Elbert Bos

Ede 13 Jan 1892 – Putten 3 Sep 1965

Elbert Bos, farmer, of Staverden, Post Elspeet

About: A farmer at Staverden, near Elspeet, who sheltered Dr Kruimel ("Oom Joop") from 1942 to Christmas 1944 and fed and hid the evaders Kruimel moved, among them, by his own form, Tex Banwell, whom he passed on to Thijs Foppen. ◐ Very probably the "Farmer Bos" through whose farm, by Joop Migchelsen's account alone, Murphy's party "presumably" came to Kijkuit and left it on 11 November 1944; ⚠︎ Hardy and Verweij name no Bos, and Migchelsen's only arrival date, "about 1st October 1944" for all but the first man, fits neither Hardy's 26 and 29 October nor his own 6 October escape date for Hardy and Haller.

Unit or role: Farmer (landbouwer); no underground movement, by his own form (p. 2). On the British index of Dutch helpers as certificate 269, grade 5 (the index page).

Where: His farm at Staverden, "Staverden I.G. 1, Post Elspeet", telephone "Speulde 1" (his form of 26 June 1945, p. 4). His children were registered at Ermelo (the records).

Evidence: ✓ his own helper file with the Americans, two forms of 1945 and 1946 (US National Archives 286640393, pp. 1–4, read on the images); ✓ his birth deed of 1892 (the register page) and the civil records of his marriage, children and death (Gelders Archief, via Open Archieven); ✓ the forms of Daniel van Beuningen, Joop Migchelsen, L. A. Snoep, D. M. Hulstijn and J. J. Schmohl; Noordman, pp. 8, 16, 65–70, 133.

✓ The birth register of Ede has deed 25, made on 15 January 1892 on the word of the midwife of Lunteren, the father being away: Flipsje van Asselt, wife of Hendrik Jan Bos, landbouwer, living at Ede, gave birth "op Woensdag den dertienden Januarij" (on Wednesday the thirteenth of January) at her husband's house in the municipality, to a boy named Elbert (the register page, read on the scan; Gelders Archief's index, which gives Lunteren as the place). Ede's militia register and its reconstructed personal cards have the same date (militia; cards; index only), and so does his own form of 1946, "13-1-1892" (p. 2); his form of 1945 has 1 January (below).

✓ He married Dirkje van den Broek, 20, born at Ede, at Ede on 8 March 1919; he was 27, a landbouwer, and the deed names his parents as Hendrik Jan Bos, landbouwer, and Flipsje van Asselt, the parents of the birth deed (the marriage; index only). Children of theirs were born at Tonsel on 28 June 1919, 25 July 1920 and 3 February 1922 and registered at Ermelo on 30 June 1919, 28 July 1920 and 6 February 1922, the father a landbouwer each time (1919; 1920; 1922). His form of 1946 gives his next of kin as "D. Bos-v.d. Broek", 47, and his children as "11+3", with "adopted childeren" written above; the form of 1945 has 11 (p. 2; p. 4).

◐ The records name no farm. Migchelsen calls it "Farm "Staverden" in Staverden" (his file, p. 3). A page Noordman prints beside a photograph his caption calls the farm (below), signed first by "E. Bos" and "D. Bos-v.d. Broek" and then by seven more people named Bos, is headed, in our reading of the handwriting, "Ereleden van het Comité van Voedselvoorziening in Oorlogstijd. 1940 – 1944" (honorary members of the committee for food supply in wartime, 1940–1944), and signed off "Staverden Frederik Bernhard-Hoeve" (Noordman, fig. 4, p. 16).

His form of 15 May 1946 has the men knowing him as "Pa Bos and Churchill" (p. 2), and its letter, signed "E. Bos":

Bos has sheltered Dr. Kruimel from 23rd Aug. 42 until Xmas 1944, who helped many Allied Pilots. Bos provided them with food, shoes and clothes. Never noted names and addresses, because this was too dangerous. Dr. Kruimel will be able to give more information, because he has received some letters from the people he helped, from England.

