Bram van der Stok

Abraham Lamertus "Bram" van der Stok , MBE , later Bob Vanderstok (born October 13, 1915 in Plaju , Dutch East Indies , † February 8, 1993 in Virginia Beach , Virginia ) was a Dutch fighter pilot at the time of World War II . He earned the award as a flying ace and is the most decorated pilot in Dutch military history. He was best known for his numerous kills and his spectacular escape across occupied Europe to Great Britain after he fled the German prisoner-of-war camp Stalag Luft III during a mass escape .

biography

Youth and education

Van der Stok was born in 1915 on the island of Sumatra , which then belonged to the colony of the Dutch East Indies . He was the eldest of four children of the engineer Cornelis van der Stok, who works for Royal Dutch Shell , and his wife Annie van der Stok-Snethlage. One of his brothers was the resistance fighter Johan Paul van der Stok , who was killed in Mauthausen concentration camp in 1945 . The family initially moved to the European Netherlands to educate their children, but in 1927 they moved to Willemstad on Curaçao , where the father was appointed director of the local oil refinery . Van der Stok returned to Europe some time later without his parents, where he finished his education in the Netherlands and Switzerland. In September 1934 he began to study medicine at the University of Leiden , which he interrupted two years later to undergo pilot training at the Soesterberg military airfield . This initially took place on the Fokker S.IV monoplane , later van der Stok also qualified for the more modern Fokker D.XXI . Here he gained a reputation as a talented but daring aviator and had to answer, among other things, before the court martial after he had flown under a number of bridges near Moerdijk with his machine . However, the trial was dropped without conviction. After completing his pilot training, he left the military with the rank of reserve officer in the Dutch Air Force and continued his medical studies at the University of Utrecht .

Start of war and operations with the RAF

A Supermarine Spitfire Mk V as flown by Bram van der Stok for the RAF

In March 1939, in the course of mobilization, in anticipation of the outbreak of war, van der Stok was called up and assigned to the 1e JaVa ("1. Fighter Aviation Department") in Soesterberg. Immediately before the beginning of the war, the unit was relocated to the De Kooy military airfield near Den Helder . On May 10, 1940, the first day of the German invasion of the Netherlands, De Kooy was attacked by a squadron of the Luftwaffe . In the air battle that followed, van der Stok shot down an opposing Messerschmitt Bf 109 ; he himself later stated that he had hit at least one other machine, but this could not be confirmed. In the days that followed, until the surrender of the Dutch armed forces on May 14, the 1e JaVa flew a number of other missions. It is not certain whether van der Stok could score more kills here.

After the beginning of the German occupation, he initially pursued his studies, but soon began to forge plans to flee to England. After several unsuccessful attempts to escape, he was finally able to find a place as a passenger on the Swiss freighter SS St. Cergue in the summer of 1941 , which was headed for New York City on behalf of the Germans under the Panamanian flag . Other Dutch people were on board, including Peter Tazelaar and Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema , who would later become famous as Soldaat van Oranje . During the crossing, the ship was stopped by the British cruiser HMS Devonshire and forced to a stop in Tórshavn on the Faroe Islands . From here the Dutch were brought to Great Britain, where van der Stok was able to establish contact with the Dutch military leadership in exile. He originally planned to return to his occupied homeland as a spy, but was persuaded - by Prince Bernhard , among others - to report to the Royal Air Force . Due to his training and experience as a fighter pilot, he was awarded the rank of Second Lieutenant of the RAF and for the purpose of training on the Supermarine Spitfire Mk V of No. 91st (Nigeria) Squadron in West Sussex . With the Nigeria Squadron van der Stok flew several night missions to repel German bomber attacks, in which he was able to achieve a number of other aerial victories: In addition to three Heinkel He 111 bombers (one "secured", two "probably") he was also able to shoot down one book another Messerschmitt Bf 109 for yourself. In December 1941 he was transferred to No. 41 Squadron in West Hampnett , which is different from No. 91 not only had purely defensive tasks, but also carried out attack flights over the English Channel . After a number of successful missions - including a battle over the canal in which twelve German machines could be shot down without losing his own - van der Stok achieved the status of a flying ace and was promoted to the rank of flight lieutenant.

Captivity and escape

Model of the prisoner-of-war camp Stalag Luft III

On April 12, 1942 van took the Stoks unit in an attack on the offices of the German marshalling yard of Hazebrouck part in northern France. After his Spitfire was hit by German fighter planes and badly damaged, van der Stok had to parachute off the plane. He ended up in the town of Saint-Omer , where he was captured by Wehrmacht soldiers. He was then interned in the Stalag Luft III prisoner-of-war camp near Sagan in Lower Silesia .

