The partisans
On 2 September 1944, the Knokploeg Limburg and the Knokploeg Maas en Waal received orders from London to go into action. However, the promised arms drops failed to materialise. Therefore, on 7 September, the local commander of the KP, Frank van Bijnen, sent a telegram to Prince Bernhard: 'Arrange for drops otherwise there can be no question of armed resistance.' As this call was not heeded, Van Bijnen ordered the capture of weapons, ammunition and means of transport, including raids on small groups of German soldiers.
Four German soldiers were taken prisoner of war. These four were far from militant, which is why they were called 'the tame ones' by their later guards. Members of the Baarlo Ordnance Service were called in to guard them. A camp was set up in the forest south of Baarlo, partly underground, which eventually housed 32 German prisoners of war.
Food had to be provided daily for more than 70 people. A difficult task, in which the entire population of Baarlo participated, as was later recounted by one of the 'forest partisans', Mattieu Hutjens. Farmers gave grain that was ground in the water mill and the baker baked bread for free. Couriers brought this bread by wagon to the forest, and other foodstuffs to Coopmans' farm, where the farmer's wife cooked food for almost eighty people daily.
On 19 November 1944, the prisoners of war were handed over to the advancing British army. A week later, commander J.A. Oliver of the 154th Infantry Brigade wrote a letter expressing his gratitude for all the help he had received from the group of partisans. The whole group joined the British until the end of the war.