On this day 80 years ago at 12.05hrs, Flight Lieutenant Chris House took off from Advanced Landing Ground B.100 Goch, Germany in Hawker Typhoon RB396 XP-W, call sign Red 4, for an attack on Mechanised Transports (METs) on a road East of Hengelo in the Netherlands. The other members of his flight returned to Goch at 13.00hrs and confirmed destroying six METs and damaging a further six. Chris was not so lucky, hit by heavy flak whilst attacking the target at 500ft, he force-landed to the north of the target. Before leaving RB396, he managed to radio his flight to confirm he was down safely. He had only been flying with the squadron for six days. Chris was helped by a Dutch family and managed to get back to the squadron three days later.
The exact location of Chris’s forced landing in RB396 was unclear until research leading up to the 75th anniversary of the crash. The Operational Record Books of 174 Squadron state that the crash site as being near Enschede, Netherlands whilst Chris’s logbook states that it was five miles SW of Lingen, Germany. The third location suggested by the museum at Fort Veldhuis was that it was near Denekamp, Netherlands close to the Dutch German Border. A local historical group, Stichting Heemkunde Denekamp confirmed that they knew the exact location of the crash site to the NW of Denekamp, as it was recorded in their book ‘Denekampers vertellen 1940-1945’.
Apart from a map showing the location, the book also included an account from a young boy, J.H.M. Knippers, who visited the crash site a week after the area was liberated by the Allies. A rough translation of the account by J.H.M. Knippers reads:
“An English fighter in the Kerksteeg.
In the first week after the Liberation in 1945, the week after Easter, on our tours around the city as a child, we mostly took to the north. We left the village via the Brink and the Lattropperstraat en turned left into a sand road at the Jewish cemetery. It led past the farms of Wiefferink and Bekker. Across the ‘vonder’ (a small bridge, usually just for pedestrians), we reached the other side of the canal. We went on and were by now in the Kerksteeg, a sand road which still looked the same. Our destination was an English plane that had crash landed in the Kerksteeg, roughly 50m in front of where it crosses with the Lattropperstraat.
As a child we had absolutely no idea what had happened here. The only thing we knew was that it was a single seater and not larger than 10 meters. But it stirred our imagination endlessly.
Who did know more was 27-year old Herman ter Duis. When he went through the Westerhoekweg on 01 April 1945, Easter Day, he saw that someone was hiding behind a shed. By the looks of his uniform he must be English, and Herman went to him. The airman trusted Herman and offered him a cigarette. He also showed him his map while indicating he wanted to get back behind Allied lines. However, the language was a problem and Herman brought the airman into the farm opposite, nowadays, the Westerhoekweg 10 and the airman was sheltered by the lady Kuipers.
When it was dark Herman ter Duis and a colleague picked him up and brought him to his own house on the ND 85 on what is now the Schiltmanweg. With the help of a translator the pilot told that he had taken off from the German airfield of Goch and was hit by flak. He spent the night with the ter Duis family. The following morning, he made clear that he wanted to return to his aircraft in the Kerksteeg, but he never got that far. On the way over there he met the first liberators. For the people who in those chaotic days of retreating Germans, bombs exploding and joyful Liberation moments, had been so close to this airman, he disappeared as quickly as he came.
The aircraft was an English fighter of the type Hawker Typhoon, which job it was to give support to the ground troops. During the Allied advance through Denekamp quite a few Typhoons were in the air. One Typhoon attacked a German flak position near the border. A house in the Nordhornsestraat was hit and two Denekampers were killed.”
J.H.M. Knippers, met with Tim Struyf who is part of our Research Team, at the crash site in the lead up to the 75th Anniversary, to pass on his recollection of his visit 80 years ago. Mr Knippers was in his 80’s at the time and has now sadly passed away.
During this meeting it was confirmed that the nephew of Herman ter Duis still lives on the farm today. The Farm today is a holiday campsite and the building where Chris was hidden houses some of the campsite facilities. The Project has met the ter Duis family on several occasions since this first visit.
Chris’s logbooks and a letter from 1976 where Chris gave his own account were kindly made available to the Project by Chris’s daughter Shirley and son Alan. In the letter Chris recalled,
“I was hit by ground fire during the attack and lost all power. I considered that if I were able to jump the strong possibility was that I would be shot by the Germans. My crash landing took plan (sic) on the edge of a wood and I remember seeing a couple of fields away, a large building with a Red Cross on its roof, also German personnel in the vicinity. I was uninjured myself, apart from a few cuts and bruises. I left the aircraft and ran away from the direction of what I presume was a German field Hospital. I also observed some Germans heading in the direction of the crash. I skirted several fields in which there were one or two men working and eventually I came to a haystack and decided to burrow into it pulling the hay in behind me.”
Chris was correct about the field hospital. The monastery marked on the map, did have a red cross painted on its roof and was used by the Germans as a field hospital. After Herman ter Duis found Chris, he was taken to the nearest farm and hidden in Lady Kuipers house until it was safe to move him after dark. He was then taken back to the farm that Herman shared with his brother, where he spent the night. Chris wrote in his letter,
“I was discovered by a young lad who took me into the farm where several adults were in the kitchen. They made me welcome and whilst there they showed me their hidden radio with which they listened to the B.B.C. news. They were very kind to me.”
Herman’s nephew has confirmed that Chris slept in one of the farmhouse bedrooms with his revolver placed on the bedside cabinet. The following morning Chris was provided with overalls, a bicycle and a guide. They set off in the direction of the Allied advance. Chris remembered in his letter,
“we had to cycle past a long column of German armour and eventually later in the day I said goodbye to my guide and bicycle and after using ditches to hide in, I was eventually found by the advanced elements of the Guards Armoured Division and a couple of days later was returned across the Rhine to my Squadron.”
To mark the 80th Anniversary the Project commissioned a plaque giving details of the events 80 years ago which is being unveiled today. The plaque has been installed on the building where Chris was hidden by the ter Duis Family so that it can be viewed by visitors to the campsite.