Herman Steendam first drove past it. The monument for Lieutenant James W. Gilbride. The pilot jumped out of his plane, but its rear wing cut his parachute. He is commemorated with a small monument next to a railway crossing, just along the N375. “I was looking for it, because there is a sign with ‘Monument Pilot WWII’, but I drove past it.”
Partly because of that experience, Steendam started compiling a map of De Wolden, with striking monuments that, according to him, deserve more attention. “I think the knowledge about how the war went away. That is not strange because it was eighty years ago.”
Steendam himself has been military. His father served on the Grebbeberg during the invasion of the Germans in May 1940. “It always fascinated me what happened during the war. I always stop when I see a monument.”
Steendam does not have much on with general monuments that stand on many village squares. He prefers to look for personal stories, such as that of pilot Gilbride. “The story about his family. He was married to Vera. His daughter Sandy was born five weeks after he died, so she never knew her father.”
The map with an overview of monuments and the stories that go with it will be presented for the first time on Friday 11 April during the liberation concert in the church of Blijdenstein. The circulation of 2,500 pieces is then distributed in the municipality of De Wolden.