The active service of Jack van Gorkom
Jack van Gorkom took another route to Paris than Piet van den Nieuwenhof and Huib Dupon did, as he had stayed behind in Hôtel des Narcisses, when his mates were transferred to the Schweizerische Anstalt für Epileptische in Zurich. One of the documents on this website is the permit that allowed Jack to travel to Geneva and leave the country on 21 December 1944. He had to report to the military police post on train station Genève-Cornavin and so he did, according to the stamp on the paper. It means that his route to Paris differed from the one taken by Piet and Huib, as Piet crossed the Swiss-French border in Les Verrières, which is quite a distance to the north.
Among the documents there is also Jack's Army Book, in which is written that he officially enlisted as a member of the Allied Forces in Fournès on 4 January 1945. The date is confirmed by a statement from the Dutch Ministry of Defence, drawn up in 1975, and also by a statement from the State pension fund. Fournès is close to Lille as well as the French-Belgium border, and therefore also very close to the place where Jack and his friends crossed the border in the opposite direction during their escape in November 1942. In December 1944 a training camp had been founded in Fournès by the Dutch military command to train the members of the Binnenlandse Strijdkrachten (Internal Forces), mostly former members of the Dutch resistance. Apparently, this was also the place where all Dutch recruits from Paris were taken on 3 January, as the diary of Piet shows. He mentions the bad organisation, the cold and the lack of food. It will not have been different for Jack's unit. The letters of Li van Gorkom to Alice van den Nieuwenhof on pages 10 and 11 of Life in Exile mention the transportation in the direction of Lille on 3 January too.
Piet also wrote in his diary about units that moved on to the training camps in Holland. This is probably a reference to Jack's unit. As a matter of fact, those units did not go all the way to Holland, but were quartered at the Belgium-Dutch border for a while, where the new service men were assigned to a new battalion, that had been founded in Zeeuws-Vlaanderen on 18 December 1944 as Wachtbataljon III (Guarding Battalion III). Zeeuws-Vlaanderen is the most southern part of the Dutch province of Zeeland. On 2 January 1945 the name of the battalion was changed to I-3 R.I., meaning 1st Battalion of the 3rd Regiment Infantry. It operated under British command, who referred to it as the Paris Batt.
Going by the statement from the Defence department, Jack "stayed behind while on leave" from 6 February onwards. This was not considered an offence, it seems, as his return on 18 February is marked as "voluntarily reporting back". It is in this period that he travelled back to the French-Swiss border at Les Verrières with the intent to smuggle his wife Li and daughter Louise over the border, back to Holland. Li tells all about his two attempts to do so in her letters of 12 February and 6 March to Alice on page 11, 12 and 13 of Life in Exile. The first attempt was on 7 February. The second on 15 or 16 February. Among the documents on this site a laissez passer can be found that shows that Jack started the return journey to his unit on 16 February after both attempts had failed. It took him two days, therefore, to make it back. His absence of 12 days was later deducted from his pension. As active service counted double for the pension build-up, it was even a price of 24 days that he has paid.
The same laissez passer shows that battalion I-3 R.I. was quartered at Vracene, nowadays written as Vrasene, a little Belgian village in the vicinity of Antwerp, near the river Schelde and also very close to the village of Clinge where Jack and his friends once had crossed the Dutch-Belgium border in November 1942. On 10, 11 or 12 March—depending on the source the information comes from—the battalion was moved to the province of Zeeland and came under the command of the Prinses Irene Brigade. This Brigade was founded in England in 1941 and serves till the day of today as icon of all Dutchmen that took part in the liberation of the Netherlands by the Allied Forces. Jack's unit was quartered on the island of Tholen. This was right at the battle front, as the Germans were still occupying large parts of the Netherlands, including the island of Schouwen-Duiveland, which is immediately next to Tholen.
One month later, the Prinses Irene Brigade itself was relocated to the East, and battalion I-3 R.I. came under the command of the 1st Canadian Army. On 5 May 1945 the Germans officially surrendered and on 8 May 1945 the 1st Canadian Army made its very festive, historical entry into The Hague, an image very often used, whenever attention is paid to the liberation of Holland. This entry was headed by the Dutch Prinses Irene Brigade, but ironically and quite confusing, the Dutch Battalion I-3 R.I. was part of the Canadian forces then. So, Jack finally returned to The Hague as a 'Canadian'.
Meanwhile, Jack was very worried that Li would try to come back to Holland on her own. Three days after the glorious entry in The Hague he simply took off without leave and travelled another time to Les Verrières. It was on 23 May that he finally succeeded to get Li and Louise illegally across the border and bring them back to Holland. After this, he reported back to his unit on 2 June, but this time it was regarded desertion, meaning that he had to spend some days in jail. Shortly afterwards the battalion I-3 R.I. went on transport to Germany, where they were part of the occupation forces. According to a source on the internet, it was the battalion's assignment to look after German prisoners of war in Mönchengladbach, just across the Dutch border.