When van der Stok arrived at the camp, there were already well advanced plans among the prisoners there for a mass escape from the facility, which was considered to be very safe. For this purpose, the prisoners created a total of two escape tunnels and a "fake tunnel", which was intended to be "discovered" by the guards if they should become aware of the unusual activities. However, the Germans found not only the fake tunnel, but also the larger of the actual escape tunnels, which left the prisoners only with the remaining tunnel as an option. On the night of March 24-25, 1944, 220 prisoners tried to escape from the camp, only 77 of them were able to reach the surrounding forest. Ultimately, only three people - besides van der Stok, the two Norwegians Per Bergsland and Jens Müller - managed to escape from the areas occupied by the Germans, all the others were detained by the GeStaPo and partially executed as a deterrent for other prisoners. Van der Stok first traveled from Wroclaw to Utrecht , a city he was familiar with, and where he hoped to find help. On the way he was stopped and checked several times, but was able to make credible that he was not one of the refugees from Stalag Luft III. From there he finally reached Madrid via Belgium and France , where he was initially interned by the Spanish authorities. However, the British consulate provided him with the necessary papers, whereupon he was allowed to travel to the British territory of Gibraltar on July 8, 1944 , from where he could continue to England. On his return, van der Stok took command of No. 1 for the remainder of the war. 322 (Dutch) Squadron of the RAF, in which a large number of Dutch pilots served.

The events surrounding the escape from Stalag Luft III were processed by director John Sturges in the 1963 Hollywood film Broken Chains , which, however, does not accurately reproduce the historical events. Van der Stok and several other real-life prisoners are represented in the film by the character of Officer Louis Sedgwick , played by James Coburn .

Life after the war

A few months after the end of the war, van der Stok married Lucie Walter, and the marriage, which lasted until 1969, had three children. He turned down an offer to remain as a senior staff officer in the Dutch Air Force. Instead, he finished his medical studies in Utrecht in 1950 and emigrated with his family to the United States the following year. There he specialized in the areas of gynecology and obstetrics and eventually set up his own practice in New Mexico . In 1957 he took American citizenship and with it the Americanized surname "Vanderstok". In 1964 he was elected President of the New Mexico Medical Society .

After a brief job as a ship's doctor on a ferry between San Francisco and Honolulu , van der Stok received the offer to join the Spacelab research team at the American space agency NASA in Huntsville, Alabama . There he researched, among other things, problems of blood circulation in weightless environments. In 1987 he moved to Hawaii , where he was still working as a doctor for the United States Coast Guard Auxiliary at an advanced age . Bram van der Stok finally passed away in 1993 at the age of 77 in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

Awards and honors

As an extremely successful fighter pilot, both for the Koninklijke Luchtmacht and the Royal Air Force and a two-time Engelandvaarder (a Dutchman who successfully escaped to England to continue the resistance against the German occupiers), van der Stok is one of the military most decorated Dutch of all time. Among other things, he was the only person to receive all four Dutch bravery awards for participating in the Second World War: Fliegerkreuz (1942), Merit Cross (1942), Bronze Cross (1944) and Bronze Lion (1946). He was also honored by being accepted into the Order of the British Empire , the Order of Orange-Nassau and the Order of Leopold II.

Van der Stok received the following awards and honors for its achievements:

Netherlands

• Officer of the Order of Orange-Nassau (with swords)
• Bronze lion
• Bronze cross
• Cross of Merit
• Aviator cross
• Oorlogsherinneringskruis with two clips
• Verzetsherdenkingskruis
• Onderscheidingsteken voor Langdurige service as officier (with year XV)
• Four day cross

United Kingdom

• Honorary Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire
• 1939–1945 Star (with three campaign stars)
• France and Germany Star
• Was medal 1939-1945

Others

• Officer in the Order of Leopold II (Belgium)
• War Cross (with palm, Belgium)
• Croix de Guerre 1939–1945 (France)
• Cross of Valor (Poland)

plant

In 1980 van der Stok published his war memories under the title Oorlogsvlieger van Oranje . In this book, the events surrounding the escape from Stalag Luft III have been moved forward a few months. The author claims to have been back in England to prepare for the Allied landings in Normandy and to have participated as a fighter pilot in Operation Overlord on D-Day . The official reports and documents, including his own interview with the security authorities after his return to England, contradict this account.

• Oorlogsvlieger van Oranje . De Haan, Haarlem 1980, ISBN 978-90-228-3550-0 .
• Escape from Stalag Luft III: The True Story Of My Successful Great Escape . Greenhill Books, London 2019, ISBN 978-1-78438-434-0 . ( published posthumously under the name "Bob Vanderstok")

Web links

• Biography at tracesofwar.nl (Dutch)
• Bram van der Stok at goefoundation.org (English)
• Van der Stok's military career at strijdbewijs.nl (Dutch)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Alan Burgess: The Three That Got Away. In: pbs.org. October 2004, accessed on January 17, 2020 . 
2. ↑ Howard Grehan: Stalag Luft III: An Official History of the 'Great Escape' PoW Camp . Frontline Books, Barnsley 2016, ISBN 978-1-4738-8305-5 , pp. 33-38 .
3. ↑ James Podesta: Great Escape legend's RAF golden caterpillar badge fetches £ 3k at auction. In: mirror.co.uk. December 31, 2018, accessed January 17, 2020 . 
4. ↑ Bram van der Stok. In: telegraph.co.uk. The Telegraph, July 1, 1993, accessed January 17, 2020 . 
5. ↑ a: Bram van der Stok. In: tracesofwar.com. Retrieved January 17, 2020 (English).