Pte William Gordon

18 Dec 1916 – ?

Pte William Alexander Gordon (6466835)

About: A private of C Company, 156 Parachute Battalion, Murphy's battalion, nursed through the winter of 1944 in the house of the widow Jacoba van der Mheen at Lunteren, and taken in January 1945 by ◐ her sons Henk and Wim to a garage owner at Amerongen (◐ our match, not exact, for Gerald Esveld's house, a week after Murphy left it). He crossed from Sliedrecht on 7 March 1945 with Sam Walsh.

Unit or role: Private, 6466835, No. 10 Platoon, "C" Company, 156 Parachute Battalion (the Pegasus Archive; Kew's entry for his report). By trade a "Rubber Vulcaniser" (his report).

Where: 18 Swan Close, Hanworth, Middlesex, his home address in 1945 (his report; Hollebrands's list, p. 3). In the Netherlands: a shed at Wolfheze; a school at Ede; a farm near Lunteren; the widow Jacoba van der Mheen's house on the Postweg at Lunteren; a garage at Amerongen; Sliedrecht.

Evidence: ✓ His own report to I.S.9 (WEA), interviewed 7 March 1945, as printed by the Pegasus Archive (his report); ✓ Kew's catalogue entries for that report, none digitised (WO 208/5413/31; WO 208/3352/2383), and ◐ WO 208/5275/400, which we read as his index card because Kew's series description for WO 208/5275 is a "Nominal card index" (the entry itself gives only his name, number and reference: the entry; the series); ✓ the Dutch helpers' files with the Americans: Jacoba van der Mheen's (p. 4), Jan Evers's (p. 24), and the Sliedrecht men's lists (Hollebrands, p. 3; Van der Ley, p. 13); ✓ Th. A. Boeree, Kroniek van Ede (1947), p. 129; ◐ the statements of Mrs Esveld and Berend Esveld, whose "Bill" is our match for him, not exact (Mrs Esveld, p. 5; Flip Esveld, p. 7).

✓ His report gives his date of birth as 18 December 1916 ("18 Dec 16"), his army service as five years and three months, and his trade as a rubber vulcaniser; Kew's entry for the report has the same date of birth (his report; WO 208/5413/31). Nothing held says where he was born.

✓ The Pegasus Archive's compiler, citing The Parachute Regiment's Transfer and Enlistment Book 10, p. 5, and the parachute course report from RAF Ramat David (neither held here), has him enlist in The Royal Fusiliers on 17 January 1940, volunteer for the airborne forces in the Middle East, complete Parachute Course 34 at Ramat David from 19 to 29 April 1943, and go to No. 10 Platoon, "C" Company of the 156th, with whom he saw action in Italy in September 1943 (the Pegasus Archive).

✓ By his report he took off in a Dakota from an airfield in the Grantham area at about 11:00 on 18 September 1944 and landed west of Wolfheze at about 14:00; the compiler adds Saltby, a C-47 of the 314th Troop Carrier Group (chalk 631), and DZ-Y (his report). The stick he names: Lt Wilcox, Sgt Walsey, Ptes Fairclough, Lockett, Warrick, Lowe and O'Reilly, and Sgt Hayes; the compiler's brackets give the service records' spellings (Willcock, Wasley, Warwick) and what became of each (same page). By his report:

• his company was sent on towards Arnhem, met the Germans at Oosterbeek and went back to Wolfheze for the night;
• at dawn on 19 September his half of the battalion attacked a wood and held its part of the line for about nine hours, until the company commander (Maj. G. S. Powell in the compiler's bracket; Geoffrey Powell) ordered them back to Wolfheze;
• that night the second-in-command (Capt. H. Montgomery in the bracket) took 22 men into the woods, and at dawn on the 20th they ambushed a German patrol and pulled back;
• the officers split them into small parties; his was Meechan, O'Reilly, Lowe, Sgt Conlon, Warwick and himself, and on 23 September they found themselves back at Wolfheze, in a disused shed with raw potatoes and a water tap;
• on the evening of 28 September Conlon and Warwick went out to look for food containers: "They had not been gone very long when we heard shots. We never saw those two again."

