I was ready to jump

Heroes Remember

I was ready to jump

Transcript

The, the, there was German troops. They were stationed at the farm, and they were gonna move one day. And so, they needed a horse and a wagon, and soft, you know . . . so, I was a young guy, and I was single, so the guy . . . the, my boss said, "You take this horse, and just you go," he says. He told me where to go. So I, I got that, and they started putting stuff on the wagon, landmines. And some of them were in little boxes, and some of them were not. And they had a round, round bottom. And so, I had my load on, and they told me where to go. And they, of course, kept a safe distance, you know. And so, I, I, I kept the horse really tight, very slow, you know. And oh, in the meantime, I came to watch the sky. Of course, there were lots of Spitfires around at that time, and everything that moved, they shot at. So, I was ready to jump, I'll tell you. But nothing happened, so . . . but this was quite an experience, yeah. And down, down where I was, at the farm, we lived below the dyke, and there was two pieces of land in front of the house. And, and one day, the Germans came and they surveyed and they measured, and this and that, and . . . So, what they did, they, they put they mined the dyke, ready to blow up. ( inaudible ) a rather good into the ( inaudible ). And so, when it was done, the, the whole neighbourhood was evacuated. And they put land mines in my dad's . . . on our farm, in the, in the surrounding, the area. And the war was over, and the underground people come to my dad, and my dad wanted the mines removed, you see. So they came with a bunch of Canadian soldiers, and . . . or prisoners of war, German prisoners of war, about 30 or 40 of them. And they put them all in the field, shoulder on shoulder, with sticks and so they, they located these mines and they dug them out. So they were done and, so the guy comes to my dad and says, "So what do you think, Mr. Lammers." Is this all? My dad says, "No, I don't think so". So, they went to another farm and they got a bunch of sheep. And they put the sheep in the field, and five of them got killed, yet.

Description

Mr. Lammers discusses transporting, planting and removing German land mines.

Henk Lammers

Mr. Lammers was born near Amsterdam, Holland, on March 11, 1926. At the time of German occupation, he was 14 and worked on his and his neighbour’s farms. He offers numerous perspectives on life in Holland during the Second World War. In 1946, Mr. Lammers joined the Dutch Army and served a tour of duty in Dutch Indonesia, namely Sumatra and Java. Mr. Lammers now resides in Ayton, Ontario, where he has been actively involved with the Cadets.

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