Dutch Second World War documentary featuring two local children of fallen soldiers

It will feature ten loved ones of soldiers buried in the Holten Canadian War Cemetery.

“We get a lot of information and we should share the information with the other people in the Netherlands,” says Jan Braakman. “So that they can learn about what the Canadian soldiers did in the Netherlands 75 years ago.”

On Tuesday, they were in Medicine Hat to speak to Ken Forbes and Bev Penner, loved ones of soldiers who lost their lives in Germany and Holland.

They’re two of ten Canadians being featured in the documentary.

Ken lived with his mother, siblings and father, Fredrick Taylor Forbes, in Redcliff during the war.

Ken was just eight years old when his father joined the military.

Fredrick Taylor Forbes

“My dad got word that his brother had been killed in action and it bothered him to no end,” says Ken. “I remember him coming home one day from the glass factory where he worked in Redcliff and he said to my mother ‘Rita, I’ve got to go over there and do my part’.”

He recalled sitting by the railroad tracks, watching soldiers travel across the country.

“Being close to the railroad tracks, my mother wasn’t too happy with me but I said ‘I just got to go over and watch, maybe dad will be home’ and I would go and sit by the station and just watch the soldiers. It seemed like every window in that train had a soldiers head peaking out looking at the kid sitting by himself.”

Kens father is now one of 1,393 soldiers buried in the cemetery in Holland.

“He was out helping and packing injured off the field and everything and it was at that point that he was wiped out and that was on May the 5^th of 1945, one month before the end of the war.”

Bev Penner was also featured in the documentary.

Now living on Vancouver Island, she was born in Etzikom, about an hour south of Medicine Hat. She lived on the family farm with her mother, six siblings and father, Waldo Rueben Stromsmoe.

Waldo Rueben Stromsmoe.

He joined the army in 1943 when she was just six years old.

“He was very outgoing and kind and gentle, he did shoes, he repaired shoes as well as worked on the family farm,” she says.

Bev says he felt the urge to go to war after his two younger brothers joined.

“Even though he had a wife and six kids at home, he felt it was his duty to go and do his part too. His two brothers came home but he didn’t.”

When the Dutch team was searching for people to interview, local Bill Anhorn decided to do his own search, and see if anyone locally was related to fallen soldiers buried in the cemetery.

As a member of the history and heritage resource committee with the Medicine Hat Exhibition and Stampede, and the Medicine Hat Genealogical Society, Anhorn has an interest to finding people’s heritage.

He used ancestry.ca to search for family members of the soldiers.

“I was able to locate family trees and able to locate Bev Penner through a nephew in London, England who passed on the message and then she in turn contacted me,” says Anhorn.

He also managed to find Ken Forbes, by just giving him a call.

“So I phone him up, we exchanged pleasantries, talked about some Stampede stuff, and then I said ‘I’m doing this research, do you know anything a Fredrick Taylor Forbes?’ and there was a slight hesitation, and he said ‘yeah I know about him, he’s my dad.’”

He soon convinced the documentary team to come to Medicine Hat, although they had no plans of travelling further west than Regina.

“It’s a real honour for me to participate in the project, small part as I have in bringing the people to Medicine Hat,” he says. “Recognizing these fallen soldiers is something I feel really privileged to be able to do.”

Once the documentary is completed, it will broadcast on the Dutch Television Network and be a permanent installation at the Holten Canadian War Cemetery Information Centre.

That will happen in 2020, for the 75^th anniversary of the liberation of Holland.

by Jessie Weisner

Dutch Second World War documentary featuring two local children of fallen soldiers

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