I grew up in the village Oosterbeek, close to Arnhem, and well known to those who know about Market Garden.
My parent's house located on Utrechtseweg close to the railway bridge over the highway to Arnhem. During the battle our house was damaged by grenade and machine-gun fire. The holes in the bricks are still visible today. In our garden some fighting took place as German troops were attacking forward to the perimeter at hartenstein.
In 1978 when my father was removing an old tree, we found several pieces of equipment including an old webley pistol which was probably used by an officer. When Oosterbeek was liberated in 1945, the roof of our house was blown of by an allied bomb dropped from an airplane.
By the way, 60-70 % of the houses were damaged or destroyed during Market Garden.

As a child growing up in Oosterbeek ment being confronted with the annual Airborne Walking Tour. My parents and I always went to the annual memorial services. By this events all kids learned what had happened in history. The interest in this item is still very high even today. My interest was growing steadily and at age 12 I started collecting military stuff used at Market Garden. Many of my friends were doing this at that time. A few dozen of private museums were founded in our bedrooms and spare rooms. We were selling, buying and trading the material and were reading about it. British veterans stayed at our homes during the memorial services, looking with some amazement at our collections. Many were paying a tribute by giving us some personal belongings which they had kept. After school we marched to the woods to search for equipment. At first we only had to kick the old leafs aside to find many things. Later on we used metal- detectors to find things. Over a period of years we also found body's which were always identified and reburied, giving the families information about the location were they had been killed. Therefore they were not missing in action any longer.

In the end the police forbid us to search any more. A pithy because many unknown stories could be revealed by finding equipment. As I grew older the collection was growing bigger and bigger. Until it didn't fit in my rooms any more. When I was 18 years of age I had to stop collecting. Some material went to the Airborne Museum, the rest was sold or given away.
My impressive collection of books and films were destroyed by a fire in which I lost everything I owned. Today still keeping up with the novelties I am paying a tribute to those who fought here by putting up and maintaining this site. I hope many of you enjoy it. I will be working on it the coming years or so....
Every time when I pass the famous places of Market Garden, I can't help myself going back in time and imagine how it was. Walking through the woods, still seeing trenches, damaged trees and houses, I can almost hear the sound of the battle. Knowing exactly were what happened and at what time, you almost can relive this battle in your imagination.