Henk van der Mheen

Lunteren 14 Jul 1924 – Dodewaard 28 Jan 1945 ◐

About: Hendrik "Henk" van der Mheen, a clerk of Lunteren and a resistance man of the Ede and Lunteren group, who, by the Americans' summary, "had acted as a guide and assisted in carrying out the two Pegasus operations" (Boeree has him and his brother Wim among the guides of the first crossing), and took Pte William Gordon, by Gordon's report, to a garage owner at Amerongen in January 1945 (◐ Gerald Esveld's house, about a week after Murphy had left it). Sent over the Rhine with Wim at the end of January 1945 by Hendrik van Loenen, he was killed near Dodewaard and buried there as an unknown civilian.

Unit or role: Resistance: "N.B.S." on his questionnaire for the Americans (his file, p. 13), "Lid van de B.S." on the War Graves Foundation's form (104012A, scan 4), "Verzet" on the roll of honour (Erelijst). By trade a kantoorbediende (office clerk) (his death deed; scan 4).

Where: Postweg 110, Lunteren, the family's address in the Americans' files and on the British index of helpers (his file, p. 12; page M/9); Nederwoud, by Boeree; in hiding with the Esvelds at Amerongen; buried at Hien, in Dodewaard.

Evidence: ✓ His helper file with the Americans, US National Archives 286703063 (his questionnaire, 10 October 1945; the summary, 18 December 1945); ✓ the War Graves Foundation's file on him (Nationaal Archief 2.19.255.01, inv. 104012A: his identification card and the note from the Dodewaard police report); ✓ his death deed (Dodewaard 1946, deed 23); ✓ Th. A. Boeree, Kroniek van Ede (1947), pp. 155, 160, 243 and 245 (read on the page images); ✓ Pte William Gordon's report; ◐ Hendrik van Loenen's statement, which names "Henk van de Meent" (taken to be him, below) (p. 23).

✓ Hendrik van der Mheen was born on 14 July 1924: at Lunteren by his identification card and by his mother, who wrote that her two sons were "beiden te Lunteren geboren" (both born at Lunteren) (scan 6; her form, 104013A, scan 4); at Ede by his questionnaire for the Americans and the roll of honour (p. 13; Erelijst). The Foundation filed both brothers under "Gem. Ede", the municipality of Ede (scan 4 of each file). The death deeds name his father Hendrik and his mother Jacoba van Schothorst (the index records). ◐ The Ede register has a smith of his father's name, aged 51, whose partner was Jacoba Schothorst, died at Ede on 5 April 1939 (deed 99 of 1939): very probably his father, since his mother's questionnaire of 22 June 1945 has her as a widow ("Wid."), under her husband's initial H., and she gave her name as "Wed[uwe]" (widow) in her reply to the Americans' letter of 11 April 1946 (her questionnaire; her reply). His brother Willem, "Wim", was born on 16 February 1923 (their mother's form).

The house was on the Postweg at Lunteren: Postweg 110 in the Americans' files and on the British index, where the brothers' entries are bracketed "Brothers" (page M/9). ✓ Pte William Gordon, hidden there from October 1944, called it "a blacksmith's house somewhere between BARNEVELD … and LUNTEREN", the blacksmith's name being VAN DER MHEEN (Gordon); Willem was a smith by his death deed. ◐ Whether that blacksmith was Willem or another of the family, Gordon does not say, and his "the two brothers of VAN DER MHEEN - HANK and WILHELM" (below) can be read as the blacksmith's brothers. Mrs Esveld called the family "the de MEENT family at 't Woud, near BARNEVELD" (her statement, p. 5), and Boeree "de gebroeders van der Mheen uit Nederwoud" (the van der Mheen brothers from Nederwoud) (p. 160).

The Americans' summary of 18 December 1945, which carries the name of Mr D. Wildeboer of Ede and the date 17 December 1945, says:

The subject was a very active worker of the underground group of Ede and Lunteren and for a considerable period of time in late 1944 following the Arnhem operation he had helped with the provisioning and the care of the vast number of evaders Veluwe area of Gelderland province. He had acted as a guide and assisted in carrying out the two Pegasus operations of I.S. 9.

