It is the third week of September 1944. Operation Market-Garden is threatening to fail due to the fierce and unexpected resistance of the German troops. The 82nd Airborne Division, whose mission is to hold open the bridge over the Waal River at Nijmegen, is under heavy fire and in danger of being overrun. On September 23, the 325th Glider Infantry Regiment (GIR) is flown to the village of Overasselt to come to the aid of the 82nd Airborne Division.

However, not all Waco gliders make it to the landing zone. The Germans fire with everything they have at the overflying C47 transport planes and the gliders hovering behind them. Many C47s and gliders are hit and in some cases forced to land in enemy territory.

So is the glider piloted by Alvin Jones.

Passing Veghel, 1st LT Day N. Oxford's C-47A is hit in the left engine and the glider has to be released. After a short decent, while being fired at from the ground Jones manages, to land safely, with the glider, in a field along a wooded area. Shortly after the landing, the Waco glider catches fire. Meanwhile, the pilot and thirteen heavily armed infantrymen face heavy gunfire from the edge of the forest, and rush to find cover in a ditch.

They have no idea where they are, but assume they can reach their own lines, and in that belief they engage in combat. What follows is an hours-long firefight with the Germans, who are apparently present in large numbers. Because the Americans are outnumbered and exhausted, and have many wounded in their ranks, as well as running out of ammunition, they are forced to surrender. Neither side is left unscathed after the battle. The Germans took six or seven casualties, and the Americans, although all alive, are also heavily wounded.

All fourteen Americans are then taken to the village of Gemert and locked up in a monastery for one night.

A day later, they are loaded onto trucks and begin their journey to various POW camps. Here they will spend the rest of the war.

 A listing of the fourteen Americans



1LT Irvin Christian Andersen

1921-2006

POW Camp Stalag 6G, Bonn

PVT Cecil Leroy Blood

1925-1991

POW Camp Stalag 7a, Moosburg 

PFC Richard Donald Cator

1922-1996

POW Camp Stalag 7a, Moosburg

(no photo available)

PVT Louis A Delosh

1919-2004

POW Camp Stalag 2a, Neubrandenburg

(no photo available)

T5 James C Dunlap

1918-2008

POW Camp Stalag 3c, Alt Drewitz

(no photo available)

FLIGHT OFFICER Alvin Charles Jones

1920-2005

POW Camp Stalag Luft 1, Barth

PFC Robert C. Miller

1920-1997

POW Camp Stalag 6G, Bonn and possibly also Stalag 7a, Moosburg

(no photo available)

PFC Galen Overholser

1922-1988

POW Stalag 7a, Moosburg

PVT Robert Hugh Wood

1923-1991

POW Camp Stalag 7a, Moosburg

(no photo available)

The six German soldiers, who died during the firefight with the Americans, after the landing of the glider on Sept. 23, 1944:

Erich Hammermeister

* 02-12-1914

Oberfeldwebel

Erinhard Glasmeier

* 10-09-1922

Unteroffizier

Friedrich Wilhelm Lüneburg

* 17--06-1905

Hauptmann

Gustav Waldmann

* 19-02-1915

Unteroffizier

Heinrich Schönemann

* 09.01.1914

Leutnant

Helmut Gäbel

* 04-011-1921

Obergefreiter

On September 22, 2024, in het Hurkske in Erp, a monument was unveiled in memory of what happened there on September 23, 1944.

That event took place next to the meadow, where the glider had landed, exactly 80 years prior.

This YouTube video provides an impression of the ceremony,

which took place that day:

 Unveiling monument 't Hurkske in Erp Sept. 22, 2024

Soon this site will host a 60-minute video reporting the complete event of the dedication and unveiling of the monument, on that sun-drenched Sunday in September.

When I entered the grounds on September 22, 2024, where the unveiling was to take place, I found there, to my great surprise, my German friend and webmaster of this site, Peter Zabel. He had travelled all the way from Germany to Erp: a drive of several hours!

On his site he made a beautiful report of this day (in German):



genealogiehilfe.de/monument-peter

The local history association “Erthepe” also made a report about this day:

Monument 't Hurkske. 22 september - local association Erthepe

This site will be updated with much more information soon.

For those interested to know more about the war in het Hurkske in Erp: there is a large amount of information available in the form of a comprehensive brochure (in the English language) and a leaflet: “Cycling and walking along events in and around het Hurkske, 1939-1945” (in Dutch).

Should you wish to get hold of this brochure and/or leaflet, write an e-mail to the webmaster, Peter Zabel, or to me, Jan Cornelis de Mik, and we will send it to you free of charge and without obligation.

„With thanks to Yannick Schop for the translation“