— Elbert Bos · helper's form for the Americans · 15 May 1946 · his file, p. 3

The Americans' form of 26 June 1945 adds, in its remarks: "He regurlarly [sic] put large amounts of food at the disposal of the allied personnal [sic]. Had moreover regurlarly 8 "underdivers". Provided clothes and underwear. Prefers tyres for his business." (p. 4, read on the image). Noordman has Dr Kruimel, after the first raid on his house at Garderen in 1943, often in hiding at Staverden himself, citing Bos's form (Noordman, p. 133), and lists "boer Bos en Thijs Foppen in Staverden" (farmer Bos and Thijs Foppen at Staverden) among the addresses where the men in Kruimel's guestbook were really lodged (p. 8). Dirk Eskes and his wife, by Noordman, worked much with "familie Bos en Thijs Foppen in Staverden" (the Bos family and Thijs Foppen at Staverden) (p. 17). Thijs Foppen lived "tegenover Bos" (opposite Bos), in Noordman's words (p. 70).

Other helpers named him on their forms: L. A. Snoep of Nunspeet, whose factory at Kampen was the start of a route to the Veluwe, "E. Bos, Labourer, Staverden" (his summary, p. 2); D. M. Hulstijn of Ermelo, "E.Bos-Staverds-Post Elspeet." (p. 3); Jhr H. L. M. van Nispen van Sevenaer, on his form of 7 January 1946, "Bos, Staverden" (p. 4); and J. J. Schmohl of the hotel De Zwarte Boer at Leuvenum, "E. Bos. farmer Staverden Postelspeet.", on 16 April 1946 (p. 3; p. 2 for the hotel; read on the images).

His table of 1946 gives no dates, and a number of days only for the first man (p. 3, read on the image):

Its item 10 says "Nivil went back to England. Bil, Frank, Albert and Tex arrived all safely in England." (p. 2). ⚠︎ Not for all of them, if ◐ Bos's "Bil" and "Frank" are Nelly Eskes's Frank and Bill: she wrote that Frank and Bill "were caught somewhere in Belgium" (her file, p. 7), and Noordman has Frank McGlinchey and William McDonald losing their way in a snowstorm in the Pyrenees on 5 February 1944 and being stopped by a German patrol, McGlinchey going on to Stalag Luft I; he cites Michael Moores LeBlanc and F. Govers's Pyama-House, which we have not seen (Noordman, pp. 128–130). ◐ Capt. Schjelderup's report, in a transcript of a file not seen, has "Sgt. TEX (?) [BANWELL]" among the three men his party "lost, and never saw again" when it was fired on after the Rhine crossing from Amerongen, which Hardy and Noordman (p. 295) date to 2 January 1945 (Schjelderup's report; his capture is on his page). "Albert" is not identified.

"Nivel": the airman Fearneyhough, 1943. ◐ "Nivel", shot down at Hoenderlo and passed to Van Beuningen, is very probably Sgt Nevil Fearneyhough, RAF, whom Albert Groen's handwritten form has shot down "± 27/4/43 Hoenderloo" (about 27 April 1943) and hidden with Van Beuningen at Vierhouten "van 24 Juni - 7 Juli '43" (from 24 June to 7 July) (Groen's file, p. 5; the typed translation on p. 3 drops his "±"). The accounts of how he and Groen came to Bos differ:

