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Major Stanley Winfield
was born in Calgary, Alberta in 1923,
and served as a member of the Royal Canadian Air Force from
December 1941 to June 1946.
Liberator of the Netherlands
In February, 1945, I was
stationed with an R.C.A.F. Unit in Peterborough, England, at
which time I was selected to serve with the Allied Control
Commission (Air) and I proceeded to London in March to
attend a four week course, the aim of which was to prepare
the candidates with a knowledge of the historical and
psychological foundations of Germany, the German Airforce
organisation and methods of disarmament and control with
particular attention paid to the attitude to be adopted by
disarmament personnel towards the military and civil
population of Germany once victory was attained. I completed
the course in April and on May l2th, 1945 I was flown to
Airport B 106 at Enschede, Holland. I was the first Canadian
Airforce personnel to arrive and was then transported to
Delden, Holland, to await the arrival of the advance party.
Delden was at that time the headquarters of General Crear. I
stayed at the city of Delden until May 25th, 1945, on which
day a convoy of 4 vehicles left for Germany. Squadron
Leader Ted Aplin was in charge of our small party and our
destination was Celle, Germany. On crossing the Dutch-German
frontier into Germany, I felt that I was entering a land of
the dead - the same feeling that I had when I went into
Germany the first time when my destination was Meppen. The
first leave allocations have finally come in - for
Amsterdam. Since I had been observing the
non-fraternization ban, I could hardly wait to get to
Amsterdam and some female companionship.
The beautiful German girls working our Mess as waitresses
were not helping our morale any.
So, after an uncomfortable fourteen hour
truck journey, we finally arrived in
Amsterdam and were taken to
the Red Lion Hotel. |
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What a change-- soft beds with sheets, hot and cold
running water, telephones ( but we didn
' t know anyone to phone). After a wonderful dinner (it is
amazing what a good cook can do with straight Army rations),
we went downstairs to the bar, fortified ourselves with a
couple of glasses of gin, and set out to see what Amsterdam
had to offer. According to the map supplied by the Canadian
Army, there were clubs, cabarets, dances all over town, laid
on especially for the troops, with entertainment assured. We
went to a place called Polmans which was just across the
street. Armed with a Dutch-English dictionary, we surveyed
the assortment of Dutch girls who had volunteered to act as
hostesses that night. We decided on two - one very good
looking in a Dutch sort of way and the other not so bad. We
both figured on dancing with the good-looker but I got there
first and so began a beautiful friendship with Greet Van
Lanser. Unfortunately she didn't speak a word of english and
I don't speak dutch, so we had to depend upon George's
girlfriend Corry who spoke a "leedle" english to translate
when necessary, which was not too often. The girls became
our companions for the entire three days, and we partook of
movies, swimming, dancing and even horseback riding.
Expenses for the whole time cost us 1,000 cigarettes a
piece, which we sold on arrival at two
guilder per
cigarette.
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Armed
with
a Dutch
-English dictionary |
