In the town right next to Born Netherlands where the 75th Infantry was stationed is Overloon Netherlands. Although not a town 1st Leutenant Arthur Thorspecken would have been to, it had a World War II museum that I could not resist seeing. I called a head of time but didn’t get through to anyone directly. I decided to go, in the rare hope that messages had been checked and they might be expecting me.
The big blue wooden front doors were locked. There was no answer. To keep the morning from being a complete loss. I set up across the street and drew the building, called Grevenbicht, which was once a corn mill. The water from the Meuse River still flows under the building for powering the grist mill stone.
Demolition was happening on the building across from the museum. Young men would come down periodically and throw cinder blocks and other building materials in the dumpster. A Virgin Mary had her own little diorama box on Grevenbicht. Grape vines were hanging on to the gutters and building facade. The tall industrial chimney often had pigeons. At the base of the chimney were some tank treads. The director of the museum is an avid collector of WWII memorabilia and he often scours the countryside with a metal detector finding such things as the abandoned tank treads, butter shells, buttons and coins.
After my sketch was done I started to pack up. I gave the front door one more try, but no luck. Then a woman looking over a fence introduced herself. I let her know I was hoping to get into the museum and it turned out she is the wife of the museum director. He was away at a collectors convention of some kind, looking for more items for the museum, I am sure.
I showed her the sketch I had done, and she was delighted. She invited me into the back yard for a coffee. They have a beautiful garden in back and she had been working on it all morning. She called her husband and we arranged to meet at the museum the next day.
The Battle of Overloon happened between September 30 and October 18th of 1944, before the 75th Infantry Division was in the area in early March 1945. The primary American army unit that took place in the battle of Overloon was the 7th Armored Division. On the flank was the 29th Infantry Division, but most of the fighting was carried out by the 7th Armored.
Over coffee I learned quite a bit about the museum but we needed a translator. The woman’s son spoke English quite well, to be honest, so did she. The son said he should be allowed to give tours of the museum, but his dad hadn’t approved the idea yet. I was given advice to sketch a memorial just past the river going back towards Born Netherlands. She even gave me a dive on where to park. I had another sketch opportunity and the next day I could see the museum.