12 June: Antwerp to Valkenswaard

We set off in heavy rain from Antwerp and once we had found our way out of the city, we made good progress along the Albert Canal, forking West at Herentals on the Bocholt-Herentals (or Mass-Schelde) Canal. We were slowed momentarily when the route inexplicably took us across to the South side, where the surface was much rougher. We moved back to lovely, smooth tarmac on the other side shortly after.

We stopped at about 1:00pm for a hearty lunch at a very busy canalside restauraunt past halfway. Thereafter the rain eased. For similar surface reasons, we approached “JOE’s Bridge”, North East of Lommel, from the North Side. This was the site of the launch of the British offensive North into The Netherlands on 17 September 1944. The advance was led by the Irish Guards, commanded by Brigadier John Ormsby Evelyn Vandeleur (played by Michael Caine in Attenbrough’s film of the Market-Garden campaign, “A Bridge Too Far”. The original bridge had been destroyed by the Belgian Army in 1940, and the Germans had built a wooden pontoon, which was stormed, taken and held by Welsh and Irish Guards on 10 September 1944, establishing a bridgehead across the canal and a route North towards Eindhoven for XXX Corps.

We crossed the border a few miles further then paused at a British War Cemetery just south of Valkenswaard. Almost all of the soldiers buried here had died in the week between 17 and 24 September 1944.