• Daniel van Beuningen's forms. "Nevile FARNBOROUGH", shot down near Ede, from "C. BOS, STAVERDEN", May to mid-July 1943, 70 days, passed to "Oome Joop" (Dr. KRUIMEL) (p. 4); his second table, "Bos, Staverden near Elspeet", 80 days (p. 6). He names "Bos, living in Staverden" first among the helpers he knew (p. 5).
• Van Beuningen to Boeree. His words to the writer Th. A. Boeree after the war, as Noordman prints them (Noordman, p. 66; Noordman does not say where Boeree printed them):
  • in May 1943 he took over an English "vliegtuigwaarnemer" (air observer) and the Jewish doctor Groen from "landbouwer E. Bos te Staverden – een man die zeer veel voor allerlei vluchtelingen gedaan heeft" (farmer E. Bos at Staverden, a man who did a great deal for all kinds of refugees);
  • Bos came to tell him that a policeman had warned him the SD would search his farm the next day, and "Diezelfde avond bracht Bos een jonge Engelse officier en dokter Groen bij de watermolen op het landgoed …" (that same evening Bos brought a young English officer and Dr Groen to the watermill on the estate).
• Fearneyhough's own account, as Noordman prints it in Dutch. After the raid on Kruimel's house he and Ab Groen hid in the attic for eight hours, wandered, went back to the people at Nieuw-Milligen, and after a few hours were driven to "een boerderij ongeveer 25 kilometer verderop, in Staverden" (a farm about 25 kilometres on, at Staverden), and from there by bicycle to a shipowner's estate outside Ermelo (p. 66). Noordman identifies the estate as Van Beuningen's and the farm as "boer Elbert Bos in Staverden" (the same page).
• Marianne Happ. By Noordman, the daughter of the Jewish family hidden at Kruimel's house got away through the back door when it was raided, warned the Eskes family at Nieuw-Milligen, and "Later is ze naar Bos in Staverden gegaan" (later she went to Bos at Staverden), and then a banker and his wife from Harlingen took her; her parents and brother were murdered at Sobibor on 2 July 1943 (p. 65).

Albert Groen at the farm, 1943–1944. Groen wrote to Fearneyhough in August 1945 that after two more weeks alone in the hut at Vierhouten he went back to the Bos farm, as Noordman gives it in Dutch:

Then I went back to my earlier hiding place, at the Bos family's farm in Staverden, and stayed there until October 1944. Several times I had company there, three American airmen in all, and in October 1944 even a real Londoner, who had been involved in Operation "Market Garden".

Dutch originalDaarna ben ik teruggegaan naar mijn eerdere onderduikadres, bij de boerderij van de familie Bos in Staverden en ben daar tot oktober 1944 gebleven. Diverse keren kreeg ik daar gezelschap van in totaal drie Amerikaanse vliegers en in oktober 1944 zelfs een echte Londenaar, die betrokken was geweest bij de operatie ‘Market Garden’.

— Albert Groen · letter to Neville Fearneyhough · August 1945 · in Noordman's Dutch · Noordman, p. 69

◐ Groen's own handwritten form puts the American airmen he knew, McGlinchey and McDonald, "USAAC (bombardier)", from 9 December 1943 to 9 January 1944, and Capt. Binks "± 25 - 28 Feb '44" (about 25 to 28 February 1944), "verborgen bij Foppen in Staverden" (hidden with Foppen at Staverden); Foppen lived opposite Bos, in Noordman's words (Groen's file, p. 5, the typed translation on p. 3; Noordman, p. 70). Bos's table has "Bil" and "Frank", ◐ very probably the same two (first names only, and his "received from" cell for them is blank), passed by him to Foppen (above); their stay is told on Thijs Foppen's page.

⚠︎ Groen's account has Banwell leave De Ruif the day before the raid, after only a short stay. Groen, hidden at the Bos farm, wrote of "a real Londoner" who came to them in October 1944, having been "heel kort" (very briefly) at Kruimel's and left "precies op tijd" (just in time), the day before the Germans raided the house; Noordman identifies him as Tex Banwell (Noordman, pp. 69–70), and in his own chapter on Banwell has him at De Ruif only "voor korte tijd" (for a short time) (p. 292). Noordman bases that on Banwell's guestbook entry of 8 October 1944, a leaving note, with "Eduard" and 9 October in the margin (pp. 292–293); ◐ Eduard is the cover name of Rengers Hora Siccama, and Noordman says it was written in his own hand and, a few sentences later, that "De toevoegingen zijn van dokter Kruimel" (the additions are Dr Kruimel's), so whose hand wrote it is not settled. The raid on De Ruif was on 23 October 1944 (Holvoet "op die 23e October" in Boeree, p. 163; the Airborne Magazine; Tijding, 17 May 1945; Johannes Kruimel), so ◐ by our reading Groen's letter has Banwell leave about 22 October. The Airborne Magazine gives that date: it has him come to Kruimel after the attack of 30 September and leave on 22 October, the day before the raid; ⚠︎ it may not be a second witness: it lists Noordman, who prints Groen's letter, among six sources, and gives no source for the date itself. Kessel had Tex at De Ruif, "very well established", when his own party came (◐ 17 October or a few days later: he escaped from Apeldoorn on the night of 16 October, Noordman, p. 309) and, when they left, Tex "for whom something else was being arranged" (Kessel, 1959, pp. 93–101); his account does not fit a stay that ended on 8 or 9 October, and his "ten days before we'd arrived" for the staff-car ambush does not fit his own arrival. These accounts do not agree on when Banwell was there; Groen's own form (below) gives yet another date. The quoted phrases are Noordman's Dutch rendering of Groen.

