(Lichtenvoorde, 1920)

Member of the 3rd Company DNB

Key figure in the Lichtenvoorde pilot assistance

Gerhardus Johannes (Gert) Reinders was born in Lichtenvoorde on 5 January 1920, the son of Johannes Reinders and Anna Maria Kortbeek. His parents were already somewhat older, and the age difference with his older brothers and sisters was at least ten years. Gert’s father was a painter by trade, but Gert himself was a baker’s assistant in his younger years.

Pilot line

At the beginning of the Second World War, Gert Reinders quickly began assisting several resistance comrades who had started providing help to escaped (mostly French-speaking) prisoners of war from German camps. Along with Leemreize, Ter Haar, Foury, Knufing, and Meijer, Reinders belonged to the core of the group that would much later be called ‘pilot helpers’, as they increasingly provided assistance to stranded Allied pilots.

Resistance work under the alias ‘de Hond’

Under his codename ‘de Hond’ (the Dog), Reinders, together with Jan Foury, provided initial shelter to fugitives. As soon as word was received that escaped prisoners of war or pilots had been spotted in the vicinity, they ensured they were on the scene as quickly as possible. They took these men to a guest house and arranged clothing, food, identity papers, medicine, transport training, and guidance.

From the end of 1943, the Lichtenvoorde aid line began to cooperate intensively with the pilot line in Hengelo (Overijssel). Taking turns with his comrades, Reinders collected pilots in Hengelo and brought them to Lichtenvoorde, where they stayed for a while awaiting further transport to the southern Netherlands and their home base.

Thanks to the resistance network in Lichtenvoorde (‘Little England’), hundreds of people remained out of the hands of the occupier. The betrayal by a spy of the Sicherheitsdienst in 1944 forms a black page in the resistance history of Lichtenvoorde. There were victims whose names will never be forgotten: H. Blaauwgeers, W. Doppen, E. Heusinkveld, the brothers A. and M. Kettering, M. Lelivelt, and A. Slot.

Interior Forces and the DNB

After Operation Market Garden in September 1944, the route to Belgium was cut off, meaning fugitives had to be sheltered in their own region until the liberation. During this period, Reinders joined the combatant section of the Dutch Interior Forces (Nederlandse Binnenlandse Strijdkrachten – NBS), Lichtenvoorde group.

In early April 1945, he became a member of the 3rd Company of the Dutch National Battalion (DNB). In this capacity, he moved with the Canadian army to liberate the rest of the Netherlands. After the capitulation, Reinders remained active in the military; he re-enlisted in the Dutch army and was part of the 3.II.8 Infantry Regiment.

Personal life

Gert Reinders married Martina F.M. Raijmakers on 7 August 1952 in Bergen (Limburg). He passed away on 30 December 2000 in Venlo.

Gert Reinders (centre front, wearing a beret)