He says he is the last living eyewitness who saw the English Lancaster bomber crash near Anreep. As a 10-year-old boy during the Second World War, Gerhard Taatgen from Vries saw with his own eyes how the plane dived to the ground.
Taatgen lived in Assen eighty years ago and can remember the event well. “It was a dark and scary evening. There was war up in the sky. Heavy bombers were going crazy and you could hear explosions everywhere. When we walked outside we saw some kind of burning torch falling down. That was of course the Lancaster. Somewhere further on is it crashed.” That ended up being with Anreep.
Eighty years ago there was no room for prying eyes at the site of the crash. The area was cordoned off. “There was also a curfew, so no one dared to go that way.” Taatgen remained curious about the incident. Two days later he decided to take a look with his friends, but most of it had already been cleared away.
“One of the things I remember is that there was a large stone covered in blood. That made us a bit quiet. Our adventure turned into bitter seriousness.”
That left a deep impression on him. “Young people died there. Indirectly before our eyes. As if you had actually experienced an accident, you will never forget it.” Taatgen was left with a souvenir of his visit to the site. “Plexiglass, which was used for the windows of the plane. It lay on the ground. We cut out pieces of it and made rings from it. To commemorate.”