The village of Groesbeek is in the east of the
Netherlands and approx 10kms south east of the city of Nijmegen.
Allied forces entered the Netherlands on 12 September 1944. Airborne
operations later that month established a bridgehead at Nijmegen and in
the following months, coastal areas and ports were cleared and secured,
but it was not until the German initiated offensive in the Ardennes had
been repulsed that the drive into Germany could begin. Most of those
buried in GROESBEEK CANADIAN WAR CEMETERY were Canadians, many of whom
died in the Battle of the Rhineland, when the 2nd and 3rd Canadian
Infantry Divisions and the 4th Canadian Armoured Division took part in
the drive southwards from Nijmegen to clear the territory between the
Maas and the Rhine in February and March 1945. Others buried here died
earlier or later in the southern part of the Netherlands and in the
Rhineland. The cemetery contains 2,610 Commonwealth burials of the
Second World War, and nine war graves of other nationalities. Within the
cemetery stands the GROESBEEK MEMORIAL, which commemorates by name more
than 1,000 members of the Commonwealth land forces who died during the
campaign in north-west Europe between the time of crossing the Seine at
the end of August 1944 and the end of the war in Europe, and whose
graves are not known. The CEMETERY and MEMORIAL were designed by P.D.
Hepworth. |
