Opheusden

[Before the Battle]

The village of Opheusden taken before the battle. In the top photo directly behind the telephone pole in the foreground is the van den Bosch home where Wim and Dir cared for my father for three hours. This picture is looking south towards the railroad station. My Father's unit advanced towards the German forces behind these houses in a drainage ditch that was half full of water and ran parallel with this street. This put the Engineers at a right angle to the oncoming Germans. A bullet hit my father in the muscle of his back and ripped out the other side, slightly puncturing his lung. The picture below shows the same street but looking north towards the windmill. The van den Bosch home is the third one on the left. Up on the right hand side is where the HQs of How Company/506th PIR was located. The paratroopers of H Company were forced back by the numberically superior German forces. On the next page is a 1944 aerial photo of the battlefield. Note the bridge and the road leading to the windmill along with the home of the van den Bosch's. The fields behind these homes is today a housing development. The village has grown from about a 1,000 in 1944 to 5,000 today.