Gezien het onderwerp is (ook) deze pagina in het Engels.
On Tuesday June 19, 2001, after doing some maintenance work in the attic, I inspected the space between the floor and ceiling below. And decided to take a dusty sheet/plank out. After removing the centimetre of dust it turned out to be a letter. See pictures of the envelope.
I estimated the letter to have slipped into that space at the end of 1944. The very south of The Netherlands was liberated then.
Sounding the neighbourhood, I found allied forces were billeted from ?September 1944? until just before Christmas?
Checking with the telephone company, showed no telephone was registered for the addressee mentioned on the envelope. So to find the addressee I turned to the British Legion and their lost trails.
With contingency in mind and knowing someone with a contact within the MOD, I told him about the letter as well.
The lost trail at the British Legion a lady from Roermond reacted, who advised to contact a local paper at/in Paisley. This turned out to be the Paisley Daily Express. An article was published and ...
After my annual holiday (September 5, 2001), I found a message to call the Paisley Daily Express. Several people had called as a response on the article.
The lady addressee was recognised and I managed to contact a son.
Who was the letter from? I was allowed to open the letter on a confidential basis. The sender's name and army designation was in there in full.
The letter was written on Sunday, December 17.
Details of the writer (name and designation left out) as found in the letter:
This was "translated" for me as:
If you have any knowledge about this detachment (1944), could you please contact me?
A lost trail for the sender was posted at the British Legion site on December 22, 2002.
A local with historical knowledge of world war II, was not sure were this regiment went.
Each of these options makes the regiment part of different Army Corps.
On January 31, 2003, P. Smith read the lost trail and pointed my to Forces Reunited. My acquaintance (ex-MOD) was friendly enough to register the writer of the letter.