— Holland Office, 6801 MIS-X Detachment · summary on Hendrik van der Mheen · 18 December 1945 · his file, p. 12

Boeree's chronicle of Ede has him in these:

• A guide in the first crossing. For "De eerste rivierovergang" (the first river crossing), the Lunteren resistance group was to report with bicycles and civilian clothes at the Groote Voort on the Postweg, and among the men from Lunteren were "Henk en Wim van der Mheen"; "Allen moesten als gidsen fungeeren" (all were to act as guides) (p. 155). ◐ That this chapter is Pegasus I is our reading: it is the first of Boeree's two crossings.
• A courier. After Capt. King, Gilbert Kirschen, moved to Maarsbergen, "Het koerierswerk werd gedaan door de gebroeders van der Mheen uit Nederwoud" (the courier work was done by the van der Mheen brothers from Nederwoud), who brought the messages to Roelof and Bep's courier post (p. 160).
• The house on the Postweg in Pegasus II. On the night the men for Pegasus II were gathered, a party that Dirk, the Neerlangbroek policeman, had collected (picking up a few men at Amerongen on the way to the Walderveensche molen, where Tonny received them) rested "bij de Wed. van der Mheen aan de Postweg" (at the widow van der Mheen's on the Postweg) before going on to the assembly point at Wolfswinkel's chicken houses (p. 178). ◐ That the widow is his mother is our reading, by the street and her own signature as a widow.

✓ Two days after a failed drop on Christmas eve, Boeree has King send out the courier, Henk's brother Wim, to call the reception party; "Wim van der Mheen beloofde bij zijn oom een paard en wagen te halen" (Wim van der Mheen promised to fetch a horse and cart from his uncle) to take the containers away (pp. 242–243). One parachute came down, the "body", "Capt. Henk van Loenen, bijgenaamd Bob" (nicknamed Bob), who floated off to the road from Lunteren to Ederveen (p. 243; van Loenen's own statement and Kluiters put the drop near Renswoude; which van Loenen it was is discussed on his page):

Henk and Wim were to keep an eye on the parachute; they were to bring Bob to his lodging, and after that Wim was to come back with the horse and cart.

Dutch originalHenk en Wim moesten de parachute in de gaten houden, zij moesten Bob naar zijn logies brengen en daarna moest Wim met paard en wagen terugkeeren.

— Th. A. Boeree, Kroniek van Ede gedurende de bezettingstijd (1947), p. 243 · the page, read on the image

⚠︎ Which Henk this was is not settled: Boeree gives him no surname here, and a few lines later on the same page names another Henk of the reception party in full, who went with Wim to a farm where a container had landed on the roof (p. 243). Germans came up and the reception party scattered (p. 244). Two farmers arrested afterwards were questioned by the SD, "er waren twee personen herkend" (two people had been recognised), Wim among them; the arrested farmer Mastenbroek was taken by an SD agent to "de boerderij van van der Mheen" (the van der Mheen farm) "om Wim op te scharrelen" (to round Wim up), but Wim had long gone: "Zijn broer Henk stond de heeren te woord" (his brother Henk answered the gentlemen) and said they did not know where Wim was (p. 245).

✓ Pte William Gordon of the 156th Battalion, Murphy's battalion, was moved on the morning of 24 or 25 October 1944, ill, "by horse and cart to a blacksmith's house somewhere between BARNEVELD (E. 5496) and LUNTEREN. The blacksmith's name was VAN DER MHEEN", where for 10 or 11 weeks a Dutch doctor and nurse nursed him (Gordon). Boeree has Gordon, too ill to cross with the others on 23 October, staying "nog twee maanden in huis … bij de familie van der Mheen aan de Postweg" (two months more in the house of the van der Mheen family on the Postweg) (p. 129); his mother's form for the Americans has "William Gordon", "Par. R.", from 25 October 1944, 60 days (her file, p. 4). Then:

On 8 Jan, or thereabouts, the two brothers of VAN DER MHEEN - HANK and WILHELM - took me by cycle to AMERONGEN (E. 4480), where I stayed with the owner of the only garage in the town, a M. BEER.

