Aria Dirk Bestebreurtje

Arie Dirk Bestebreurtje (born April 12, 1916 in Rotterdam , Netherlands , † January 21, 1983 in Charlottesville , Virginia , USA) was a Dutch speed skater and reserve major of the Royal Dutch Infantry . During the Second World War he volunteered with the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) in England and became captain of a Jedburgh team. As a liaison officer, he supported the 82nd Airborne Division in Operation Market Garden and the British Special Air Service (SAS) in Operation Amherst .

He got his nickname "Captain Harry" from the British and American military units because they could not pronounce his last name. After the war he emigrated to the USA and was pastor of the Presbyterian Church (USA) .

In the movie " A Bridge Too Far " ( A Bridge Too Far ) of 1977, he is by the actor Peter Faber shown.

biography

AD Bestebreurtje (l) and A. Hürlimann (r) hike as Swiss participants in the 26th Nijmeg Four Days March 1936.

Festive meeting of the Nijmegen war invalids, organized by the “September 17th Committee” of the Nijmegen Trade Association Mayor Hustinx (r) shakes hands with Major Bestebreurtje (l)

Arie Dirk Bestebreurtje was born on April 12, 1916 in the Netherlands. His parents were Anton Dirk and Hermanna Worst Bestebreurtje. He had three siblings and his father was a businessman. The family lived in Berlin for some time and moved to Switzerland in 1935. There studied Arie Bestebreurtje in Zurich Jura and was passionate skater. He qualified twice as a speed skater for the Olympic Games and was a substitute for the Dutch team at the 1936 Winter Games in Garmisch-Partenkirchen , but was not used. In 1940 the games were canceled due to the outbreak of World War II. At the national speed skating championships in 1941 in Davos, he became Swiss national champion.

In 1940 he received his diploma in international business law and married his Australian colleague Gertrude Maud Bersch, whom he had met in Berlin. After learning that the Germans had occupied the Netherlands, he and his wife emigrated to England via Spain and Portugal. His parents and three siblings fled to New York in the United States. As a member of the Methodist Church you were exposed to severe dangers under Nazi rule and quickly ended up in a labor camp . As Engelandvaarder , Arie Dirk Bestebreurtje joined the Dutch Resistance and in spring 1941 joined the Royal Netherlands “Princess Irene” Brigade, one of the Dutch exile units affiliated with the British Army . There he attended the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst near London between 1941 and 1942 .

After his training, he became captain of a Jedburgh multinational command team. The operation Jedburgh was a covert operation and was subordinate to the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS). His two teammates were Lieutenant George Verhaeghe and Tech Sergeant Willard "Bud" Beynon , both American. Their task was to support and mobilize the individual resistance groups in Nijmegen and the surrounding area. Bestebreurtjes was responsible for supporting the 82nd Airborne Division as a liaison officer in Groesbeek . From his youth he knew the area from cycling and hiking. While planning Operation Market Garden , he worked mostly with the British, but was sent to the 82nd a few days before the order to attack. He met General James M. Gavin and saved his life on a fact-finding mission. Since the Americans couldn't pronounce his last name Bestebreurtje, they simply called him "Captain Harry".

During his missions in the secret service and the military, Arie Dirk Bestebreurtje was wounded several times and was often in mortal danger. As an undercover spy , he spent some time behind the German lines. During his missions he was shot three times, seriously injured his hands, elbows and legs and was twice taken prisoner by Germany. However, each time he could break out and flee. But some well-intentioned “equipment innovations” almost cost him his life. The British provided parachutists with a backpack-sized “leg bag”. The spare equipment and weapons were stowed in it. The transport bag had an almost 5 m long rope with which the bag could be lowered. When the parachute was opened, the winding came loose and the luggage dangled under the parachutist. This was to prevent the jumper from being burdened by the weight on landing. It often happened that the rope was torn by the opening shock and the luggage was left somewhere far away from the scene of the incident.