On 8 August 1945, Jack's contract was finally finished. It must have been a contract for half a year, as he had enlisted on 4 January. Therefore the contract should have ended on 4 July, but if you add up his days of absence in February and May, you get exactly the date of 8 August. Click here for a larger view
Jack van Gorkom took another route to Paris than Piet van den Nieuwenhof and Huib Dupon did, as he had stayed behind in Hôtel des Narcisses, when his mates were transferred to the Schweizerische Anstalt für Epileptische in Zurich. One of the documents on this website is the permit that allowed Jack to travel to Geneva and leave the country on 21 December 1944. He had to report to the military police post on train station Genève-Cornavin and so he did, according to the stamp on the paper. It means that his route to Paris differed from the one taken by Piet and Huib, as Piet crossed the Swiss-French border in Les Verrières, which is quite a distance to the north.
Among the documents there is also Jack's Army Book, in which is written that he officially enlisted as a member of the Allied Forces in Fournès on 4 January 1945. The date is confirmed by a statement from the Dutch Ministry of Defence, drawn up in 1975, and also by a statement from the State pension fund. Fournès is close to Lille as well as the French-Belgium border, and therefore also very close to the place where Jack and his friends crossed the border in the opposite direction during their escape in November 1942. In December 1944 a training camp had been founded in Fournès by the Dutch military command to train the members of the Binnenlandse Strijdkrachten (Internal Forces), mostly former members of the Dutch resistance. Apparently, this was also the place where all Dutch recruits from Paris were taken on 3 January, as the diary of Piet shows. He mentions the bad organisation, the cold and the lack of food. It will not have been different for Jack's unit. The letters of Li van Gorkom to Alice van den Nieuwenhof on pages 10 and 11 of Life in Exile mention the transportation in the direction of Lille on 3 January too.
Piet also wrote in his diary about units that moved on to the training camps in Holland. This is probably a reference to Jack's unit. As a matter of fact, those units did not go all the way to Holland, but were quartered at the Belgium-Dutch border for a while, where the new service men were assigned to a new battalion, that had been founded in Zeeuws-Vlaanderen on 18 December 1944 as Wachtbataljon III (Guarding Battalion III). Zeeuws-Vlaanderen is the most southern part of the Dutch province of Zeeland. On 2 January 1945 the name of the battalion was changed to I-3 R.I., meaning 1st Battalion of the 3rd Regiment Infantry. It operated under British command, who referred to it as the Paris Batt.
Going by the statement from the Defence department, Jack "stayed behind while on leave" from 6 February onwards. This was not considered an offence, it seems, as his return on 18 February is marked as "voluntarily reporting back". It is in this period that he travelled back to the French-Swiss border at Les Verrières with the intent to smuggle his wife Li and daughter Louise over the border, back to Holland. Li tells all about his two attempts to do so in her letters of 12 February and 6 March to Alice on page 11, 12 and 13 of Life in Exile. The first attempt was on 7 February. The second on 15 or 16 February. Among the documents on this site a laissez passer can be found that shows that Jack started the return journey to his unit on 16 February after both attempts had failed. It took him two days, therefore, to make it back. His absence of 12 days was later deducted from his pension. As active service counted double for the pension build-up, it was even a price of 24 days that he has paid.
The same laissez passer shows that battalion I-3 R.I. was quartered at Vracene, nowadays written as Vrasene, a little Belgian village in the vicinity of Antwerp, near the river Schelde and also very close to the village of Clinge where Jack and his friends once had crossed the Dutch-Belgium border in November 1942. On 10, 11 or 12 March—depending on the source the information comes from—the battalion was moved to the province of Zeeland and came under the command of the Prinses Irene Brigade. This Brigade was founded in England in 1941 and serves till the day of today as icon of all Dutchmen that took part in the liberation of the Netherlands by the Allied Forces. Jack's unit was quartered on the island of Tholen. This was right at the battle front, as the Germans were still occupying large parts of the Netherlands, including the island of Schouwen-Duiveland, which is immediately next to Tholen.
One month later, the Prinses Irene Brigade itself was relocated to the East, and battalion I-3 R.I. came under the command of the 1st Canadian Army. On 5 May 1945 the Germans officially surrendered and on 8 May 1945 the 1st Canadian Army made its very festive, historical entry into The Hague, an image very often used, whenever attention is paid to the liberation of Holland. This entry was headed by the Dutch Prinses Irene Brigade, but ironically and quite confusing, the Dutch Battalion I-3 R.I. was part of the Canadian forces then. So, Jack finally returned to The Hague as a 'Canadian'.
Meanwhile, Jack was very worried that Li would try to come back to Holland on her own. Three days after the glorious entry in The Hague he simply took off without leave and travelled another time to Les Verrières. It was on 23 May that he finally succeeded to get Li and Louise illegally across the border and bring them back to Holland. After this, he reported back to his unit on 2 June, but this time it was regarded desertion, meaning that he had to spend some days in jail. Shortly afterwards the battalion I-3 R.I. went on transport to Germany, where they were part of the occupation forces. According to a source on the internet, it was the battalion's assignment to look after German prisoners of war in Mönchengladbach, just across the Dutch border.
On 8 August 1945, Jack's contract was finally finished. It must have been a contract for half a year, as he had enlisted on 4 January. Therefore the contract should have ended on 4 July, but if you add up his days of absence in February and May, you get exactly the date of 8 August. Click here for a larger view