— Pte William Gordon · his report to I.S.9 (WEA), 7 March 1945 · Pegasus Archive

◐ The garage was very probably the Esvelds'. Mrs Esveld has her "Bill, parachutist, Scotland", who had stayed a long time with "the de MEENT family at 't Woud, near BARNEVELD", arrive "on 9 Jan … with Henk and Wim at the house of Mrs. ESVELD" (her statement, p. 5), and Berend "Flip" Esveld's list of 1946 has "Bill Paratrooper" received from "v. d. Mheen. Lunteren" (p. 13). That Bill is Gordon is our match, by the date, the escort and the house (the London of Flip's list is near enough Gordon's home address at Hanworth, Middlesex), and it is not exact: Mrs Esveld's Bill is from Scotland, which nothing held tests, since no source held says where Gordon was born; Mrs Esveld's Bill is also wounded and suffering from dysentery, where Gordon's report mentions neither and has paralysis in both legs (illness fits, the wound does not appear); Flip has a "Bren gunner" arriving in mid-January and staying about a month, where Gordon has himself at the garage from about 8 January to 19 February, with a crossing attempt from 19 January (Gordon), while Mrs Esveld's 9 January to about the middle of February fits Gordon's dates. Murphy had been at that house from 23 or 24 December to 2 January, when he left it for a crossing "which did not succeed" (Mrs Esveld, p. 5; Hardy has the 23rd).

No source puts him with Murphy. Their paths ran close three times:

• Pegasus II. The Americans' summary says he "had acted as a guide and assisted in carrying out the two Pegasus operations" (p. 12), which does not say he guided in the second; Boeree has the brothers as guides in the first crossing only, and for the second has only the widow van der Mheen's house as a resting place (above). Murphy was in the second, on 17 and 18 November 1944, and was lost with Hardy, Banwell and Branford when their guides drew ahead in the dark (Hardy; Pegasus II). No source held says what Henk did that night.
• The Esvelds' house. ◐ If Gordon's host was the Esvelds (above), he and Wim brought Gordon there on about 8 or 9 January 1945, six or seven days after Murphy left it on 2 January (above), and they themselves "ondergedoken geweest bij Gerrit Esveld garagehouder te Amerongen" (had been in hiding at Gerrit Esveld's, the garage owner at Amerongen) (the note). No source dates their stay there.
• Coen Esveld. ◐ His last crossing was very probably made with Coen Esveld, whom Hardy names among the two who took Hardy and Murphy out of Amerongen on 2 January: "At 1300 hours we left on bicycles with KOEN and KEEK (?)" (Hardy) (below).

✓ His questionnaire for the Americans says:

Helped with the providing for pilots and with the crossings. On 28th January 1945 capt. van Loenen (Bob) has sent him and his brother Wim over the Rhine with the instructions to prepare a route on behalf of the parachutists. Nothing is heard since from Henk, probably he and his brother lost their lives.

— Questionnaire for helpers of Allied personnel, Hendrik van der Mheen · 10 October 1945 · US National Archives, his helper file, p. 13 · the transcript

The form is in the third person ("has sent him and his brother Wim", "Nothing is heard since from Henk") and was made out in October 1945 about two men already thought dead, so someone else filled it in. ◐ The man is probably D. Wildeboer of Ede: the claim form in Henk's file is signed by him at Ede on the same day, 10 October 1945 (p. 15), the Americans' summaries carry his name, and the Foundation's form gives him under "de naaste Familiebetrekking" (the nearest relation) (scan 4). If so, the questionnaires, the summaries and that entry are one informant, not separate witnesses. Both questionnaires are headed "BILL." and the claim form is signed "D. Wildeboer", "Bill," (Henk's questionnaire; Willem's; the claim form); what the word stands for the forms do not say, but it ties the forms to one hand, and whether that hand had van Loenen's account from van Loenen is not shown.

