Gerrit Hendrik “Gerald” Esveld

Arnhem 16 Dec 1883 – Amerongen 14 Apr 1967

About: The Amerongen garage owner and former chauffeur to Count Bentinck, Hardy's "Gerald ESVELD", whose house took in Murphy and James Hardy from 23 December 1944 to 2 January 1945. His younger son, a guide of the party Murphy set out with, was found dead at Dodewaard in June 1945.

Unit or role: Garage owner: garagehouder on his son's death deed of 1945 (the deed); "a garage proprietor" to Hardy (Hardy); "Esveld had met zijn zoons Berend en Coen een garagebedrijf" (Esveld and his sons Berend and Coen ran a garage) (Caspers, p. 64). ✓ Count Godard Bentinck's private chauffeur from 1906 to 1932 (Het Rotterdamsch Parool, 3 January 1959).

Where: Amerongen; Overstraat K 360 B in May 1946 (Flip's letter, p. 11).

Evidence: ✓ Hardy; his son's birth and death records; Flip's file; Caspers, p. 64; ✓ his Dutch award card; ✓ his birth and death records; ✓ the War Graves Foundation's file on his son Coen, 1953–1973 (Nationaal Archief 2.19.255.01, 41478A); ✓ Het Rotterdamsch Parool, 3 January 1959 on his years as the count's chauffeur; ✓ Mrs Esveld's statement and Flip's for the men in the house; Maljers's note of 3 July 1945

✓ He was born at Arnhem on 16 December 1883: the Dutch Chancery of Orders' card for "Esveld, G.H. / Gerrit Hendrik" gives that birth and the address "Amerongen, Overstraat B 360", the house Flip wrote from in 1946 as Overstraat K 360 B (his award card, Nationaal Archief 2.02.32). ✓ The Arnhem birth register agrees: Gerrit Hendrik Esveld, born 16 December 1883, son of Berend Esveld, a coachman (koetsier), 33, and Jacomina Pasman (Arnhem births 1883, deed 1562; the record). The card records a silver medal of the Order of Orange-Nassau, by royal decree of 27 August 1921, no. 52, "te Amerongen", and does not say what for. Its only other note is the Chancery's own: no insignia had come back, so in December 1970 its stamp reads "50 jaar na toekenning, overlijden aangenomen" (50 years after the award, death assumed), 49 years after the decree of August 1921 (the same).

Chauffeur to Count Bentinck. ✓ From 1906 to 1932 he was the private chauffeur of Count Godard Bentinck, whose family owned Huis Amerongen, and travelled many countries of Europe with him; in 1918 he had to fetch the Kaiser, Wilhelm II, from the train at Maarn station when the ex-Emperor came to Amerongen. Wilhelm gave him a silver watch with the Hohenzollern arms on the case and, in 1939, a gold pin with a crowned W for Wilhelm's own eightieth birthday; of the Kaiser Esveld said "een ijdeltuit" (a vain man). The paper found him at 75 with a garage business at Amerongen, still working and still driving the municipality's ambulance (Het Rotterdamsch Parool, 3 January 1959, image-checked; the same article ran in Het Parool on 31 December 1958, KB OCR only). Name, place, age (he was born in 1883) and garage are his, so this is Gerrit Hendrik Esveld; the article says nothing of the war or of Murphy.

His father, a coachman at Arnhem. ✓ His father Berend Esveld was a coachman (koetsier), 33 at his birth, and his mother Jacomina Pasman had no occupation then (the birth record); they had married at Arnhem on 7 February 1877, he a koetsier of 26, the son of a farmer, Albert Esveld, and she a maid of 25 (the marriage index), and the 1908 marriage names them as his parents (the records). ◐ He is very probably the "Koetsier BERENT ESVELD" whom a Mrs Loopuit (the second copy spells it Loopuyt) honoured in a boxed advertisement in the Arnhemsche Courant of 7 June 1915: on 8 June he had been forty years in her service, "Hij heeft mij al dien tijd trouw en eerlijk gediend" (he has served me faithfully and honestly all that time), so since 1875, when the coachman of the 1877 marriage would have been about 24 (the advertisement, read on the page images of both issues of the day). The match is by name, trade and town: the advertisement names no town and gives no first name for her, and Esvelds were many at Arnhem, but the index holds no other koetsier Berend Esveld of that age there, the groom of 1893, a koetsier of 42 with the same parents, being the same man by the parents' names (the 1893 marriage). If so, the grandfather of Flip and Coen was a coachman for forty years, and Gerrit Hendrik, a count's chauffeur from 1906 (above), also drove for a living.

He was married to Martina Gijsberta Strübbe, Mrs Esveld-Strubbe, at Wageningen on 4 November 1908, he 24 and she 28 (the marriage index), and their sons were Berend Albert, "Flip", born at Amerongen in 1910, and Gerrit Herman, "Coen", born there on 2 May 1920 (the records; Berend's marriage).

On 23 December 1944, after dark, a young man fetched Murphy and Hardy from the house in Amerongen where they had met Schjelderup's Canadians, and took them to his father's: "His father is a garage proprietor, named Gerald ESVELD, a married man with two sons, KOEN (?) and BEENT (?) and a daughter. Here we stayed until 2 Jan 45 and we were very well looked after during our stay" (Hardy). Mrs Esveld told the Americans that Murphy was "taken by Louis (Gerrit ESVELD) to Mrs. ESVELD" and stayed until 2 January, when he was "taken away by Louis and Kik for a crossing, which did not succeed" (her statement, p. 5; Mrs Esveld's account). Murphy names the household himself: "I stayed with the Esveldt family in Amerongen, near the Rhine. I put on overalls over my uniform, supplied by the family, got over the Rhine by ferry" (his memoir, p. 12). On 2 January the two left the house at one o'clock on bicycles with Koen and "Keek", in civilian suits lent by Koen, and crossed by the ferry; that night the party was fired on north of Opheusden, and Murphy was taken (Hardy; The crossing and recapture).