During Operation Amherst from April 7th to 8th, 1944, when Captain Harry jumped off the plane, the rope got tangled and wrapped itself around his neck with 50 kg of luggage. At a height of less than 200 m, he managed to prepare for the landing. Together with the transport sack, he hit the ground and realized that he had broken his ankle . He managed to hide in order not to fall victim to the firing systems. He soon realized that he had ended up in the middle of the Westerbork concentration camp , which the mission was to liberate. 400 Dutch people and 500 Jews were held captive in the camp. The plan was to start Operation Amherst from Hooghalen . As a local and linguistic guide, Bestebreurtje was supposed to take the liberators there unobtrusively. If Allied troops got too close to the secret camp, there was a risk that the camp administration would kill all inmates. Due to the bad weather conditions, the parachutists were driven away and it was impossible to contact his unit. After the leg bag and parachute were discovered by the camp patrol, sirens wailed and search parties were dispatched. Despite his serious injury and without food or drink, Bestebreurtje managed to remain undetected for several days, to get out of the prison camp and to reach a resistance farm. Although there was an extreme food shortage even in the country, the farmer Schutten hid eleven people on his farm from the National Socialists. Now the badly battered Bestebreurtje was added. Shortly afterwards, a transport from the German Red Cross came and supplied the farm with food packages and took care of the injured person. Bestebreurtje waited for soldiers from the opposing side and his arrest, which did not happen. On April 12, 1944, the Drenthe region and Westerbork concentration camp were liberated by the Canadian armed forces .

After the war, Bestebreurtje emigrated to live with his family in New York, where his wife and children also lived for a while. There he founded a successful law firm specializing in international business law. The office work did not satisfy him, however, and due to the formative impressions during the war, Bestebreurtje decided to start studying theology . In 1952 he was honorably discharged from the military and became an American citizen. After his ordination he was pastor of the Presbyterian Church (USA) and worked from 1957 first in Louisville , Kentucky and from 1966 in Charlottesville, Virginia. In 1981 he retired.

On January 20, 1983, he collapsed while skating in the ice of a small pond and drowned. He was 66 years old. His grave is in Monticello Memorial Park in Albemarle County , Virginia.

Arie Dirk Bestebreurtje was married to his wife Gertrude Maud for 41 years. They had four children together. She died on April 11, 1999 at the age of 83.

Awards

In addition to the many sporting honors and medals, he received numerous medals for his services and courage in the Second World War. With 18 of the highest international awards, Arie Dirk Bestebreurtje was after President Dwight D. Eisenhower the most awarded soldier in the USA.


country	medal	description	Awarded on:	unit	rank
NL	Bronzen Kruis (BK)	Bronze cross (BK)	March 30, 1945	Infantry weapon	Reserve captain
US	Legion of Merit Officer (LoM-O)	US Order of Merit	August 13, 1945	Crest of the infantry, Dutch liaison officer of the 82nd US Airborne Division	Reserve captain
GB	Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE)	Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE), British Order of Merit.	4th December 1945	Coat of arms of the infantry, Office of the General Staff	Temporary reserve major
US	Purple heart	American Medal of Bravery, Bestebreurtje received it twice.	July 21, 1947	Coat of arms of the infantry, Office of the General Staff	Temporary reserve major
FR	Croix de Guerre 1939-1945	French war cross 1939–1945	July 9, 1949	2nd infantry regiment, infantry weapon	Reserve major
NL	Ridder vierde class of the Militaire Willems Orde (MWO.4)	Knight 4th class of the Military Wilhelm Order (MWO.4) Awarded for Operation Market Garden.	October 23, 1952	Liaison Officer, 82nd Airborne Division, Staff / SOE / BBO, Infantry Weapon	Reserve major
NL	Oorlogsherinneringskruis (OHK)	War memorial cross (OHK) with two buckles
NL	Verzetsherdenkingskruis (VHK)	Resistance Cross (VHK)
GB	1939-1945 star	Campaign medal during the Battle of Britain in WW2
GB	France & Germany Star	Campaign medal for operational services in France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany, D-Day
GB	Was medal 1939-1945	War medal for members of the British Commonwealth armed forces

Others

In 1953 Arie Dirk Bestebreurtje appeared together with Dirk Button in the clowning ice show "Ice Capades" in New York City.