Hendrik van Loenen, the man Wim had taken from his drop a month before, wrote in his own statement: "Lost 4 men by trying to discover opening in front. Names were: Wim and Henk van de Meent from Renswoude, Koen Esveld from Amerongen, George Andrews" (his file, p. 23; the copy in the Cornelisse-van Brink file, p. 16).

The police report of 29 June 1945, as noted for the identification service. ✓ His file with the War Graves Foundation holds a handwritten note attached to his identification card, No. 664, summarising a report by the Dodewaard policeman who found his brother:

According to the official report of 29-6-45 by Wachtmeester Johannes v.d. Haas of Doodewaard, H. v.d. Mheen had been in hiding with his brother Willem van der Mheen at the house of Gerrit Esveld, garage owner at Amerongen, who declared that they did a great deal of underground work and, four of them, with an English spy and an American (doctor), went on an English mission through the German line to the liberated area. On 27 January 1945 they went into the Betuwe by the Ingen ferry, and have been missing since 28 January.

Dutch originalv.d Mheen H was, volgens proces Verbaal d.d. 29-6-45 van Wachtmeester Johannes v.d Haas van Doodewaard, met zijn broeder Willem van der Mheen ondergedoken geweest bij Gerrit Esveld garagehouder te Amerongen die verklaarde, dat zij veel ondergrondsch werk deden en met gevieren met een Engelsch spion en een Amerikaan (Medicus) in Engelsche Opdracht door de Duitsche linie naar het bevrijde gebied zijn gegaan Op 27 Januari 1945 via het Ingensche Veer de Betuwe binnengetrokken. en sedert 28 Januari vermist zijn.

— Note attached to card No. 664 of the Dienst Identificatie en Berging · Nationaal Archief 2.19.255.01, inv. 104012A, scan 8 · the transcript

The note reads Haas; the last letter is not certain, and Haar is the other reading. It goes on: "Willem v.d Mheen is gevonden en geïdentificeerd door bovenvermelde Wachtmeester" (Willem v.d. Mheen has been found and identified by the policeman named above), and ends "Nadere informatie's te nemen bij de Garage Houder Gerrit Esveld te Amerongen" (further information to be had from the garage owner Gerrit Esveld at Amerongen). What it gives:

• Who declared it. "Gerrit Esveld garagehouder", ◐ the father, Gerald (Gerrit Hendrik) Esveld, whom Coen's death deed calls garagehouder, where Coen himself is monteur (Amerongen 1945, Nr. 48). The note names no Esveld among those who went.
• Who went. The brothers, "met gevieren met een Engelsch spion en een Amerikaan (Medicus)": four of them, with an English spy and an American, a doctor. Neither the spy nor the American is named. ◐ Met gevieren is literally "as a party of four", and the note does not say who the four are, so it does not settle the count:
  • Either the four are the two brothers, the spy and the American, with Coen outside the count.
  • Or the four include Coen, which gives Dodewaard's "Coen and 3 persons" (below) as a count, though the brothers, spy and American are then one more than his three companions.
• When. Into the Betuwe by the Ingen ferry on 27 January 1945, missing since 28 January.

The Gemeente Dodewaard, 1953. ✓ Answering the War Graves Foundation on 17 August 1953 about Coen Esveld, the municipality wrote that an inquiry made at the time had shown that Coen left "in gezelschap van 3 personen, vermoedelijk op 27 Januari 1945, naar de Betuwe" (in the company of 3 persons, probably on 27 January 1945, for the Betuwe) "teneinde een Engelse boodschap over te brengen" (to carry an English message), and that "De toen in gezelschap van Esveld zijnde personen zijn allen op 29 Juni 1945 in Dodewaard overleden bevonden" (the persons then with Esveld were all found dead at Dodewaard on 29 June 1945) (the letter). It names none of the three. ◐ That the police report is the inquiry "destijds" (at the time) the letter rests on is our reading of the matching dates, and ◐ that the brothers' party was Coen's is our match, by the dates and by the Dodewaard deeds, where Willem's deed 14 sits beside Coen's deed 13 (the index records). ⚠︎ The letter's one fact about the three, that they were found dead on 29 June 1945, fits Willem and not Henk (see Where the sources disagree).

