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On the cool, sunny morning of Nov. 8, more than 200 Army, Air Force and Navy personnel, as well as many local Dutch citizens, gathered to remember the wartime sacrifice of several thousand Canadian soldiers.
About 10 kilometres southeast of Nijmegen stands Groesbeek Canadian War Cemetery, nestled among the rolling hills and forests of the eastern part of The Netherlands. The Cemetery contains one of the largest concentrations of Canadian war graves in Europe and is witness to an annual ceremony involving Canadian Forces personnel from nearby German and Dutch bases.
As in past years, members from Allied Joint Force Command Headquarters in Brunssum, together with those from Canadian Forces Support Unit (Europe) and the NATO Airborne Early Warning Force in Geilenkirchen, met citizens of the nearby town of Groesbeek. The ceremony that took place would be instantly familiar to other members of the Canadian Forces, including a marching-on of colours, religious service, playing of Last Post and Reveille and laying of wreaths.
Many of those buried in Groesbeek Canadian War Cemetery died in the Battle of the Rhineland to clear the territory between the Maas and the Rhine in February and March 1945. Others Canadians buried here died earlier or later in the southern part of The Netherlands and in the Rhineland. The cemetery contains 2,610 Commonwealth burials of the Second World War, of which 2,338 are Canadian. There is also one Canadian Victoria Cross recipient buried here, Sergeant Aubrey Cosens of The Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada, who was killed in action at Mooshof, Germany, on the 26th of February, 1945.
The cemetery is unusual among Commonwealth War Graves, in that many of the soldiers buried here were moved across international boundaries from their place of death. This is due to the efforts of General H.D.G. “Harry” Crerar, commander of the First Canadian Army in Europe, who desired a single, consolidated cemetery for Canadian soldiers killed in The Netherlands and northern Germany.
More information on Groesbeek cemetery or the battles of the Rhineland can be found online with Veterans Affairs Canada at http://www.vac-acc.gc.ca or at http://www.vvv-groesbeek.info/ereveld2-eng.htm.
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