Mr. Jim Thorp - WWII Veteran ,  Liberator of the Netherlands

which was an experience wondering if the truck was going to tip  over into the drink.
This crossing was covered by a heavy smoke screen for about 3-4 days. We then supported the Brits when they cleared Arnhem, then headed northerly Otterloo where we heard the cheering of the people in Apeldoorn when the city was freed but we had an attack on our position that night by some holdouts who hid out in the forested area until darkness but when daylight came they hid out in a depression in the woods and ignored our call to surrender as they were surrounded by flamethrowers. They ended up being toasted..We then headed north to Harderwijk. Then east and northerly to Harlingen then Leeuwarden, bypassing Groningen to just south of Delfzijl, which my company took on the fourth or fifth of May,(my chronology may be a bit off) We were billeted in a the village of Siddeburen for a few weeks then in a school in Groningen where the army was calling for volunteers for the Pacific and my buddy and I volunteered and got back home on the 12th of July. The whole tour completely paid for by our Government

Jim Thorp

Ignored our call to surrender

Mr. Jim Thorp – section leader, Lands corporal

My Cooks tour of Holland, with the Irish Regt. of Canada began late in feb.1945. After we crossed the bridge at Nijmegen we travelled by trucks for some distance, then traveled some more on foot into a level farming area, and remained in one position for a couple of days then on to a farm house called Wolf Camp, which we passed at night and on to a road which crossed a dyke, where we dug in. Encountered some patrol activity from the German troops and engaged in some patrol and skirmishing of our own and had a fairly large group of German troops surrender to us. This position was overlooking the river Waal or Rhine. I'm not sure which but our position was overlooked from Wageningen. The Germans were launching V1 rockets from this area and we could see the flare and noise of the launching at night, until one launch just made it off the launcher when it crashed and exploded, that was the last one we heard, ha ha. We moved up river and crossed the Rhine on a pontoon bridge

May 23rd, receiving a Tulip Friendship Garden - left to right:
Mr. Terry Sheehan, City Councillor and acting Mayor of Sault Ste Marie,
Jim Thorp, Essiet, Marcello, Luluk, Rene
at the Bushplane Museum - Algoma Festival