The other accounts.

• ◐ Berend "Flip" Esveld has "Captain" George Mikol, after the middle of February, crossing "with G.H. ESVELD, Wim and Henk from BARNEVELD. Since this nothing more has been heard of them" (his statement, p. 7). Whether Mikol was the note's spy, and whether van Loenen's George Andrews was its American, is not settled (George Andrews).
• ◐ Elsa Caspers, fifty years on: "On 29 January 1945 Coen made one more attempt to find an escape route. He went with two other Dutch boys and a South African soldier", their bodies found in June, "killed by a V-1 'doodle-bug' explosion" (To Save a Life, p. 66). She names none of them.

Boeree, in 1947, has the brothers alone:

On 29 January the brothers Henk and Wim van der Mheen went to the Betuwe to join the Allies. In the neighbourhood of Dodewaard they were already through the German lines. They were close to the Allies. That is the last that is known of them. Probably they were killed by a V 1 going off too soon. Their bodies were found later near Dodewaard.

Dutch originalOp 29 Januari gingen de broers Henk en Wim van der Mheen naar de Betuwe, om zich bij de geallieerden aan te sluiten. In de buurt van Dodewaard waren zij reeds door de Duitsche linies heen. Zij waren vlak bij de geallieerden. Het is het laatste wat van hen bekend is. Vermoedelijk zijn zij omgekomen door het ontijdig springen van een V 1. Hun lijken zijn later gevonden in de nabijheid van Dodewaard.

— Th. A. Boeree, Kroniek van Ede gedurende de bezettingstijd (1947), p. 245 · the page, read on the image

◐ He names no Esveld and no foreigner.

Who the brothers of these accounts were. ◐ The "Wim and Henk van de Meent from Renswoude" of van Loenen's list are very probably Willem and Hendrik van der Mheen of Lunteren; no source states it, and it rests on these links. For it: the first names; the questionnaires made out for them with the Americans (next of kin: their mother) say van Loenen, "Bob", sent the two brothers over the Rhine at the end of January (p. 13; Willem's file, p. 14), and the note puts the brothers van der Mheen in hiding with the Esvelds and on a crossing at the same days, where van Loenen lists Koen Esveld beside them. Against it: the surname and the place differ, and van Loenen received his fourth man, Andrews, only "Begin Februari" (p. 14), so his four were not all lost on 27 or 28 January. The questionnaires give "capt. van Loenen (Bob)" with no first name, but their mother's form has "Amerongen, capt. H. v. Loenen" (her file, p. 4), an initial that fits Hendrik (and Herman Lucas); ◐ Boeree and van Loenen's own statement make him Hendrik, and the Ede archive's index to Boeree reads "Bob" on p. 243 as his brother Herman Lucas, a weak counter-reading (his page). The forms' "BILL." heading and Wildeboer's signature are set out under the questionnaire (above). The surname "van de Meent" and the place Renswoude are van Loenen's alone; ◐ "van de Meent" is very likely his misspelling, and Mrs Esveld's "de MEENT family" is the same name heard the same way. ◐ Flip Esveld's "Wim and Henk from BARNEVELD", who had brought Bill to him from "v. d. Mheen. Lunteren", are very probably the same pair (p. 7; p. 13).

