Netherlands trek retraced Winnipeg soldier’s steps Organization offers opportunity to walk in fathers’ footsteps By: Kevin Rollason Posted: 6:08 PM CST Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024 Last Modified: 9:20 AM CST Thursday, Nov. 7, 2024 Updates

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Carol Ellerbeck, like the children of many Second World War veterans, didn’t know much about her father’s time fighting overseas.

Bob Ellerbeck, who died on Oct. 17, 2001, was a lieutenant from Winnipeg in Lord Strathcona’s Horse, a tank regiment.

Ellerbeck knew her dad was a wireless radio operator who had worked inside a tank to keep in contact with other tank units and their commander. She knew the regiment landed in Italy in November 1943, before being transferred to the campaign to liberate the Netherlands.

It was there that her dad’s life changed forever.

“My mother was in the Dutch underground,” Ellerbeck said. “She helped with decoding messages because she could speak German, English and Dutch.

“They met there and I was born there. I still have family there.”

That was the extent of the Winnipegger’s knowledge about her dad’s time in the war — and she wanted to learn more.

In 2022, Ellerbeck joined other descendants of Canadian soldiers who had fought in the Netherlands on a unique trip to the country. No one in the group knew much about their family member’s war stories because no one had spoken about it.

“All of us wanted to know what (our family member) did in the war and how he did it.”

The non-profit organization that put together the inaugural trip is organizing a second excursion next year to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Netherlands.

Karen Hunter, founder of In Our Fathers’ Footsteps, a WWII Dutch Liberation Pilgrimage, said participants will be guided by former Dutch military members as they walk through fields and forests to villages that were liberated by Canadian soldiers. Still-thankful residents will join the group in ceremonies. Participants will also be able to stay in a building that was a Canadian field hospital during the war.

The inaugural trip was organized to coincide with the 75th anniversary of the liberation, until COVID-19 shutdowns delayed it by almost two years. Hunter said her father, who served in the artillery with the 2nd Light Anti-Aircraft during the Second World War, didn’t speak about his experiences for many years.

“It wasn’t until after he went to the 40th and the 50th liberation anniversaries, and was billeted with a Dutch family, that he started opening up,” said Hunter.

“He wrote a memoir of his war experiences and he presented it to his family on his 85th birthday.”

Ellerbeck said she learned about her dad’s experiences by getting a first-hand look at the conditions soldiers faced.

“We went through cow fields,” she said. “We went over canals. We were outfitted with a water can like your dad would have had.

“And the response from all the towns and villages was amazing. In one place, it was a Sunday and people literally rushed out of the church to us. One person came out of his home in his pyjamas.

“You could feel their gratitude all the way to your toes.”

Ellerbeck said one of the participants on the tour, the daughter of a Canadian surgeon, was able to see the operating room where he would have worked on injured soldiers inside what is now a hotel.

She said a visit to the Canadian war cemeteries was a sobering reminder that, while her dad returned to Canada and lived for decades after the war, many soldiers never came home.

The culmination of the trip was a reception at the palace with Princess Margriet of the Netherlands, who was born in Ottawa when the Dutch royal family came to Canada in exile during the German occupation of their country.

The next trip is set for April 27 to May 8.

Hunter said spots are filling up fast and if any Manitobans want to join the trip, or learn more about it, they can visit inourfathersfootsteps.com.

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca