Tim Dobie visited the museum in search for more information on his great uncle Lieutenant-Colonel David Theodore Dobie, who fought at Arnhem and was awarded with the Distinguished Service Order and Duch Militaire Willemsorde. Ofcourse we were glad to help! My Mother Anna, younger brother Laurence and I had a very interesting day visiting the Airbourne Museum at Oosterbeek in July 2014. We had heard about the efforts of the Allied forces, Dutch resistance and in particular my Great Uncle David T. Dobie but we wanted to visit to see it for ourselves and find out more. We were greeted enthusiastically by the staff when we arrived and were taken upstairs to the archives to read David’s War diary, this was written on stolen hospital notepaper whilst he was in hiding directly after the battle and his subsequent capture and escape. This and other information collected from the Museum and it’s staff helped find points of particular interest in and around Arnhem. We found the landing zone that his battalion used, the planned route into Arnhem along the railway, the sites of some of the fighting he was involved in, the old garage and Hotel he used as an HQ after the first day to re-group, roughly where he was captured and then escaped and finally roughly where he crossed the Rhine near Renkum to organise operation Pegasus (see photo). The Museum, and the trip in general really brought the events of those days to life for us, for that we are very grateful. Visiting the Airbourne Cemetry was perhaps the most poignant moment of the weekend, although David managed to avoid it, many many others did not. It was humbling to learn of the mixed suffering and achievement of all involved over those few days - some of which was recounted in David’s diary. The town of Arnhem and the Airboune Museum have gone to great lengths to preserve the memory of everyone involved which is great to see. Thankyou very much for your help, we had a wonderful time. Thanks for visiting us Tim!
Posted on: Wed, 13 Aug 2014 09:00:00 +0000
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