They stayed in the shed three weeks. On 14 or 15 October a Dutch Red Cross worker and the Roman Catholic chaplain of 4th Parachute Brigade (Capt. Father D. McGowan in the bracket), looking for dead and wounded paratroopers, found them and promised a Red Cross van; "From the time of arrival of the van until reaching Allied lines I was in friendly hands and my movements were arranged for me" (his report).

✓ On 15 or 16 October a nurse and a driver took them, under rugs, to Ede, to "a school which was a temporary hospital for evacuees", where he stayed five days and was given civilian clothes; on 19 or 20 October a Red Cross wagon took them to a farm near Lunteren, "The farmer was known to me as LUC" (his report). The report's days do not add up: five days from 15 or 16 October end on 20 or 21, so only the 15th with the 20th fits its 19 or 20. Boeree's chronicle of Ede names the seven parachutists that Mrs Nijhof had brought into the Mulo school as "Gibbings, Mac Meekin, O'Reilly, Law, Gordon, Boardman en de signalman Parker", taken on 12 October with 13 others to Aart Roelofsen and shared out (p. 129, read on the image). ◐ Mac Meekin and Law are possibly the Meechan and Lowe of his party, Boeree spelling them his own way, beside O'Reilly; but the next paragraph of the same page names a "Robert Law" among the men the Lunteren people moved, so Law may not be Lowe (Kew's entry for his report has Private T Lowe). ⚠︎ Boeree's 12 October does not fit the 14 or 15 October on which Gordon's report has him found (see Jan Evers, below).

Boeree goes on:

On 23 October they went over the Rhine, except Gordon, who was ill and stayed two months more in the house of the van der Mheen family on the Postweg.

Dutch originalZij gingen 23 October over de Rijn behalve Gordon, die ziek was en nog twee maanden in huis bleef bij de familie van der Mheen aan de Postweg.

— Th. A. Boeree, Kroniek van Ede gedurende de bezettingstijd (1947), p. 129 · the page, read on the image

The compiler's brackets on his report have Lowe and O'Reilly "Escaped Pegasus I" (his report).

Jan Evers. ✓ Jan Evers of Schansweg 11, Ederveen, who by the Americans' summary sheltered Capt. King (Gilbert Kirschen) and his operator and "risked shelter of 12 wounded paratroops", has "William Gordon" among the men he helped (his file, p. 20, image-checked). His own table, ◐ section 13 of his questionnaire of 22 June 1945, has Gordon from 7 October 1944 for 14 days, received (like every man on it) from A. Roelofsen, and passed to "Wid. v.d. Mheen" (the widow v.d. Mheen) (p. 24, transcribed from the image). ◐ The table has seven men from 7 October, six unnamed and Gordon, the six crossing to Renkum on 23 October: the same count as Boeree's seven from the Mulo school, all but Gordon over the Rhine on the 23rd, both from Roelofsen's hands. The match of the two lists is ours, on the count and the crossing. The two lists also differ on the dates: Evers has the men from Roelofsen from 7 October, where Boeree has them taken to him on 12 October, so Roelofsen is what they share, not the date. ⚠︎ The dates do not fit Gordon's own report: Evers has him from 7 October and Boeree has the seven taken to Roelofsen on 12 October, where Gordon has the Red Cross worker find him in the Wolfheze shed on 14 or 15 October. His report also has the Ede school (five days from 15 or 16 October) and the farm "LUC" (from 19 or 20 October) between the shed and the van der Mheens; Evers has neither stop, and Boeree has an Ede school, the Mulo, but no farm and the move to Roelofsen on 12 October. The sources do not settle whether the man on Evers's and Boeree's lists travelled as his report says.

✓ He was moved on 24 or 25 October:

On 24 or 25 Oct it was decided to move me to another place where I could receive proper treatment. I had been suffering from a form of paralysis in both legs which was getting increasingly worse, so on the morning of 24 or 25 Oct I was moved by horse and cart to a blacksmith's house somewhere between BARNEVELD (E. 5496) and LUNTEREN. The blacksmith's name was VAN DER MHEEN. For 10 or 11 weeks I was looked after by a Dutch doctor and nurse who spared no time nor trouble in nursing me back to health. They could not have been kinder.

