207 SQUADRON ROYAL AIR FORCE HISTORY

The creation of the Memorial near Jisp

The monument was unveiled on September 15th 1998. There are a few memorial days at the monument throughout the year.

The memorial has been placed on the initiative of Mr Just Kroon from Purmerend who has had contact with some of the families of the three crews of the aircraft which crashed within 1 km of it:

Co Maarschalkerweerd, born in 1939, is an amateur airwar historian, who can be contacted via the Editor.

He writes: "The monument was erected privately by Mr Just Kroon. I designed the footing of this monument for him, consisting of an RAF-green square, on which the RAF roundel is superimposed by the American white star. In the centre is the pylon with a propeller of the Lancaster ED554, recovered from a nearby pond in the fields in which most of this aircraft crashed in April 1943. The lower (left) propeller blade is pointing into that direction (see plaque below) 300 metres away from the monument.

I am writing (hopefully!) a book about airmen and their aircraft, which during World War II went down in the vicinity of Amsterdam, in connection to the New Eastern Cemetery in Amsterdam, in which crew members of those planes found a last and final resting place: 229 from the UK, 37 Canadians, 19 Australians, 15 from NZ, as well as 16 Polish (RAF) airmen.


image source: Co Maarschalkerweerd

Nowadays, more than 60 years after the war, it's quite difficult to contact the family and next of kin of those often so young and very brave airmen, and (consequently) to get photos from their families to include in my book. I have photographs of (almost) all headstones, but the faces of those who died are more interesting... "


Co Maarschalkerweerd
source: Co
The plinth on the way to the site
source: Just Kroon

 


After the unveiling of the memorial: Mr Just Kroon in the helmet, Mrs Tiny Kroon behind him
image source: Co Maarschalkerweerd


The memorial plaque: the aircraft images are not those of the actual aircraft
image source: Haslam

These are other views of the memorial taken later:


View towards the crash site of Lancaster ED554 EM-Q 300m away,
pointed to by blade on right.


The memorial is beside a well used cycle path: note information seat and bike racks


The well-used information seat.

The Association came to know of the memorial thanks to Jan-Kees Kense. On 6 July 2006 he emailed the 207 website editor: "Recently I have biked through the Jisperveld near Jisp and found a little monument remembering three crews from three different airplanes. One of them is the ED554 Lancaster (among a Halifax HR786 and a B-24 Liberator). As a modeller (I am a member of the International Plastic Modeller Society Netherlands) I'm quiet interested in this airplane, this crew, squadron and the story behind it. I know that a part of the crew is buried in Amsterdam at the Oosterbegraafplaats."

We are grateful to Jan-Kees and hope that others will let us know of any memorials to members of 207 Squadron that we appear not to know about.

If you have better images or more information please contact the editor.

page last updated: 20 May 2007