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Page 1 of 2 Ponty youngsters pay tribute to the soldiers who gave their lives to liberate the Dutch during WWII.
Pontypridd Under 13’s rugby tour to Holland was not just about rugby, the local town was itself liberated by troops from the 53rd Welsh Division and the 5th (Glamorgan) Battalion the Welch Regiment and the 7th Battalion the Royal Welch Fusiliers; many of whom were from the Pontypridd area. So on WhitSunday 2007 a ceremony was held so this young Ponty team could pay their respects to those who fought in the battle. A total of 275 Welsh soldiers gave their lives, with another 320 wounded in the battle for Den Bosch. There were also 118 local civilians killed and 80 seriously wounded, mostly women and children. Pontypridd Under 13’s paid their respects to those who died to liberate s-Hertogenbosch in Holland during WWII. In a poignant service in the heart of s-Hertogenbosch, representatives of Dukes Rugby, Pontypridd RFC, the Pontypridd Branch of The RRW (24th/41st Foot) Regimental Association and the ‘foundation of October 1944 s-Hertogenbosch’ all gave thanks to the sacrifices made in the name of freedom. The ceremony began with a welcome by Mr Robert Herschleb of RC the Dukes, followed by a brief explanation of the monument and the history of the liberation of Den Bosch by Mr Pierre Kisters, Chairman of the October 1944 s-Hertogenbosch Foundation. A dediction was then read by Mr Neil Hughes RE on behalf of Pontypridd RFC and the Pontypridd Branch of The Royal Regiment of Wales (24th/41st Foot) Regimental Association. This was followed by a poem read out by youngters from RC the Dukes and a laying of wreaths and flowers by all present. A poppy wreath was laid on behalf of the Pontypridd Branch of the RRW (24th/41st Foot) Regimental Association by Pontypridd Under 13’s captain Michael Connor, followed by a bouquet of flowers laid by younsters from the Dukes and another bouquet by the October 1944 s-Hertogenbosch Foundation. A single bugler then played a sorrowful last post to preclude a well respected two minute silence that was ended by a single bugle playing reveille, with the ceremony itself ending on a brief thank you by Robert Herschleb, with many old friends and even more new ones reminiscing, embracing or shaking hands. TRIBUTES... Any visitors to the War memorial atop the Common in Pontypridd at around noon on Saturday 29 April 2006 would have seen the strange site of a hundred or more young Dutch rugby players and their coaches stomping around in their clogs, paying their respects to the Welsh soldiers who died in the battle to liberate their town, s-Hertogenbosch. A strange sight indeed in the South Wales valleys, so on Whitsun weekend 2007 it was Pontypridd’s Under 13’s rugby team’s turn to travel to Holland and pay their respects at the memorial there. There’s a stone atop Pontypridd Common just to the left of the main memorial that is dedicated to members of the 53rd Welsh Division and the 5th (Glamorgan) Battalion the Welch Regiment, many of whom were residents of Pontypridd, who in October 1944 were involved in liberating s-Hertogenbosch. With the Dutch memorial undergoing renovation, a tribute was paid at the ‘Running Soldiers’ War Memorial in s-Hertogenbosch. The Running Soldiers memorial was inspired by a photograph of soldiers running across lockdoors wrapped in smoke during the battle for Den Bosch; in an action that saw all the bridges across a section of the twn destroyed by the Germans. So the 7th Royal Welch Fusiliers charged across the only lock left standing under heavy machine gun fire, by a miracle only one Welsh soldier was injured and a bridgehead was established, hence the monument. 's-Hertogenbosch (literally 'Duke's Woods' in Dutch, hence Dukes Rugby Club; translates in French as Bois-le-Duc), unofficially it is also known as Den Bosch. It is a municipality in the Netherlands and the capital of the province of North Brabant, located in the south of the Netherlands, 60 miles south of Amsterdam. The memorial in Pontypridd reads: "At dawn on the 22nd October 1944, 200 artillery pieces opened fire on the Dutch city of 's-Hertogenbosch heralding the attack by infantry and armour of the 53rd Welsh Division that was to defeat the German troops who had occupied the city since 1940. The 5th Battalion the Welch Regiment formed part of the order of battle of the 53rd Welsh Division. At the end of the battle the 53rd Welsh Division had lost 123 dead, 75 missing and 270 wounded. 5th Welch had lost 11 dead, 66 missing and 50 wounded. The city of 's-Hertogenbosch had lost 118 dead and 80 seriously wounded. This stone commemorates those Welsh and Dutch lives lost during the liberation of 's-Hertogenbosch and the friendship that has since developed between the citizens of Wales and the Netherlands. Voor de dappere burger van 's-Hertogenbosch.Die jaren van zware onderdrukking heft weerstaan." One survivor of the town Bert Buitenhuis recalls, "On Saturday, October 21. grenades fell on our neighbourhood for the first time and than on the afternoon of Sunday 22. all hell broke loose, 4.2-inch mortar grenades, firing from "Hinthammerpark" by the 1st Battalion Manchester's heavy weapons from the British 53rd Division, fell at intervals of 15 minutes on the "Bossche Pad" and "Graafseweg" making a few victims. My father said we should flee to the air-raid shelter on the sandy field that was located on the crossing "Orthenseweg" and "Aartshertogenlaan and so we fled to the shelter with many people, while still under the fire of the grenades. My place was near the open entry and I saw the grenades falling. The moment that the firing stopped my family went to the center of the town and came in the shelter from the store "Simon de Wit" where our neighbor was the store manager. 5 minutes after we where in the shelter the Germans blew up the bridge we just came over. We lived in the shelter until the town's liberation on October 25. I can remember that we had diner every day from beans and spice cake and Lemonade to drink. On one night I woke-up from explosions of grenades and when I turned round I looked in a big hole in an arm from a man, a fragment from a grenade wounded him. The battle from the center of the town was very heavy, the next morning everything was stock-still, but suddenly there was glass rattle and heavy gunfire. After 10 minutes the door from the shelter was opened and there stood a British soldier from the Royal Welch Fusiliers, he said that we could come out of the shelter because the liberation was complete." See: http://members.home.nl/bert.buitenhuis/indexgb.html Pontypridd RFC would like to thank Lt Colonel Gareth Pennell (Ret.) for arranging the regimental poppy wreath, tour organiser Samantha Rees and everyone at Dukes Rugby for arranging the ceremony.
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