Three forms from Staverden put Banwell there, briefly, and only one gives a date, which does not fit Groen's letter either:

• Groen's own form, on which he struck out "Geholpen" (helped) and wrote "Gekend" (known), has "'Tex' Banwell. Sgt." hidden "± 12-17 Oct '44", "verborgen bij … id." (hidden with the same, Foppen at Staverden, as in the rows above) (Groen, p. 5).
• Thijs Foppen's has "Banwell Parachute Regt." for "1 day", undated, from and to "Uncle Joop" (Foppen, p. 3).
• Bos's own has "Tex", with Arnhem in the column for where each man came down, undated, received from "Dr. Kruimel" and passed to "Tijs Foppen and later on to Dirk Eisinga" (Bos, p. 3). "Dirk Eisinga" is Dirk van Eysinga, "Jhr. Dirk Eisinga, Elspeet now in Switzerland" in Bos's list of helpers (p. 2).

◐ Noordman thinks the farm where Hardy first asked the way, on his walk of 19 October through Leuvenum and Staverden, was Bos's: "James Hardy kwam vermoedelijk eerst in contact met iemand van de boerderij van Bos en daarna met Bep van Asbeck" (James Hardy probably first came into contact with someone from Bos's farm and then with Bep van Asbeck) (Noordman, p. 279). ⚠︎ Hardy's own report names no farm.

Joop Migchelsen, whose group kept six evaders in half of a double house at Hulshorst (◐ Kijkuit, the forester's house in the Leuvenum woods; he does not name it), wrote on 14 June (◐ 1945) that three of them, D, E and F, Walsh, Murphy and Banwell, "came presumably from "Ome Joop" (Dr. Kruimel) p.a. Farmer Bos, Farm "Staverden" in Staverden, Post Elspeet", and that all six left by way of the same farm:

Delivered "en bloc" on 11th Nov. 1944 (midnight 1 o'clock) transported through the woods to Bos, Farm Staverden, where the transport was take[n] over by Loet and Dirk, 2 assistants of Ome Joop.

— Joop Migchelsen · answers to the helpers' questionnaire · 14 June · his file, p. 3

◐ The farmer Bos of these accounts is very probably Elbert Bos: Migchelsen gives no first name, but Elbert Bos's own form has Tex come to him from Kruimel (p. 3), Noordman names "boer Elbert Bos in Staverden" as Kruimel's helper (p. 66), and the British index has no other Bos at Staverden (the index page). ◐ "Loet and Dirk" are very probably Hardy's "DEREK and LOEW" (below), Dirk van Eysinga and Huib de Jongh, "Lou" (see their pages).

⚠︎ The other accounts of the same weeks differ from Migchelsen's on both ends, and neither names a Bos stop, so the stop rests on his account alone:

• Coming. For Banwell, "by the Underground" does not rule out the farm.
  • James Hardy's report of January 1945 has Murphy, "the other Paratrooper" (◐ Walsh, whom Hardy does not name) and himself set off from Elspeet on the evening of 26 October, led by "DEREK and his aunt", for "BRUMMAGER's house in LEUVENUM" (◐ Kijkuit: Hardy never names it, Noordman does, pp. 278, 292, 303), and Banwell "brought there by the Underground" on 29 October (Hardy).
  • Liesbeth Verweij's account has "Dirk en mij" (Dirk and me) leading the walk from Sterrehoveke at Elspeet, where Murphy and Walsh had come from De Ruif (Noordman, pp. 301, 303).
• Going. Hardy has the party taken "At midnight on 6 Nov" by "DEREK and LOEW" to Harskamp, breaking the journey "at the house of a man called DICK (?)" (Hardy); Migchelsen's 11 November is five days later. Verweij has the whistle signal at about five in the morning and Dirk cycling back to Elspeet from waymarker (paddenstoel) no. 215 by Boeschoten, to arrive at six (Noordman, p. 294). Neither names Bos's farm as a stop.

