'A new memory of our grandfather'

Photo: Quinten and Esmee Kokhuis with the book "The Forgotten Commando," ©own photo.

Roaring cannons, whistling machine gun bullets, men screaming in agony. It was war on the Waal on Sept. 20, 1944. The conditions, under which hundreds of Allied soldiers in rickety boats crossed the churning river near Nijmegen, were hellish. This action from Operation Market Garden was made world famous by the movie "A bridge too far" (1977).

'Of course it cannot be compared to what we are going to do,' say brother and sister Quinten (24) and Esmée (25) Kokhuis from Utrecht about their participation in the commemoration of the Waal crossing. On Sept. 20 and 21, 2024, they are going to experience a tiny bit of how their grandfather must have felt at the time. Grandpa Val Kokhuis (1919-2005) was the only Dutch soldier to experience the crossing at the time. His sensational story remained hidden for eighty years. Earlier this year it was chronicled in the book "The Forgotten Commando.

"I can't quite imagine what agony does to you," says Quinten, for whom paddling from bank to bank on the Waal is a challenge. He and his sister have no canoeing or rowing experience. Esmée: "But in the boat there are plenty around us who have done this before. I think it can be exciting how we will deal with the current in the Waal. It seems to be quite powerful.

Val Kokhuis' grandchildren got to know their grandfather much better thanks to the book. Quinten: "For example, we didn't know that he participated in the 1944 Waal crossing. Neither did our parents. We never used to talk about it'. Esmée: 'During his research, Peter Visser, the author of the book, uncovered even more facts that we didn't know either. Unbelievable what our grandfather went through'.

Esmée was six years young when Grandpa Val died in 2005 - Quinten four. As such, they don't have many memories of their grandfather. 'It's very cool that with our participation in the crossing there will be a kind of new memory of him,' Esmée thinks. For Quinten, September 20 and 21 is going to be an entirely special experience. He turned 24 this year; exactly the age his grandfather was at the Waal Crossing in 1944 .....

The program of the commemoration of the Waal Crossing: www.waalcrossingnijmegen.nl.
The special story about Val Kokhuis: www.devergetencommando.nl.