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

He names neither the doctor nor the nurse. ✓ The house was the van der Mheen family's on the Postweg (Boeree, above): Postweg 110, Lunteren, the address of the widow Jacoba van der Mheen on her questionnaire of 22 June 1945, and of her sons Henk and Wim van der Mheen in the Americans' files and on the British index (her questionnaire, p. 3; Henk's file, p. 12; the British index, page M/9). Her questionnaire has one man in its table:

✓ "William Gordon", "Par. R.", hidden from 25 October 1944 for 60 days, received from "J. Evers" and passed on to "Amerongen, capt. H. v. Loenen." (her file, p. 4): ◐ Hendrik van Loenen, "Capt. Henk van Loenen, bijgenaamd Bob" (nicknamed Bob) in Boeree, dropped at the end of December 1944: near Renswoude by his own statement and Kluiters, on the road from Lunteren to Ederveen by Boeree (Boeree, p. 243; his page). Gordon himself does not name van Loenen.

◐ Which of the family was his blacksmith, Gordon does not say. Willem was a smith (smid) by his Dodewaard death deed (the index record), and a visitor's note of 2014 on the War Graves Foundation's page (⚠︎, whose writer calls himself a relative by marriage) has him "opvolger van zijn vader in de smederij aan de Postweg te Lunteren" (his father's successor in the smithy on the Postweg at Lunteren) (Oorlogsgravenstichting; Wim van der Mheen).

While he was there. ◐ By the dates of his stay he was in the house on the night of the Pegasus II gathering, when Boeree has a party of ten Allied men and two Dutchmen, collected by Dirk, the Neerlangbroek policeman (with a few picked up at Amerongen), and received by Tonny at the "Walderveensche molen", rest "bij de Wed. van der Mheen aan de Postweg" (at the widow van der Mheen's on the Postweg) on their way to the assembly point at Wolfswinkel's chicken houses (p. 178, read on the image). Boeree names none of them, and no source says Gordon saw them.

✓ His report goes on:

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. On 15 Jan whilst staying with BEER, I received a message from one of the Underground people to the effect that a crossing was to be attempted somewhere in the vicinity of TIEL (E. 4268). I set off with a guide about 0500 hrs on 19 Jan to contact another group that was making the crossing.

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

◐ "HANK and WILHELM" are very probably Henk and Wim: Gordon's own words give the family name and the house, and the brothers' files give two sons there, Hendrik and Willem, "Henk" and "Wim" to the Americans and Boeree (Henk's file, p. 12; Willem's, p. 14; Henk van der Mheen). Mrs Esveld's "Henk and Wim" (below) are the same first names again. Who "a M. BEER" was, no source held says.

◐ The garage was very probably the Esvelds': the father, Gerald (Gerrit Hendrik) Esveld, is garagehouder (garage owner) on his son Coen's death deed (Amerongen 1945, Nr. 48), and the Dodewaard police report of 29 June 1945 has the van der Mheen brothers in hiding "bij Gerrit Esveld garagehouder te Amerongen" (at Gerrit Esveld's, the garage owner at Amerongen) (the note). And Mrs Esveld's statement of 28 May 1945 has, after Murphy:

Bill, parachutist, Scotland. Came down about 18 Sep near ARNHEM. He was wounded and after wandering about for some time suffering from dysentery he arrived at the house of the de MEENT family at 't Woud, near BARNEVELD. He remained here for a long time and then on 9 Jan he arrived with Henk and Wim at the house of Mrs. ESVELD. Bill stayed here for 2 weeks, went for a short time to ESVELD Jr., came back again and remained until about the middle of February, when he was taken to some other people.

— Mrs G. H. Esveld-Strubbe · statement for the Americans, A.B. No. 00261 · 28 May 1945 · her file, p. 5

"de MEENT" is her spelling (◐ very likely van der Mheen, misspelt; Hendrik van Loenen wrote the brothers' name the same way, "van de Meent": his statement, p. 23; Henk van der Mheen).

Her son Berend "Flip" Esveld of Leersum has a Bill too, in his statement of the same day:

Bill, Bren gunner, dropped in Sep near ARNHEM, as a parachutist.