Maljers, the guide of 2 January, wrote in his note of 3 July 1945 that the seven Canadians of the party went to "dive under" at "Cornelissen, Esveld Jr., Esveld Sr. and Hoogland" from just before Christmas until 2 January (p. 13). ◐ "Esveld Sr." is Gerrit Hendrik, the father, as Flip's forms call him; Porter has "two of the other fellows" taken to "the family Esveld" (Porter, pp. 136–137), and Mrs Esveld's list names no Canadians. Nothing found says which of the Canadians slept in this house. Adriaan Maljers has the night from the guide's side.

His younger son was found dead at Dodewaard on 29 June 1945, and the next day he signed the family's notice in Het Parool ("G. H. Esveld"): Coen, 24, "eind Jan. 1945 te Dodewaard voor zijn vaderland is gevallen" (fell for his country at Dodewaard at the end of January 1945), the burial announced at Amerongen for Thursday 5 July (the notice; the deed; Coen Esveld). Flip's statement of May 1945 has another of the Arnhem men, "Bill", a Bren gunner, going on from Flip's "via the farmer to G.H. ESVELD Sr. at AMERONGEN, where he remained until the crossing at Biesbosch", and asks for help with the car and bicycle business, "this applies also to ESVELD Sr." (Flip's file, p. 7). On 8 May 1946 Flip asked the American office to send a form "aan G. H. Esveld Sr.", at Overstraat K 360 B, Amerongen, "(Garagehouder)" (p. 11); no form of his has been found. ✓ The Americans' list of Grade 5 (Eisenhower) certificates has his son, "ESVELD, Jr. B. A.", at Rijksstraatweg A 12, Leersum, and his wife, "ESVELD-STRUBBE, M. G.", at Overstraat 360, Amerongen, as (1215) and (1216), and no Esveld Sr. in the OCR of the whole list (the list, p. 48, image-checked).

Men who came after Murphy. ✓ Mrs Esveld's list has "Bill", a parachutist from Scotland, arriving with "Henk and Wim" on 9 January 1945 and staying until about the middle of February; it also has Ross Stoner of the RAAF and K. Buckley (her statement, p. 5); Flip's statement has "Bill", a Bren gunner, going on to "G.H. ESVELD Sr. at AMERONGEN" and from there to a crossing at the Biesbosch that did not succeed (p. 7). They are told on Mrs Esveld's page.

The note in the sideboard. ⚠︎ The Sunday Post of 23 January 1972 says Flip found Murphy's name and home town written on a slip under a drawer of a sideboard he had inherited from his mother, and wrote to the Town Clerk of Kelty (Flip's page); the paper's account is its own and Murphy's note is not held.

He lived on at Overstraat B 360 and died at Amerongen on 14 April 1967, aged 83, the widower of Martina Gijsberta Strübbe, son of Berend Esveld and Jacomina Pasman (Het Utrechts Archief, Amerongen deaths 1967, deed 11; the index entry). ✓ The index names her only as his "Partner", which does not mean she was alive: she had died at Utrecht on 2 June 1966, ten months before him, and her death deed has her living at Amerongen and "gehuwd met: Esveld, Gerrit Hendrik" (married to him) (her death deed, read on the image; Mrs Esveld-Strubbe). The War Graves Foundation had listed him in 1953 as Coen's next of kin together with Flip, "beiden te Amerongen" ("enige naaste fam.", only next of kin; scan 4). On 21 February 1973 it wrote to Amerongen for the names and addresses of his children, giving him as "± 1895", "overleden op 14 apr 67" (died on 14 April 1967) (scan 5). Amerongen answered that his son Berend (b. 17 February 1910) was by then living at Dwingeloo, in Drenthe, and that no other relatives were left at Amerongen (the same).

• His name. Hardy heard "Gerald ESVELD" (Hardy), and Noordman's Dutch text of Hardy has "Gerard Esveld" (Noordman, p. 287). His son's death deed names him Gerrit Hendrik Esveld, garage owner (the deed), and his son Flip calls him "G. H. Esveld Sr." (p. 11). ✓ Gerrit Hendrik is right; "Gerald" is the English ear for Gerrit. The British helper index has no Esveld called Gerald (What the British recorded afterwards).
• His children. Hardy has two sons "and a daughter"; Mrs Esveld's form gives two children, aged 35 and 25 (p. 3). The Foundation's form of 1953 names only the father and Flip as next of kin (scan 4). ✓ There had been a daughter, Johanna Jacomina, born at Amerongen on 5 December 1912, but she died at Utrecht in 1940, aged 27 (the birth and death index entries), four years before Murphy and Hardy came; ◐ so Hardy's "daughter" of December 1944 was someone else in the house, or his mistake.
• Not Heimen van Esveld. ◐ Two American airmen's reports have an "Esveld" farmer at Essen, near Barneveld, "1916 Olympics champion in 1500 meters run", with a wife and seven children (Ferrell's report); that is very probably Heimen van Esveld of Kootwijkerbroek, of another family, and not Gerrit Hendrik.
• His birth year. ✓ 1883, by the Arnhem register and his Chancery card. ✗ The Foundation's "± 1895" in 1973 is its own estimate (scan 5).

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