✓ The Americans first graded him at their conference no. 46 (◐ 30 April 1946), Grade 6; the folder cover strikes that out and has "Upgraded to Grade 5 Conf. 52. 23/5/46" (the cover, read on the image; ◐ the struck date and the conference numbers are hard to read). The British index has him as certificate 269, "BOS, Elbert", "Staverden IG 1,Elspeet", grade 5 (the index page; the address column on that page sits half a line above the names, but every row around his is grade 5).

• ◐ In the registers he is the father, a landbouwer, of the bride at an Ermelo wedding on 15 December 1943, and of the grooms at an Ermelo wedding on 2 January 1947 and a Putten wedding on 3 September 1947, with the same mother each time (1943; January 1947; September 1947; index only).
• ✓ He died at Putten on 3 September 1965, aged 73, "zonder beroep" (without occupation); the record, registered on 6 September, names his parents, Hendrik Jan Bos and Flipsje van Asselt, and Dirkje van den Broek as his "(ex-)partner", the index's word for a spouse (the death; index only). ◐ A death registered at Putten says where he died, not where the family lived; a son married at Putten in September 1947, and no record held says when the family left Staverden.

• His birthday. 13 January 1892 in the birth deed, read on the scan, in Ede's militia register and cards, and on his form of 1946; "Ede 1-1-1892" on the form of 26 June 1945 (p. 4, read on the image). ✓ The deed settles it.
• The initial. "C. BOS" on Van Beuningen's first table (p. 4, checked on the image); E. in Van Beuningen's words in Noordman, in Bos's own signature and on the other forms that give an initial (Snoep, Hulstijn, Schmohl). ◐ C is a typing slip.
• Fearneyhough's route and stay.
  • Bos's table: from "v.d. Mast, Millingen", 21 days, to Van Beuningen (p. 3).
  • Groen's table: at Kruimel's house from 29 April to 22 June 1943, with Van Beuningen from 24 June to 7 July, and no stay with Bos (p. 5, his handwritten Dutch; the typed translation on p. 3 has the same dates).
  • Van Beuningen: from Bos, from May, 70 or 80 days (p. 4; p. 6); and in Noordman, in May 1943, the night of the policeman's warning (p. 66).
  • Fearneyhough in Noordman: from Nieuw-Milligen by car to the farm after the raid, "Na enige tijd" (after some time) on by bicycle (p. 66). Not settled.
• "Bil" and "Frank". ◐ Bos's two, if they are the same men, are passed to Foppen and then to Dirk Eskes; Nelly Eskes has them brought from her house to Foppen (above, and Thijs Foppen).
  • ⚠︎ K. H. van Oord's form, which has the same two from Groningen in October 1943, has a handwritten note across its last two columns (his table, p. 4, read on the image).
  • Read line by line it ends "… farmer Kaaymans [?] by train. Bos."; on the scan the lines break at the column rule, so by column it is "Ome Joop" – Dr. Kruimel. from Elspeet – farmer Bos. (received from) and Brabant – escort Kaaymans [?] by train (passed on to).
  • ◐ The column reading is ours and fits Elbert Bos, a farmer of Staverden, Post Elspeet; the line reading does not say which Bos.
• Banwell's dates at Staverden, and Migchelsen against Hardy and Verweij on Kijkuit: above, and on Banwell's page.

Not him. E. Bos of Driebergen, "Paul" to the evaders, who sheltered Bob Porter in April 1944, is a different man, with a helper file of his own (US National Archives 286640379); so is the Hendrik Bos of Nunspeet to whose farm the American airman Haupt was moved on 25 February (Noordman, p. 136).

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