhoog" publication.

There we were shown what author Cor Janse had written about the charming woman at the Wolfheze railway station:

Chapter 4.7 "IN THE SHELTERS" […]
SHORTLIVED LIBERATION […]
Page 739 There are the Tommies […]
"The contacts with the arriving Tommys were usually limited to offering water or fruit. With their heavy packs and thirsty from their busy activities on the warm Sunday, they eagerly made use of the water that the citizens had brought along, in zinc tubs and enamel buckets along the road. Fruit was offered in abundance. In exchange, the English gave cigarettes and chocolate. Almost no one spoke their language, and the people of Wolfheze were not particularly open towards their liberators either. They were busy with their own tasks, although there was some time for a chat on Monday.
* Several British soldiers remember receiving an apple from the blond daughters of the “stationmaster”. The stationmaster of Wolfheze had five daughters (Antje, Nel, Riek, Jo and Bertha) and two sons (Rijk and Ton). The two ladies who handed out apples were Jo and Bertha. They were attractive women, and soldiers remember such things. Bertha van de Pol (she was the blondest) was married and had a child, but her husband had died of tuberculosis during the war. She later remarried Henk Materman.
Bertha: ‘The apples we handed out came from under Van Dijk’s tree. I collected them in my dress and handed them out. Van Dijk had fled in a hurry. At Mastbergen, father got velvet and a roll of cloth for nightgowns. We later exchanged that for butter.’
Ton van de Pol remembers that the English arrived at the station and asked if they could go upstairs, where the family lived, to set up machine guns. The van de Pol family had already moved to the Buunderkamp on Sunday, where they first found shelter in a summer house and then ended up in the cellar of the Braats. Shortly before the Battle of Arnhem, Rijk van de Pol was kicked by a horse at Pennings, where he worked. With a severe concussion, he experienced the Battle in the St. Elisabeths Gasthuis in Arnhem."

(Translated from the Dutch language by this agency as found in:
"Blik omhoog 1940~1945 Wolfheze en de Zuid-Veluwe in oorlogstijd", II Tweede Boek, Cor Janse 1996, Drukkerij Tamminga Siegers, Duiven, ISBN 90-803567-1-9.)

One of the owners of the Wolfheze Glider Collections, who has lived in Wolfheze all her life, explained that the Wolfheze Railway girl must have been Bertha van de Pol; daughter of the stationmaster Van de Pol, who lived on No. 5 Parallelweg; the address of the railway station and the residence of the station master.

Unless new information comes to light why Martin Middelbrook in his "Arnhem 1944" published two years earlier, stated that “though this was not so” (not the daughter of the station master) we feel safe to declare this mystery as solved.

UPDATE 30JUN2025:
The investigative lead about forest worker De Ruiter who may have had a part-time job at the railway station, can be dismissed as irrelevant.
In several sections in the 4 volume book "Blik Omhoog" his son Joop Ruiter described that his family lived on Amsterdamse 75 in Ede and that his father did all kinds of forestry work.
And on page 522, author Janse explains who the acting station master was who made the call to the police on 17SEP1944:

Chapter 4. "DISASTER" […] AID […]
Page 522
Aid from out of town
[…] "The police station received telephoned alert messages. From the police report:
'(citing the message from De Ruiter as acting station master about bomb damage, described here in "Railway Station Master of Wolfheze")'.
This was probably R. de Ruijter from the Strodorpsweg, because a De Ruijter from Oosterbeek worked at the Wolfheze station. We do not know whether he called from Wolfheze or was informed by Wolfheze station."

An explanation for the fact that station master Van de Pol did not make the call but his acting station Master De Ruijter, can be found on page 527:

"* Prüst (police officer) and Jongboer (administrative clerk at the police station and fiancée of Elly Evers from Buunderkamp) were also in the village (on 17SEP1944 during the bombing raid; Battle Detective Agency).
Cees Jongboer: "I was with my girlfriend at the time and we strolled in the garden and we thought it was a bombing raid on Deelen, but a little later we saw smoke above Wolfheze and then we got on our bicycles and that's where we found the disorder. I first called the Oosterbeek station. It was not badly damaged. The station chief (v.d. Pol; C) was also walking around there in a state of disarray."

It is our theory that when the time came to report on bomb damage in the area of the Wolfheze railway station, Van de Pol wasn't able to provide these details in a telephone conversation but railway worker De Ruiter was.

Back to Case Files

 
 
 
 
 
 
(c) 2007-Present Day Battledetective.com. Email: tom@battledetective.com. all rights reserved.