The Liberation of Holland

  • 1 In mid-April 1945, 18-year-old North Shore (N.B.) Regiment Private Stewart MacDonald sheltered under a bridge near the rail station in Zutphen, the Netherlands. He was chest-deep in the Ijssel River, waiting for a lethal rain of shrapnel to stop. Across the river, townspeople, including 17-year-old...
  • 5

    Where Heroes Rest – 65 Years Of Liberation

    July 3, 2010 by Tom MacGregor
    Addressing a standing-room-only crowd in the new Omnisportcentrum—a 5,000-seat multi-use sports arena in Apeldoorn, the Netherlands, Mayor Fred de Graaf spoke to the Canadian veterans present and those gathered to honour them. “We knew we could not keep honouring your fallen comrades. We had to...
  • 3

    The Roads To Victory

    May 1, 2010 by J.L. Granatstein
    John Gray, an intelligence officer, was one of the first Canadian liberators to enter Rotterdam after the German surrender. He came out of the city hall where he had been inquiring where he could find the city’s resistance leaders, and saw a dozen or so...