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MOOK AND MOLENHOEK CEMETERIES
Look Who's Coming To Dinner
   Taken by a Dutch citizen on the afternoon of September 17, 1944 as the 508th PIR floated down in Drop Zone 'T'  in the fields of Groesbeek, a suburb of Nijmegen, Holland.
   Although resistance was light during the para-drop, there were many casualties in the days that followed.

Mook Cemetery, 1947
  
Seen from the air approximately two years after the end of hostilities, this cemetery, even though temporary, has all of the sense of symmetry that is found in a military cemetery.
The Mook cemetery was, and remains, a British Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery.

Molenhoek Cemetery, September 17, 1945
   Molenhoek was designated as the American temporary cemetery and all American war dead were either re-interred at Margraten when that formal cemetery was completed or sent home at the request of family.  Although considered to be temporary, the grounds and neatly aligned wooden crosses still evoke a sense of peace and dignity.   Roger Kitchen took  this shot of Molenhoek Cemetery when he visited the graves of fallen friends (see also Purdue Grave Marker) on the first anniversary of Operation Market Garden.
 

 


Dutch citizens at the 82nd Airborne Division cemetery at Molenhoek Holland September 17, 1945
  
The sacrifices made by American paratroopers were not lost on the Dutch citizenry.  Many of them adopted a grave that commemorative day to honor the men that had given their lives in freeing Holland from tyranny. That rite of adoptive caring continues to this day, more than 60 years after Operation Market Garden was launched.

Molenhoek Entrance (ca. 1945)
was marked by a simple roadside sign

(courtesy of Francis Mahan collection)

Margraten Cemetery (ca. 1946)
became the final resting place of all those whose family decided to let them rest with their comrades. This photo was taken while the temporary crosses were still in place.

(courtesy of Francis Mahan collection)

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