In mid January Bill arrived at Flip's with Wim and Henk from BARNEVELD. Flip took Bill, together with Chris, to a farmer in MAARSBERGEN. Bill stayed with Flip for about a month, and then went via the farmer to G.H. ESVELD Sr. at AMERONGEN, where he remained until the crossing at Biesbosch. This crossing did not succeed, however, and Bill returned to Flip's for about 14 days, after which another crossing was attempted, with better results.

— Berend Albert Esveld Jr. · statement for the Americans, A.B. No. 00259 · 28 May 1945 · his file, p. 7

✓ His list of 26 April 1946 has "Bill Paratrooper from "Arnhem Landing" London Engl.", 42 days, received from "v. d. Mheen. Lunteren", passed on "verwoerd naar Biesbos 1e etappe" (sic, for vervoerd: taken to the Biesbosch, first stage) (p. 13, the handwritten original); the typed copy has a ditto there of the line above, "took them myself to Engl. lines" (p. 10, image-checked).

◐ Our match for Mrs Esveld's Bill, and not exact. For it: the landing about 18 September near Arnhem (Gordon's was the 18th); the long stay with "the de MEENT family at 't Woud, near BARNEVELD" (◐, on her spelling; whether 't Woud is at or near Postweg 110, Lunteren is not checked, and no source held places it); the date, 9 January against Gordon's "8 Jan, or thereabouts"; the escort, Henk and Wim; a garage owner's house at Amerongen; his stay to about the middle of February against Gordon's 19 February; Flip's "v. d. Mheen. Lunteren" (about the same Bill, so not independent of the rest); its London, England, near enough Gordon's home address at Hanworth, Middlesex (now part of west London); and the widow van der Mheen's form, which passes Gordon to Amerongen. Against it, and not settled:

• His home. Mrs Esveld has Scotland; nothing held tests it, since no source held says where Gordon was born, and his report and the Sliedrecht lists give his home as Hanworth, Middlesex. Flip's list, which has London, is counted above as near enough.
• His wound. Mrs Esveld has him wounded and suffering from dysentery; Gordon's report mentions no wound or dysentery and has paralysis in both legs. That he was ill fits (Boeree has Gordon "ziek", ill); the wound does not appear.
• The Bren gun. Flip's Bill is a Bren gunner; Gordon's report does not say what he carried.
• Flip's dates. ⚠︎ Flip has Bill at his own house from mid-January for about a month, then at Esveld Sr.'s until a Biesbosch crossing, where Gordon has himself at Beer's from about 8 January to 19 February, away only for the Tiel attempt (below). Mrs Esveld's "went for a short time to ESVELD Jr." is the only stay with Flip that fits Gordon's dates.

✓ One statement gives Bill a surname. Wiebe H. Hoogeveen, of the "Leopold" S-phone team, hidden at Amerongen from mid-January 1945 by J. van Dooleweerd, wrote on 12 June 1945:

Bill Gordon, a Scott from London, R.A.F. who baled out over Arnhem arrived at van Dooleweerd's from Flip beginning February. He remained there for about 7 days. Wiebe took Bill then to Leersum to Flip for the crossing, which was successful.

— Wiebe H. Hoogeveen · statement for the Americans, A.B. No. 00277 · 12 June 1945 · his file, p. 5, image-checked

Jacob van Dooleweerd's own statement has "Bill, parachutist, landed near ARNHEM (see supplement No. 00261, of Mrs. ESVELD-STRUBBE)", brought by Mr Hoogland at the end of February or the beginning of March, five or six days, until collected "by Wim BUSSINK (alias Wiep HOOGEVEEN) for the crossing" (his file, p. 7; the Hoogland family). ◐ The name and the cross-reference to Mrs Esveld's statement point to Gordon. ⚠︎ The rest does not fit him: Hoogeveen has an RAF man who baled out, where Gordon was a parachute soldier, and both statements put Bill at Amerongen and Leersum in February or March, where Gordon's own report has him at Beer's until 19 February and then at Sliedrecht. Whether these two statements describe Gordon, another Bill, or two men run together, is open.

