PILGRIMAGE to Roermond

 

 

 

"Hello my name is Ron Cox from the Netherlands Roermond
every Sunday I go metal detecting I found some items
of the plane that crash there in Kloosterhof maybe if you 
come and visit Holland Roermond I can show you the
crash site"

 

 

 

 

It was a message I  had hoped one day to read on the internet and immediately responded to Ron Cox’s kind invitation. Not only did I visit the site but Dominique Clerx and Eric Munnicks, both distinguished local historians, arranged to meet me with my Son Pearson and Grandson Will In Roermond.. They were anxious I should meet Mr Louis Cox whose family farm was adjacent to the meadows were Wellington NC607 crashed at about 5.30 on the morning of the 23rd January 1945.

Seated round the table with Dominique Clerx , Eric Munnicks and Rox Cox I heard Louis Cox describe being woken by the crash and related that the Wellington had skidded about 5000 yards along the ground and he mentioned that the tailpiece of the aircraft was missing.

His family's farm at Kloostershof, then in a district of Maasfield but now part of Roermond, was occupied by the Germans. All the oak trees that had lined the nearby roads had been cut down and used to build fortifications that were situated in the vicinityf the farm and the meadow, locations for anti-aircraft guns and other emplacements. He was sixteen years of age at the time and he and his two brothers were told to bury the three airman in the meadow where the plane had been brought down. They prevailed on the Germans to be allowed to take bodies of the three young airmen to the Cemetery in Roermond and proceeded to harness a sleigh to be pulled by a pony and began the long journey through the heavy snow covered ground to the Kapel in ’t Zand Roman Catholic Cemetery, Weg langs Het Kerkhof, Roermond. Two of brothers guided the pony and manhandling the sleigh through the wintry terrain while Louis Cox sat beside the bodies of the three RAF bodies. At the Cemetery they ensured F/O Lowrie, F/O Hill and F/O Turner were were laid to rest next to six other RAF airmen: a small RAF enclave in this Cemetery where Roermond had buried their heroes of the Resistance.

 

A view of the meadow and aerial photograph shows the family farm of Mr Louis Cox adjacent to an old [?] at Kloostershof,
the arrow indicating the approximate area of the crash-site of Wellington NC607.
The crash-site is not approachable due major road developments.

It was deeply moving to stand near to the place where my boyhood friend had died. Although I was there some sixty-five years after it had happened, time did not matter, We were, as we always have been, indefinably linked by the days of our close friendship as young boys and as youths looking forward to life as young men. We both had started our carreer - John in a banking and I in newspapers - until we put that aside to take up the call to defend our love ones and our country. I have missed John all these long years and now aged 90 make this pilgrimage to this spot where his courageous life ended in the company of brave RAF comrades. He had truly served 'Through Adversity to reach the Stars'
  

Per Ardua ad Astra.

   

John Lowrie | DFC | 103 Squadron | 140 Squadron | 69 Squadron | Roermond Grave | Friendship | Pilgrimage 1 | Pilgrimage 2