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Normandy  Holland(2)  Ardennes  Wordwide

This is the damage done on the factory buildings on Mathildelaan. The postwar construction of a parking garage across the street makes an exact comparison challenging.

Valkenburg, September 17th 1944
An M4 Sherman tank of the American 2nd Armored Division (nicknamed "Hell on Wheels") drives through the Grendelpoort Gate entering the medieval downtown area of Valkenburg in the Dutch province of Limburg.

Eindhoven, September 18th 1944
An American paratrooper of the 101st Airborne division patrols Prins Hendrikstraat passed house number 51 while Mr. A. Dankers tells a young boy in a party hat to make way.

Eindhoven, September 18th 1944
Russian soldiers who had been working as volunteers at the nearby German Luftwaffe air base are taken to the school on Don Boscostraat that was used as a Prisoner of War cage.
For a background story about these Russian HiWis see Case File # 12

On Aalster Weg citizens cheer at the crew of a British Sexton self-propelled artillery vehicle of 30th Corps moving towards the center of the city. It is about to pass the St. Jozef Hospital on the right, marked with large red crosses against air raids.

These images show the level railway crossing in the background and American paratroopers riding by in trucks. At least one photo is taken from the back of these trucks.

Elst, October 1944
A comparison often reenacted by battlefield tourists.
Captain Richard D. Winters, commanding "Easy" Company of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment (a unit made famous by Stephen Ambrose 's book "Band of Brothers) poses in front of the gateway into the "Landgoed Schoonderlogt" estate. During the battle of the Betuwe region, known to the American soldiers as "The Island",' this farm served as Regimental Headquarters of the 506th.

German infantry pull a cart or artillery piece off the ferry ramp, East bank of the Pannerdensch Kanaal. With the northern approach of Arnhem bridge in British hands, the elements of the German 2nd SS Panzer Korps north of the river Rhine could only reach the area south of Arnhem by ferry sites at Huissen  and Pannerden.

Grenadiers of an SS unit cross the fence of the Arnhem Museum on Utrechtsestraat. The building at that time was defended by British troops from the South Staffordshire Regiment.

British Airborne troops who have just surrendered, take a moment of rest on the steps of a house on Utrechtsestraat right across the street from the museum. Today this house, which was defended by No. 9 Platoon of “A” Company, the South Staffordshire Regiment has number 70. The arm rail on the right has been altered after the battle to make room for a larger door.

Arnhem, September 19th 1944
British soldiers of 2nd Battalion The South Staffordshire Regiment rest on the steps of the Museum shortly after they were taken prisoner. Sitting in a wooden box on the left is Lieutenant Jack Reynolds, commander of the Mortar Platoon.

SS-men move east on Utrechtsestraat and have passed the bodies of PVT Norman Shipley and Lance CPL William Loney of "C" Company, 2nd Parachute Battalion. Both were killed two days earlier, acting as scouts when their battalion moved towards Arnhem bridge.

The bodies of PVT Norman Shipley and Lance CPL William Loney on the sidewalk of Utrechtsestraat photographed in more detail.

The gruesome sight of one of the casualties of "C" Company, 2nd Parachute Battalion at the doorway of a house on Utrechtsestraat.

A German officer, in long coat on the right, directs a group of grenadiers on Weverstraat in the direction of the British perimeter around the Hartenstein hotel.

The same group of grenadiers is now ordered to move forward by another officer. They advance behind the cover of a StuG self-propelled gun (note empty shells on the road in the foreground) into Van Eeghenweg.

Armed local Dutch resistance fighters escort German soldiers taken Prisoner of War away from Markt.

Westervoort, April 13th 1945

More British vehicle move forward toward the river IJssel, including mortar carriers and halftracks. The embankment on the left is the raised railway line from Germany to Arnhem.

 British troops of 56th Brigade backing up Bren Carriers on to Buffalo IV amphibious vehicles of the Canadian Ontario Regiment before the initial assault carried out by Brigadier R. H. Senior’s 56th British Brigade, which was to cross the IJssel river at night.

5
This is on Brugstraat leading to the dual road and railway bridge which was destroyed by the Germans.

British artillery spotters of the 49th Infantry Division relay fire missions on targets in Arnhem from their position dug in the river IJssel dyke in Westervoort. They are in support of the 2nd Battalion The South Wales Borderers in the second wave across the river.

