Rehearsal not to forget

There are not many things I like to rehearse or repeat, but the annual Market Garden commemoration near my hometown is one of those events that keeps reappearing on my calender. First of it is in my opinion absolutely important to never forget the sacrifices that were made by young men from abroad for the sake of freedom. Additionally I don’t consider myself an event photographer, yet like to make an exception for this airborne dropping.

This year’s event was combined with celebrating 2,000 years armies in the Dutch province I come from.



See previous photographs I made here.

All photographs by Wouter Brandsma

Market Garden commemoration (again)

Between my weekly post from my 365 project I wanted to publish another series of photographs from last Saturday’s 67th commemoration of operation Market Garden. Now, this isn’t exactly the first time I published photographs from this event. I did so in 2008 and 2009. It was however the first time I didn’t use one of my compact cameras, but a Leica M8 with a Leica 35mm Summilux and a Zeiss 50mm Sonnar. And unlike before this time the weather wasn’t as pretty, so the fast lens came in handy.

(Those little blobs to the left are not dust speckles, but parachutes. This is what you get when you shoot at f/1.4)
In 1994 when they commemorated this operation, both the organizers and many of the still living veterans from the UK and Canada actually thought the 50th was about the last time to commemorate this. But 17 years later and the event still takes place. It is interesting and wonderful to realize that current generations who only learned about World War II from their grand parents, history books, documentaries, and movies, still remember those days, the effort of young men bringing peace and freedom, the liberation, and the privileged and fortunate era after the war.

We met some great people that day. Some where great models and asking people from the re-enactment group to be photographed was no problem at all.

And apparently so, nostalgia is not only something we appreciate in photography nowadays. Most of the vehicles are from the 1940’s and and the clothes these guys wear are just as old too.

Getting out with a rangefinder camera, manual exposing and focusing made things even more nostalgic. And I couldn’t resist to add the bleach bypass effect to my photographs for more drama. Even though a lot of the exposures ended up deleted.

And I really liked the subjective story in the last photograph, although I wasn’t really sure I saw the shoe strings being tied in the truck through the rangefinder.

All photographs by Wouter Brandsma

Market Garden

Sunday, 17 September 1944
The 4th Parachute Regiment of the 1st British Airborne Division landed without major incident on the Ginkel Heath just east of Ede with C-47 Dakota’s, CG-4A Waco gliders, Airspeed Horsas, and General Aircraft Hamilcars, as part of the largest airborne assault ever attempted.

Color version here

The drop zone on the Ginkel Heath was part of a larger plan of actions consisting of two operations. Airborne forces of General Brereton’s the First Allied Airborne Army were to seize bridges and other terrain, under tactical command of Lieutenant-General Browning, Market. And ground forces of the Second Army quickly had to move north spearheaded by XXX Corps under Lieutenant-General Brian Horrocks, Garden. There tactical objectives were to secure a series of bridges over the main rivers of the German-occupied Netherlands to allow rapid advance by armored units. The strategic purpose was to allow an Allied crossing of the Rhine river, the last major natural barrier to an advance into Germany. The planned rapid advance from the Dutch-Belgian border into northern Germany, across the Maas and two arms of the Rhine (the Waal and the Lower Rhine), would have outflanked the Siegfried Line and made possible an encirclement of the Ruhr Area, Germany’s industrial heartland.

Color version here

Due to poor intelligence, bad planning, poor supplies, and personal ambitions the operation became a horrible failure. German remnants fought harder than expected. The allied forces were unable to seize the bridge over the river Rhine at Arnhem. On Monday, 25 September the 1st Airborne Division received orders to withdraw across the Rhine. By early next morning they had withdrawn 2,398 survivors. They left 300 men to surrender on the north bank, when German fire prevented their rescue. They paid a heavy toll. Of the 10,600 men of the 1st Airborne Division and other units who fought north of the Rhine, 1,485 had died and 6,414 were taken prisoner, of whom one third were wounded. It was a A Bridge Too Far. (source Wikipedia).

Saturday, 20 September 2008
Today, it was the 64th commemoration of Operation Market Garden. Large crowd and Dutch TV crews came to the Ginkel Heath, together with great amounts of old World War II army vehicles. British and Dutch forces would be dropped above the drop zone. Best of all is that some of the veterans were still able to come to the commemoration, despite their age and health.

Color version here

The young and the elder enjoyed the celebrations and the warm coffee. The veteran in the middle kept talking about the operation. On 17 September 1944, he was a young soldier who landed with a glider near Wolfheze 5 kilometers further to the east.

Color version here

Although the dropping is a spectacular part of the commemoration, the old World War II army vehicles and their owners in old army uniforms draw most of the attention.

Color version here

The photograph below seems evidence of a new way of ‘love and conquer‘, or ‘make love, not war‘, or ‘create your own army‘.

Color version here

After I made this photograph of the pin up art on her jacket, the man to the right told me a story about the name ‘Little Patches’. It is a name Americans gave to a B-17G-25-BO Flying Fortress (42-31678). She received heavy flak damage two weeks after delivery on a mission to Frankfurt, Germany. She was repaired with a lot of metal patches to the nose area, and then was named “Little Patches” by Lt. William Major. Eventually, she served three tour of duties during World War II.

Color version here

A lot of the owners of the old World War II army vehicles are members of Keep them Rolling. Their aim is to maintain military vehicles used during World War II. Some of this is really serious stuff.

Color version here

Most of these guys with their “willys” (Jeep) are wonderful characters. These leds were posted behind us. The Aussie with the hat was making gorgeously smelling ham and eggs too.

Color version here

In the end, we still commemorate the bravery and courage of the more than 10,000 soldiers who risked their lives for our freedom in Operation Market Garden. Freedom we preciously enjoy and cherish in a united Europe.

Color version here

All photographs by Wouter Brandsma

Update
I originally posted the photographs in color, but changed them to black and white versions later at night. At reviewing some of the photographs, the black and white versions just had so much more impact to me. For those interested in the color versions of the published photographs, there is a link below each posted photograph.