✓ Gordon set off on 19 January "to contact another group that was making the crossing"; his report hands this part of the story to "Para's 7 - 9 incl of App 'C' to E & E Report No. S9/WEA/1/280/2372 - Capt. T.F. REDMAN, R.A.M.C.", then goes on: "When we re-crossed the RHINE I returned to BEER's house. From this date until 19 Feb I stayed with him" (his report). Redman's report is not held. ◐ The group was very probably the party of Graeme Warrack, Lipmann Kessel, Derek Ridler and Theo Redman with Capt. King (Gilbert Kirschen):

• Brig. Hackett's report has him reach Maarn on 30 January and see "Col. WARRACK and Capts. KESSEL, RIDDLER and REDMAN, who had all lately returned from their abortive attempt to cross at TIEL" (Hackett's report, p. 13).
• Noordman prints Kessel's account: "Om vier uur in de morgen van 18 januari vertrok ik van Huis te Maarn" (at four in the morning of 18 January I left the Huis te Maarn), and the attempt failed, "waren we op 24 januari weer terug op Huis te Maarn" (we were back at the Huis te Maarn on 24 January) (Noordman, p. 314). That is a day before Gordon's 19th.
• ⚠︎ Neither Warrack's book nor Kessel's names him: Warrack counts "four British officers and two British agents" on the dyke at dawn, and Kessel "four British officers, three of whom couldn’t speak Dutch, and two Belgian special agents" (Warrack, Travel by Dark, p. 218; Kessel, Surgeon at Arms, p. 185).

No source puts him with Murphy. Their paths crossed in five places:

• The battalion and the company. ◐ Both were of the 156th Battalion; Gordon of No. 10 Platoon, C Company (the Pegasus Archive). Murphy's company is C by Walsh's report, a Bren gunner "with C-Coy of the 156 Para Bn" who calls Murphy "of my Coy", and by Mrs Esveld's "C Company" (Walsh; Mrs Esveld, p. 5); the Pegasus compiler's bracket at Murphy's name has the Mortar Platoon (Walsh). No source puts the two together at Arnhem.
• Pegasus II. Murphy was in the crossing of 17/18 November 1944 (Hardy; Pegasus II); Gordon was then ill in the van der Mheens' house, where one party rested on its way to the assembly point (above).
• The Esvelds' house. Murphy was there 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; the crossing and recapture). ◐ If Mrs Esveld's Bill is Gordon (our match, not exact, above), he came to the same house on 9 January, seven days after Murphy left it (8 January by his own report, six days).
• The van der Mheen brothers and Coen Esveld. The brothers who took Gordon to Amerongen went into the Betuwe at the end of January and were killed near Dodewaard (the police note; Henk van der Mheen), ◐ very probably 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). The ties between Coen and the brothers:
  • van Loenen's list of the four he lost, "Wim and Henk van de Meent from Renswoude, Koen Esveld from Amerongen, George Andrews" (p. 23);
  • Flip Esveld's Mikol, who crossed "with G.H. ESVELD, Wim and Henk" (p. 7);
  • the Dodewaard death deeds of Coen (Nr. 13) and Willem (Nr. 14), consecutive, both for 29 June 1945 (Coen's; Willem's).
• Sam Walsh. Sam Walsh, who escaped with Murphy from the Willem III Barracks at Apeldoorn, then a British hospital, at dusk on 6 October 1944 (Walsh), was with Gordon at Sliedrecht and crossed with him on 6/7 March 1945 (below).

✓ His report:

On the afternoon of 19 Feb I was taken by a guide named LUC to SLIEDRECHT (D. 9863). On the night of 19 Feb I stayed with the Domine of MOLENAARS GRAF (E. 0067), a M. Klaas DEKKER. On 20 Feb a girl (name not known to me) came and took me to VAN DER WIEL's house in SLIEDRECHT. Here I stayed until 6 mar.

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

"From here my story corresponds, in the main details, to that narrated by F/Sgt. RADCLIFFE in Appx 'C' to E & E Report No IS9/WEA/1/292/2382." He was interviewed by I.S.9 (WEA) on 7 March 1945 (same page). Radcliffe's report is not held.

Frank McNaught's report has Gordon join his party at Doorn, before Sliedrecht:

Mrs. LELS, an English lady, is the wife of a large Tug [boat] owner in ROTTERDAM. Here we were joined by Pte. GORDON … who, I believe, had returned after an unsuccessful attempt to cross the LEK.

— Pte F. McNaught · his report to I.S.9 (WEA) · Pegasus Archive

The cut holds the compiler's bracket (Gordon's number, platoon and company) and the report's own cross-reference to his report, IS9/WEA/1/293/2383. From there McNaught's report, and the fuller telling Noordman prints as Walsh's, take the party (McNaught, Riley, Walsh and Gordon) from Hoogland on 17 February, over the Lek near Schoonhoven, to Dekker's at Molenaarsgraaf and to Sliedrecht on 19 February, where an American lieutenant, Belton, and an English sergeant, Radcliffe, joined them. The boats from the far side did not come that night, and "Gordon and I were put up for the time being with Van der Wiel in Sliedrecht"; on 6 March the party left Sliedrecht in a rowing boat, and they "arrived in the harbour of Lage Zwaluwe at about half past four in the morning on 7 March 1945" (Noordman, chapter 22, a research translation of pp. 305–306; McNaught). ◐ That text is very probably McNaught's report put in Walsh's voice (Sam Walsh). Walsh's own report has him "billeted at the home of VAN DER WEIL, in SLIEDRECHT" from the "unsuccessful attempt to cross on 19 Feb" until the night of the crossing, and does not name Gordon (Walsh).

The Sliedrecht line's helpers wrote him down:

• ✓ Hollebrands, of the Dutch Interior Forces, who "participated in … a crossing in the Sliedrecht area which was under the direction of IS 9": "W.GORDON 18 Swan Close - Hanworth - Middlesex", the address on Gordon's own report, with McNaught, Walsh, Belton, Riley and Radcliffe (p. 3, image-checked).
• ✓ Ivan Johannes van der Ley of Dordrecht, who "assisted greatly in a very difficult crossing of several borders of water from Molensgraaf to Sliedrecht": "W. GORDON (Hanworth Middlesex)" (p. 13, image-checked).
• ✓ Jan Visser of Sliedrecht, a guide by bicycle from Molenaarsgraaf to Sliedrecht: "W.GORDON Paratr." (p. 15).
• ✓ The long lists. Gordon is one line among the evaders of the line in the tables of Klaas de With (p. 8), Dirk Leendert van der Brugge (p. 9; p. 12), Marrigje Dogterom of Groot-Ammers (p. 3), Cornelia de Heer-de Bruin (p. 13), K. Heijboer of Groot-Ammers (p. 30) and Pieter Visser of Sliedrecht (p. 29). ⚠︎ De With's, Van der Brugge's, Dogterom's and De Heer-de Bruin's tables give every man as received from "Dick Kay" (◐ Dick Kragt), and Pieter Visser's from K. Heijboer of Groot-Ammers, which for Gordon does not fit his own road from Amerongen.

Noordman lists "Gordon, William A. 7-3-1945" among the escape and evasion reports he consulted (the book, p. 340).

✓ Kew holds his report, not digitised: WO 208/3352/2383, "Private W A Gordon (service number 6466835) … Appendix C Included"; a further entry, WO 208/5413/31, dated 7 May 1945, "Includes Cover sheet" (◐ probably the further material the first entry says may be in WO 208/5405–5436; the entry does not say); and ◐ WO 208/5275/400, which we read as his index card (the entry gives only name, number and reference) (WO 208/3352/2383; WO 208/5413/31; WO 208/5275/400).

✓ The Pegasus Archive's compiler, from the Transfer and Enlistment Book (not held here), has him transferred back to The Royal Fusiliers on 23 May 1945, and joining the 11th Battalion The Parachute Regiment (T.A.) on 7 February 1949 (the Pegasus Archive). Nothing later about him has been found (his name sweep).