During Operation  "Anger" (sometimes called "the Second Battle of Arnhem") British soldiers of the 49th Division move forward under cover of a Bren gun team on almost the same location as the SS-men in the photo taken in September in the previous year.

We found the "Then-"photo in a post-war newspaper about the liberation of Arnhem in the Gelders Archive and had never seen it before. The location is about the same as the previous, often published, photo on Utrechtsestraat in Arnhem

Oosterbeek, September 1944
A lone wicker basket with long awaited supplies lands in the lawn in front of the Hartenstein Hotel on Utrechtse Weg in Oosterbeek. The Hartenstein was the 1st Airborne Divisional HQ during the Battle of Arnhem.
In 1946 the Airborne Monument was unveiled on this lawn.

Arnhem, September 20th 1944
The same group of men of 3rd Battalion and Royal Engineers taken prisoner after the fall of the Van Limburg Stirum School in the series of photographs shot by the German Luftwaffe war correspondent Helmuth Pirath. Colorized by Nick Beech.

Oosterbeek, late September 1944
A knocked out captured French Char B tank concerted into a flame throwing  “Flammwagen auf Panzerkampfwagen B-2(f)”. of Panzer-Kompanie 224,  on Sonnenberglaan. This German unit was stationed in Arnhem during Operation Market Garden, losing six tanks to anti-tank weaponry when they were sent to attack the Oosterbeek perimeter on 20–21SEP1944. This vehicle was  knocked out by a British 17 pounder anti-tank gun after it came into this area from the north.

Nijmegen, October 1944
A Kodachrome color photo of Nijmegen bridge from the photo album of MAJ Allen Bedell, commanding officer of the 307th Airborne Engineer Battalion which took part in the heroic Waal river crossing on September 20th, 1944.  (Photo courtesy of Arthur Rottier from Anhem.)

This photo was taken only a few hundred yard west of yesterday's comparison. Infantry of the Royal Scots Fusiliers and Churchill tanks of the 6th Guards Armoured Brigade stand still seemingly waiting for orders to continue their advance.

The Churchill tank named “Montrose”, commanded by Lieutenant Archie Fletcher, tried to cross the river Reusel but unfortunately it slipped back into the creek and sank in the mud.

Despite the bridge being blown, infantry gets across the Reusel river by means of a make-shirt footbridge created by local civilians. Here villagers are seen throwing stones and debris from the bridge in the creek to make it more shallow.

Another Bren Carrier drives over the scissors bridge across the Reusel river.
A dispatch rider with a Sten gun slung on his back is directing traffic; perhaps the man waiting in yesterday’s Then-photo.

Polish MP's give directions in front of the village pump and the town hall. Baarle Nassau, just across the Dutch border, was liberated on October 28th, 1944.

Wageningen, May 5th 1945
German Generaloberst Blaskowitz (left) has just signed the surrender orders and military-technical attachments to execute for the Netherlands, Foulke’s Area of Responsibility, the overall German surrender signed a day before in Germany on Lüneburger Heath.

On Hoogstraat, British trucks are ready to move to the hamlet of Nude outside of town to be loaded with food and humanitarian aid supplies for the needy Dutch civilians in the west of the Netherlands.

On Rijnkade, the promenade on the northern bank of the river, German trenches dug after the Battle of Arnhem in September 1944 can be seen as well as the temporary Bailey bridge across the river where the road bridge had been destroyed by Allied bombers.

Presumably the same paratrooper looks at the field grave of an "Unbekannter englischer Soldat"; German for Unknown English soldier near the Van Limburg Stirum School.

Eindhoven, September 18th 1944
"A Bridge Not Too Far". The bridges across the Dommel river in the center of the city of Eindhoven where the southern-most waterway crossings to be captured by Allied airborne units during Operation "Market Garden".

A local lady from Eindhoven is sitting on the Dommel river bridge’s railing flanked on her left by a paratrooper with an SCR-300-A BC-1000-A radio on his back and a sky soldier on her right who holds a BC-611 (SCR-536) "Handie-Talkie" in his hand.

Lt. Thomas A. Rhodes Jr. of "F" Company of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment is photographed on the Dommel river bridge. He is wearing a scarf made from parachute fabric.