In the 1977 film "The Bridge of Arnhem", Arie Dirk Bestebreurtje is played by the actor Peter Faber. However, Bestebreurtje was not entirely satisfied with the cast in the film. To him, Peter Faber looked like a sip of water on a curve.

The National Liberation Museum 1944–1945 (Freedom Museum) in Groesbeek owes a major contribution to its realization to Captain Bestebreurtje. His uniform and the medal of the Military Wilhelm Order are kept there.

Also in Groesbeek there is a street named after him. The Kapitein-Arie-Bestebreurtje Pad is located in the district of Klein-Amerika on the former landing site of the 82nd Airborne Division.

Web links

literature

John C. McManus: September Hope: The American Side of a Bridge Too Far; Publisher: NAL - New American Library, 2012, Language: English, ISBN 9780451237064
Will Irwin: Abundance of Valor: Resistance, Survival, and Liberation: 1944-45; Publisher: Random House Publishing Group, 2010, Language: English, ISBN 9780345519085
Patric K. O'Donnell: OPERATIONS, SPIES AND SABOTEURS: The Unknown Story of World War II's OSS; Publisher: CITADEL, 2006, language: English, ISBN 9780806527987
Chales B. MacDonald: European Theater of Operations: the Siegfried Line Campaign; Publisher: Washington DC Department Of The Army, 2001, Language: English, ISBN 9780806527987

Individual evidence

↑ Article in the magazine Zürcher Illustrierte, Volume 17, Issue 6, 1941: Swiss Masters on the Ice. (P. 139). Source: ETH Library Zurich Arie Dirk Bestebreurtje was still living in Switzerland at the time and competed for SC Zurich. He ran the 500 m in 45 seconds, the 1000 m in 1: 38.2 minutes, the 3000 m in 5: 14.4 minutes and finished 2nd in the 5000 m run.
↑ Illustration and description of the leg bag on Mark Bando's website: 101st Airborne WW2 - Equipment 3 (scroll down a bit, in English) Link
↑ National Liberation Museum 1944-1945 in Groesbeek Arie Dirk Bestebreurtje and General Gavin can be seen there as life-size wax figures.
↑ Article in the Groesbeck local paper "HEEMKUNDEKRING GROESBEEK" issue 19, December 2016. (Dutch). link

personal data
SURNAME	Bestebreurtje, Arie Dirk
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Captain Harry (nickname); Captain B. (nickname)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Dutch speed skater and lawyer, later US soldier and liaison officer, then pastor
DATE OF BIRTH	April 12, 1916
PLACE OF BIRTH	Rotterdam
DATE OF DEATH	January 21, 1983
Place of death	Charlottesville , Virginia

[1] Article in the magazine Zürcher Illustrierte, Volume 17, Issue 6, 1941: Swiss Masters on the Ice. (P. 139). Source: ETH Library Zurich Arie Dirk Bestebreurtje was still living in Switzerland at the time and competed for SC Zurich. He ran the 500 m in 45 seconds, the 1000 m in 1: 38.2 minutes, the 3000 m in 5: 14.4 minutes and finished 2nd in the 5000 m run.

[2] Illustration and description of the leg bag on Mark Bando's website: 101st Airborne WW2 - Equipment 3 (scroll down a bit, in English) Link

[3] National Liberation Museum 1944-1945 in Groesbeek Arie Dirk Bestebreurtje and General Gavin can be seen there as life-size wax figures.

[4] Article in the Groesbeck local paper "HEEMKUNDEKRING GROESBEEK" issue 19, December 2016. (Dutch). link