• Buried as unknown.
  • ✓ The Foundation's form has him buried on "30 of 31 Januari 1945 als onbekend persoon te Dodewaard" (30 or 31 January 1945 as an unknown person at Dodewaard), killed "na oversteking van de Rijn in bezet gebied" (after crossing the Rhine, in occupied territory), on a mission "van bezet naar bevrijd gebied" (from occupied to liberated territory) (scan 4).
  • ⚠︎ The same form gives his death as 29-1-1945 and his birth as 22 October 1925 at Ede, against 14 July 1924 on every other record (below), so its burial date rests on a form wrong on one point and doubtful on another.
• ✓ The grave at Hien. His card has, on the cross, "Unknown Civilian Killed in Action 28-1-45"; grave 231, exhumed on 30 July 1946 from the front garden of the house "den Esch" on the Kerkstraat at Hien, Dodewaard, one victim, at the direction of the municipality of Dodewaard; reburied at Ede on 20 August 1946 (scan 6). The card's printed field for the date is "Datum fusilleering" (date of execution), filled "28-1-'45 volgens kruis op graf" (according to the cross on the grave); no source held says he was executed.
• ✓ The death deed. Dodewaard registered his death on 12 August 1946, deed 23: Hendrik van der Mheen, 20, kantoorbediende, born at Ede, died at Dodewaard on 28 January 1945; Ede copied it on 14 August (the index records).
• Not found with his brother.
  • ✓ The note says Willem was found and identified by the policeman, and Henk's questionnaire of October 1945 that "Nothing is heard since from Henk" (p. 13).
  • His mother wrote on the Americans' letter of 11 April 1946 that Willem was killed on 30 or 29 January 1945 and "ook mijn zoon Hendrik is sinds dien datum onvindbaar, Vermoedelijk ook evenals Willem omgekomen, daar zij te samen een opdracht … uitvoerden" (my son Hendrik too has been not to be found since that date, probably killed like Willem, since they were carrying out a mission together) (her file, p. 6).
  • ◐ So he was identified only when the grave at Hien was opened, by our reading of the card and the dates.
• Where he lies. ✓ In the mausoleum on the Paasberg at Ede, with his brother: his mother's form, the card's note in red, and the Foundation's page (104013A, scan 4; scan 6; Oorlogsgravenstichting).

How he died, each source in its own words:

• the cross on his grave, "Killed in Action" (scan 6);
• his mother, for both sons, "onbekend hoe zij zijn overleden. Zij waren in opdracht van Verzetsgroep Ede op weg naar Dodewaard en zijn toen door beschieting [?] overleden" (unknown how they died; they were on their way to Dodewaard on the orders of the Ede resistance group and were then killed by [the word read as] firing) (104013A, scan 4);
• the Americans, "it is assumed that he was the victim of a V-1 bomb" (p. 12); Boeree and Caspers, a V-1 (above);
• ⚠︎ a visitor's note of 2014 on the War Graves Foundation's page, which gives "Onderzoek" (research) as its source on Wim's page and none here: "Henk is niet gefusilleerd. Bij een poging door de Betuwe naar bevrijd gebied te gaan is hij nabij Hien door Engels vuur omgekomen" (Henk was not executed; trying to get through the Betuwe to liberated territory he was killed near Hien by English fire) (Oorlogsgravenstichting). The Foundation's page files him under "Gefusilleerd" (executed).

• The British grade. ✓ The British index of Dutch helpers has "MHEEN,v.d. Henk" and "MHEEN,v.d. Willem", Postweg 110, Lunteren, each "4. Post.", bracketed "Brothers", and below them their mother, "v.d.MHEEN, Jacoba H.", grade 5 (page M/9). The Americans' action report of the conference of 22 October 1945 has "posthumous 4 Br. & Am. for both men" (his mother's file, p. 14).
• The Medal of Freedom. ✓ Recommended for service that "extended from Sept. 1944 to Jan 1945", the recommendation approved on 23 February 1946 (his file, p. 7), and awarded, without palm, by General Orders No. 224 of US Forces, European Theater, 3 August 1946, to "Hendrik van der Mheen, Dutch Civilian -- September, 1944 to January, 1945", with his brother on the next line (his file, p. 10). On 22 January 1947 the Americans listed him in group B of the posthumous awards, "diegene die een volgende keer in aanmerking komen" (those to be considered next time) (p. 2).
• Utrecht, 12 March 1947. ✓ At the presentation of Medals of Freedom in the Stadsschouwburg at Utrecht, the Utrechtsch Katholiek Dagblad reported, the applause was especially warm "voor Mevr. v. d. Mheen uit Lunteren, die een posthume hulde ontving voor twee harer zoons" (for Mrs v. d. Mheen of Lunteren, who received a posthumous honour for two of her sons); its list of those decorated ("Tot de onderscheidenen behoorden", among those decorated were) has "H. van der Mheen, Lunteren; W. van der Mheen, Lunteren" (the article, read on the page image).
• The roll of honour. ✓ "Mheen, van der / Hendrik / Ede 14·VII·1924 / Kantoorbediende / Dodewaard 28·I·1945" (Erelijst, p. 611).