• How he came to Lunteren. ✓ Each source in its own dates:
  • his report: found on 14 or 15 October, the school at Ede for five days from 15 or 16 October, a farm near Lunteren ("LUC") from 19 or 20 October, the blacksmith's from 24 or 25 October (his report);
  • Boeree: taken to Aart Roelofsen on 12 October (p. 129);
  • Jan Evers: from 7 October, 14 days, from A. Roelofsen, passed to the widow v.d. Mheen (p. 24);
  • Jacoba van der Mheen: from 25 October, received from J. Evers (p. 4).
  • ◐ So Evers is probably the man before the van der Mheens, by both their forms, but the two may come from one hand and so do not confirm each other: both forms are dated 22 June 1945 and headed "BILL.", and Evers's award summary names Dirk Wildeboer as its investigating officer (Evers, p. 20, image-checked; the form is p. 23, with its table on p. 24; Jacoba, p. 3). Whether he is Gordon's farmer "LUC", the sources do not say; Evers's farm was at Ederveen, Gordon's farm "near LUNTEREN".
  • ⚠︎ These do not fit together. Evers's 7 October and Boeree's 12 October both come before the 14 or 15 October on which Gordon's report has him found at Wolfheze. His report has the Ede school and the farm "LUC" between the shed and the van der Mheens; Evers has neither, and Boeree has the Mulo school and the move to Roelofsen on 12 October, but no farm. Evers and Boeree also differ from each other: Roelofsen has the men from 7 October in Evers's table, and from 12 October in Boeree. Not reconciled.
• How long with the van der Mheens. 24 or 25 October to about 8 January, "10 or 11 weeks" (Gordon); two months (Boeree, p. 129); 60 days from 25 October (Jacoba van der Mheen, p. 4). ⚠︎ Aart van de Heg of Barneveld has him too, in two tables. Both conflict with Gordon's report (no move in December) and with Jacoba's "passed on to Amerongen"; by length alone, her 60 days (to about 24 December) and Boeree's two months (to about 23 December) do not rule the first out:
  • his table of August 1945: "W. Gordon", from "half Dec. 44", 14 days, received from "Widow v.d. Mheen, Lunteren", crossed (his file, p. 6);
  • his table of May 1946: "William Gordon", "Dec. 44", "3/4 weeks", from A. Roelofsen of Ede, passed to "Two helpers of Roelofsen EDE (both dead)"; he "was ill and had to be nursed for a few weeks" (p. 9).
• Bill. Set out under Is Bill Gordon? and Hoogeveen's "Bill Gordon": Scotland (not tested), London (near Hanworth) or Hanworth; wounded or paralysed; a Bren gunner; parachutist or RAF; and February dates that do not fit his own report.
• Amerongen or Doorn before Sliedrecht. His report has him at Beer's at Amerongen "until 19 Feb", and taken from there to Sliedrecht that afternoon; McNaught's report and Noordman's text have him join them at Mrs Lels's at Hoogland, Doorn, before 17 February: McNaught has Gordon one "who, I believe, had returned after an unsuccessful attempt to cross the LEK", and Noordman "involved in an earlier failed attempt to cross the Rhine" (his report; McNaught; Noordman, chapter 22, a research translation). Not reconciled (Frank McNaught).
• The night at Molenaarsgraaf, and the failed attempt. His report has him at the Domine's at Molenaarsgraaf on the night of 19 February and at Van der Wiel's from the 20th, with no attempt; McNaught's report and Noordman's text have the party at Dekker's on the 18th, the attempt from Sliedrecht on the night of the 19th, and Gordon to Van der Wiel's on the way back.
• His service. A paratrooper on his report and most lists; "R.A.F." on Marrigje Dogterom's list (p. 3) and Hoogeveen's statement (above); "N.C.O." on Heijboer's (p. 30), and "W.O." on Pieter Visser's table (p. 29), where Riley has W.O. and Gordon a ditto; his report has him a private.
• His years of service. His report has "5 years, 3 months" by 7 March 1945; the compiler's enlistment of 17 January 1940 gives five years and about seven weeks (his report).
• His report's number. Kew's entry WO 208/5413/31 gives its former reference as "I.S.9.(W.E.A.)/1/293/2382", where WO 208/3352/2383, WO 208/5275/400 and McNaught's report have 2383 (WO 208/5413/31; WO 208/5275/400); 2382 is the number his own report gives for Radcliffe's.

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