HELMOND'S WELCOME

Helmond is a busy municipal city in the Netherlands with a population of about 90,000. It is located just east of Eindhoven, and in 1945 it found itself in the path of the advancing British troops as they pushed on from the D-Day beaches towards Germany. Prior to the arrival of the Allies - and elements of the Royal Norfolk Regiment in particular - it was occupied by the enemy, and it was believed by Allied commanders right up to the last moment that a tough fight would ensue.
Thankfully, it didn't happen. The somewhat bewildered Norfolk men made their way carefully through the deserted streets, wary and ready for battle. But nothing happened until they had probed as far as the city centre, when doors suddenly opened and hundreds of jubilant Dutch men, women and children, who had been sheltering in cellars in readiness for the expected onslaught, poured into the open air. Very quickly, this meeting between the Dutch residents and the Norfolk troops turned into a joyous welcoming party. As for the enemy, they had departed earlier in order to regroup and reorganise elsewhere.
Helmond was re-occupied by the Allies in September, 1944, and 40 years' later, in September, 1984, I and two other EDP representatives - Dennis, our photographer, and Steve, another journalist - drove to Helmond to cover the 40th anniversary celebrations which were being attended by many of the Norfolk Regiment veterans who had been involved in the original advance.
'We took Helmond in '44 without a shot being fired,' one of the veterans told us. And for the second time in their lives they received a very public Dutch welcome. There were reunions with families they had met all those years before, church services, parades and speeches, a gathering in the city's social centre - named after the Norfolk Regiment - and a parade of restored War-time vehicles (on which were seated the veterans) through crowd-lined streets.
It was carnival time, and everyone loved it, for in the 40 years since the British advance the ties between the Norfolk troops and their Dutch hosts had become very close indeed. Many of the troops had been billeted with Helmond families, and life-time friendships were forged. There had even been peacetime weddings, too, we were told, which further strengthened Anglo-Dutch bonds. At the same time, it occurred to me that the trio of EDP Pressmen in our car were not actually the first to visit Helmond to see these links for themselves.
In January, 1945, EDP War Correspondent Ralph Gray, officially disguised in his writings by the initials R.G, caught a British troop train to the coast, then a troop ship to France and, after a roundabout journey by lorry and Jeep on icy roads through devastated towns and villages, and after visiting the locations of several desperate battles, he finally arrived in Helmond to discover that the Norfolk battalion, four months' before, had enjoyed a real home-from-home there from the moment the city had been relieved. And he was told many tales.
When the Allied tanks, trucks and carriers rolled into Helmond, he wrote, they ran into crowds of people who handed them fruit, wine and flags. There were scenes of wild celebration, many of the children were in orange fancy dress, and the troops, still wary of a possible counter-attack, were finally forced to give up their advance because of the size of the throng confronting them. All thoughts of military strategy evaporated as the soldiers were scooped up into Dutch homes and made as welcome as sparse supplies would allow. Had a counter-attack actually materialised, one officer opined later, then the position would have been hopeless.
Even today, the Royal Norfolk Regiment cap badge is still a prized possession in Helmond, and the bond between town and Regiment is as strong as ever. Ralph Gray wrote in 1945 that he had never seen anything like it before; and who can say, even now, that the real ties between Britain and Europe are not still secure.
(Western Front, January 1945; Impressions of an EDP War Correspondent with the Royal Norfolk Regiment, booklet, published in 1945 by Norfolk News Company).