• His name. Hendrik van der Mheen in the civil records, the Foundation's file, the Americans' files and the roll of honour; "Henk" to his questionnaire, Boeree and van Loenen; "HANK" to Gordon. Van Loenen alone has "van de Meent from Renswoude" (p. 23); ◐ very likely a misspelling, and no other source puts the family at Renswoude.
• His birth. 14 July 1924 on his card, his questionnaire, the Americans' summary, his mother's form, the roll of honour and the Foundation's page; ⚠︎ 22 October 1925 on the Foundation's typed grave form (scan 4). His death deed's age of 20 on 28 January 1945 fits 1924. Lunteren (card, mother) or Ede (questionnaire, deed index, roll of honour), the municipality Lunteren's forms are filed under.
• Dodewaard's letter and Henk. ⚠︎ The 1953 letter has all three of Coen's companions found dead at Dodewaard on 29 June 1945. Willem's deed has 29 June; Henk's grave at Hien was opened on 30 July 1946 and his death registered on 12 August 1946 (scan 6; the index records). So either the letter is loose about "allen" (all) or its three are not both brothers; the match of Henk to Coen's party rests on the dates of the crossing, not on the letter.
• When they crossed. ⚠︎ Not settled:
  • 27 January by the Ingen ferry, missing since the 28th (the note); probably the 27th (Dodewaard's letter);
  • 28 January, sent by van Loenen (the brothers' questionnaires and summaries);
  • 29 January (Boeree, p. 245; Caspers, p. 66); killed on 30 or 29 January (his mother, for Willem);
  • after the middle of February (Flip Esveld, p. 7); van Loenen dates nothing for the loss, and received Andrews only "Begin Februari" (p. 14).
  • ◐ The cross on Henk's grave has 28 January and the Foundation's form has him buried on 30 or 31 January (scan 4, doubtful on other points, above), so the February date cannot be his; our inference, which rests on those dates.
• His death. 28 January 1945 on the cross, the deed, the roll of honour and the Foundation's page; 29 January on the Foundation's form and his mother's.
• Which brother was found. The note has Willem found and Henk missing, and the October 1945 questionnaires agree, each for its own man: Willem's has him found dead, Henk's that nothing has been heard of him. ⚠︎ The Americans' summaries of December 1945 swap them: Henk's says "his body was found in the meadows near Dodewaard" (p. 12), Willem's that "the body of his brother has been found" (his mother's file, p. 7). Henk's grave was opened only in July 1946 (scan 6), so ◐ the summaries very probably have the brothers the wrong way round.
• How he died. A V-1 (the Americans, Boeree, Caspers), "beschieting" (his mother), English fire (⚠︎ a visitor's note of 2014), "Killed in Action" (the cross). No record held settles it.
• Gordon's stay. 24 or 25 October 1944 to about 8 January 1945, 10 or 11 weeks (Gordon); two months (Boeree, p. 129); from 25 October, 60 days, passed on to "Amerongen, capt. H. v. Loenen" (his mother's form, p. 4). ⚠︎ Aart van de Heg's table has "W. Gordon" from "half Dec. 44", 14 days, received from "Widow v.d. Mheen, Lunteren" (his file, p. 6), which fits none of these.

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