Today is the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Netherlands, marking the end of Nazi occupation there in WWII.
In Saugeen Shores, retired local police officer Doug Lein is remembering his father, Kenneth Douglas Lein, a Canadian who took part in the liberation of the Netherlands.
“My dad was a Dutch liberator. He was WWII Ordnance Corp,” says Lein who notes, “A number of years ago, the royal Netherlands put out a commemorative medal and I was able to obtain that posthumously in the name of my dad. So I have that medal and certificate and everything else that came along with that.”
He adds, “Dad was billeted by a Dutch family when he was in Holland and when I was elementary school level, the mom, dad and two daughters came to Canada. We met them personally.”
Lein says after the war, his mother wrote back and forth with the mother in the Dutch family.
He notes his father’s job during the war was to clear explosives. “I have pictures of him and his partner disarming what they call a bouncing betty (mine) in the middle of London. Back in that day the didn’t wear all the big bomb disposal stuff that the police and military wear now,” says Lein.
A ceremony was held Friday in the Netherlands, where another veteran with a local connection, Retired Maj.-Gen. Richard Rohmer for whom the Meaford Airport is named, spoke.
There is also a group of local students from Owen Sound District Secondary School and Georgian Bay Community School students who are currently on a trip to Europe. They visited the Holten Canadian War Cemetery where they took time to honour local soldiers buried there. According to the Billy Bishop Home and Museum, the students did research on ten local servicemen who took part in the liberation of the Netherlands. You can see some pictures from the trip on the Billy Bishop Home and Museum Facebook page.
According to the federal government’s website, 7,600 Canadians died fighting in the eight month campaign to liberate the Dutch between September 1944 and April 1945.
In recent years, the City of Owen Sound was gifted a large quantity of tulips by the Netherlands. They are planted outside City Hall.
A medal from the Netherlands thanking Kenneth Lein for his service.
Image courtesy of Doug Lein.
