Bram van der Stok

Abraham Lamertus "Bram" van der Stok, (13 October 1915 – 8 February 1993), also known as Bob van der Stok, was a World War II fighter pilot and flying ace, and is the most decorated aviator in Dutch history.

In March 1944, he broke out of Stalag Luft III – a prisoner-of-war camp in Nazi Germany – during the mass break-out known as "The Great Escape". After crossing much of occupied Europe, to reach neutral Spain, Van der Stok became one of only three out of the 76 escapees to reach Britain, along with two Norwegians, Per Bergsland and Jens Müller (who together managed to reach neutral Sweden).

Capture, imprisonment and escape

thumb|[[Stalag Luft III mockup.]]

On 12 April 1942, during an operation code-named 'Circus 122' over occupied North France to attack the railway marshalling yard at Hazebrouck, Van der Stok was shot down while flying a Spitfire Vb BL595. He parachuted down safely at Saint-Omer in the Pas-de-Calais, but was immediately captured by a Wehrmacht patrol.

He was subsequently incarcerated in the newly built Stalag Luft III where, with his medical training, he worked in the prison's medical facility. While at Stalag Luft III, he made three escape attempts. The first was inadvertently spoiled by another prisoner who drew attention to the escaping Van der Stok while retrieving a stolen German cap from the roof of a hut. The second attempt was thwarted when the German guards noticed that a forged pass he was using to get past them was out of date. His third attempt, on the night of 24–25 March 1944, was as a part of the mass break-out later known as "The Great Escape", in which he was the 18th of 76 prisoners to leave the escape tunnel.

In his memoir he describes the moment he came out of the tunnel on 24 March, writing:

After the break-out, Van der Stok travelled from Breslau train station to Dresden where he was stopped at several checkpoints, convincing the Germans that he was not one of the escapees. He then travelled to Utrecht through Oldenzaal and met up with a member of the Dutch underground, who briefed and equipped him for a bicycle trek to another safe house run by the Belgian Resistance. After arriving there, he was given the paperwork of a Belgian, and then travelled by train via Brussels and Paris to Toulouse, where the French Resistance put him with two American lieutenants, two other RAF pilots, a French officer and a Russian, and took the group across the Pyrenees to Lleida in Spain. The British consulate in Spain accepted the Allied escapees and, three months after the break-out of Stalag Luft III, Van der Stok reached British Empire territory once again by arriving in Gibraltar on 8 July 1944. He was subsequently flown from Gibraltar to Whitchurch Airport in England on 11 July 1944.

Back in England, Van der Stok rejoined the RAF and was posted to No. 41 Squadron flying the Spitfire MK.XII's, going on to fight in Operation Overlord - (10 days after D-Day) and the anti-V-1 fighter aircraft sweeps along the Low Countries coast. In his book War Pilot of Orange, he claims to have downed seven V-1 'Doodlebugs'. The following year, he took command of the Dutch RAF No. 322 Squadron, based then on a temporary airstrip at Schijndel in the Netherlands, where, coming into contact with his family for the first time since he had left the Netherlands in 1940, he learned that his two brothers had been killed in concentration camps and his father had been partially blinded by the Gestapo. Van der Stok died at Virginia Beach, Virginia, United States, on 8 February 1993.

Legacy

In the 1963 film The Great Escape, elements of his part in the affair were written into the role of "Sedgwick", played by the actor James Coburn.

In 2018, a brooch, awarded to him by the Caterpillar Club to acknowledge his use of an Irvin parachute to bail out of a stricken aircraft, sold for £3226 at auction, beating its estimate of £500-600.

In February 2019 a new edition of his memoir was published by Greenhill Books, London, with a preface by The Times journalist Simon Pearson and a foreword by Bram's son Robert Vanderstok.

Honours

As a fighter pilot with the Netherlands air forces in May 1940, then as an RAF pilot and twice as a so-called "Engelandvaarder" (Lit: England sailor), Bram van der Stok was decorated multiple times by Dutch and foreign governments. Van der Stok is the only soldier to receive the four awards for gallantry and merit instituted during the Second World War, the Bronze Lion (15 June 1946), the Dutch Bronze Cross (awarded by Queen Wilhelmina for his actions the Airman's Cross (with the number "2") (21 September 1942), and the Cross of Merit (3 September 1942). Belgium honored Bram van der Stok with the Officer's Cross with Palm of the Order of Leopold (24 March 1947).

Van der Stok received the following awards:

In the Netherlands:

55px Officer in the Order of Orange-Nassau with the swords

55px Bronze Lion (Bronzen Leeuw)

55px Bronze Cross (Bronzen Kruis)

55px Cross of Merit (Kruis van Verdienste)

55px Airman's Cross (Vliegerkruis)

55px War Commemorative Cross (Oorlogsherinneringskruis) with 2 clasps

55px Resistance Commemorative Cross (Verzetsherdenkingskruis)

55px (Onderscheidingsteken voor Langdurige Dienst als officier) with year sign XV

55px formal:Cross for the Four Day Marches (Kruis voor betoonde marsvaardigheid) informal: 4 Days Cross (Vierdaagse Kruis)

Outside the Netherlands:

55px Member of the Order of the British Empire (Military Division) (UK)

55px 1939-1945 Star with 3 campaign stars (UK)

55px France and Germany Star (UK)

55px War Medal 1939-1945 (UK)

55px Officer in the Order of Leopold II with palm (Officier in de order van Leopold II met palm/Officier de l'Ordre de Léopold II avec palme (Belgium)

55px Croix de guerre 1940–1945 with palm/ (Oorlogskruis 1940-1945 met palm/Croix de Guerre 1940-1945 avec palme) (Belgium)

55px Croix de Guerre 1939-1945 (France)

55px Cross of Valour 1944 (Krzyż Walecznych 1944 ) (Poland)

C-130 Hercules with serial number "G-781" of the Royal Netherlands Air Force is named after him.

Publications

Notes

References

External links

De Nederlandse luchtmacht in mei 1940
41 (F) Squadron RAF at War and Peace, April 1916 – March 1946
The Great Escape – The Three That Got Away
[https://www.tracesofwar.nl/articles/1073/Stok-Bram-van-der.htm]
www.historyinfilm.com (en)
Museum of Allied Prisoners of War Martyrdom
Stalag Luft 3. The Great Escape