| Original caption: “Trooper G.E. Hawley of The Westminster Regiment (Motor) stooking wheat with Dutch farmers, Groningen, Netherlands.” Private Glen Evert Hawley (July 2, 1911 – July 6, 1992) of Tappen, British Columbia, Canada, a trooper with the Royal Westminster (Motor) Infantry Regiment, the “Westies,” stooks wheat with Dutch farmers. Groningen was the regional capital of an agricultural district that had relatively plentiful food during the war; the occupied areas of the Netherlands were cut off by the destruction of the rail network and the cessation of rationed food after Operation Market-Garden. Wheat stores in farmlands like Groningen couldn’t reach the cities. During the war the Dutch suffered significantly increased mortality rates. Unsurprisingly, the Hongerwinter (“Hunger winter”) of 1944-45 stands out as a particularly deadly period, but even before that disastrous episode the number of deaths per 1,000 inhabitants increased considerably. The crude mortality rate of 11.8 deaths per 1,000 inhabitants in 1944 was almost 40 percent higher than the 8.6 deaths per 1,000 inhabitants in the pre-war year 1939. The crude mortality rate further increased by another 30 percent to 15.3 per 1,000 in 1945. During the period between the liberation of the southern Netherlands in September 1944 and the liberation of the north in the course of April and May 1945, the infrastructure for food and other transportation came to a halt, causing food supplies to become a very local affair. In relatively small cities in rural areas, such as the city of Groningen, people managed to avoid famine by acquiring sufficient calories both from the surrounding areas and from production within the city itself. The urbanized west of the country, however, was simply too densely populated to make do without substantial food supplies from further away, and it was there that famine became inevitable. In the city of Groningen, the fact that the north-east escaped famine during the Hongerwinter has led to the widespread belief that the food situation there was unproblematic. This has been proven incorrect. It has been established through an investigation of birth weights and placenta weights that young mothers in Groningen, and especially mothers from the relatively poor parts of the city, were indeed seriously undernourished, albeit not in a quantitative sense. The local lore, according to which many people in the city lived on a diet of potatoes and very little else, seems to hold water in the light of medical-historical investigation. The division of the Netherlands into “the west” and “the rest” in terms of nutrition appears to be a back-projection of the Hunger winter onto the preceding war years. Over 20,000 people perished in the large cities in the western Netherlands during the worst weeks of the Hunger winter. This famine, however, was preceded as well as followed by periods of less severe but certainly serious food insecurity and resultant mortality. In all, more than half of the 1945 peak in Dutch mortality consisted of increased mortality in the 4 largest cities, where only 20 percent of the population lived. In absolute terms, infants and the very elderly made up the majority of the famine dead. By that time, Allied troops were already streaming in through Germany, so that the fall of the Reich was ostentatiously inevitable, but many German troops and their local henchmen put up considerable resistance. This resulted in destruction and casualties in the cities of Groningen and Zutphen, which were severely damaged and suffered numerous casualties. After crossing the Rhine in March 1945, the 2nd Royal Canadian Army Corps headed for Groningen. The liberation of Groningen was assigned to the 2nd Royal Canadian Army Infantry Division. Since the northern provinces were the food basket of the west, it was essential that these provinces be cleared of the enemy as quickly as possible. Groningen’s population had swelled by 25,000 refugees from the fighting in the fall. 150,000 Dutch lived in medieval-era Groningen’s inner city, with narrow streets with high buildings on each side. 12 bridges were blown up or simply raised by the 7,500-strong Nazi German garrison. 2nd Infantry Division used small unit tactics to take Groningen. Submachine guns and hand grenades were the weapons of choice; Towed 17-pounder (76.2 millimeter; 3-inch) anti-tank guns were used to take out entrenched Nazi German machine gun nests. The extensive network of fortifications the Nazi Germans forced the Dutch to build were not utilized, as the Heer (“Army”) 480th Infantry Division left Groningen for Germany before the battle, leaving too few Heer soldiers to mount a proper defense. The Nazi Germans had many Panzerfausts and 20 millimeter (.78 inch) antiaircraft guns, though, and many MG-42 machine guns. Groningen’s residents were overjoyed at liberation, and often did not wait for the battle to pass before greeting the Canadians. This had some impact on Allied operations. 2nd Canadian Infantry Division couldn’t use air power in Groningen. The battle for Groningen was fought in a series of controlled stages with units rotating between front-line actions. the battle in the inner city resulted in the destruction of buildings in concentrated clusters by the enemy. That destruction was often deliberate in order to block some of the narrow streets. Resistance was overcome in part by the infantry, penetrating behind enemy lines through gardens and walls. This was often done through the help of local citizens hiding in their houses. Despite the destruction in the inner city, the basic infrastructure of the city escaped relatively unscathed. The railway station and its yards were not destroyed. The large hospital at the eastern edge of the city remained intact. The large natural gas plant continued to serve its customers. Electrical power, except for a brief period on Saturday, was not interrupted. There are a number of plaques throughout the city that still remind the citizens of Groningen of that 4-day battle. But this was not deemed to be enough. In 1995, 50 years after the war, the city of Groningen set aside 6 hectares (14 acres) of land to establish a liberation park of Maple Leaf trees. On each Remembrance Day, more trees are planted and although the forest is still in its infancy, this park will be a lasting memory of the 43 soldiers of the 2nd Canadian Infantry Division. They were among the last of the 5,852 Canadian sons who gave their lives for the liberation of the Netherlands from the Nazi regime. On May 23, 1945, a victory parade of 2,000 vehicles and 15,000 men of 5th Canadian Armored Brigade occurred at the Eelde airfield just south of Groningen. After the Nazi surrender, the 1st Canadian Army supervised a somewhat disorganized and confusing return of Germans home. A series of transit camps were established across the Netherlands to facilitate the march back to Germany, and unexpectedly, German vehicles with supplies showed up with food, medicine and blankets. Additional camps had to be established when it was realized the timetable for the march across 150 kilometers (90 miles) was unrealistic. 1st Canadian Army moved 140,000 Germans safely back into the Emden Peninsula in just over 2 weeks, by June 7, 1945. Yet the island of Schiermonnikoog had to wait until June 11 before it became the last Dutch municipality to regain its freedom. Starving Dutch civilians not only bartered with the Canadians for food and cigarettes, but also raided the 1st Canadian Army’s supplies to sell on the black market. The people in Groningen Province suffered from lack of basic necessities such as transportation and fuel, leading the brigade to push demands for the arrival of Civil Affairs teams to help. This photograph of Hawley helping with harvesting grain was a publicity photo, meant to show the close cooperation of the Canadians and Dutch in feeding the populace. Glen Evert Hawley returned to Canada via Royal Mail Steamer Queen Elizabeth, docking in New York on January 15, 1946. He became a laborer in Vancouver and worked for the city government. He was a city foreman by 1968. | |
| Image Filename | wwii0530.jpg |
| Image Size | 169.14 KB |
| Image Dimensions | 1088 x 836 |
| Photographer | Jack H. Smith |
| Photographer Title | Royal Canadian Army |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | August 10, 1945 |
| Location | |
| City | Groningen |
| State or Province | Groningen |
| Country | Netherlands |
| Archive | Library and Archives of Canada |
| Record Number | 3200838 |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
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