August Marie Bovens

This memorial page is dedicated to August Marie Bovens, one of more than 725 war victims connected to the municipality of Deurne documented by Stichting Oorlogsslachtoffers. The municipality of Deurne and the surrounding villages of Liessel, Vlierden, Helenaveen, Neerkant and Zeilberg were liberated in the autumn of 1944 during heavy fighting. Victims fell on all sides: Allied soldiers from countries such as the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada and New Zealand, and German soldiers.

But the archive covers more than just the combat victims on Deurne soil. Residents of Deurne who lost their lives elsewhere are also commemorated: civilians who were murdered in concentration camps, forced labourers who died in Germany, people who were executed or succumbed to the effects of persecution and oppression. In addition, residents of Deurne who entered German military service and were killed elsewhere are also included.

Stichting Oorlogsslachtoffers has been documenting the story of all these people since 1995, without distinction of nationality, side or background. The goal is to give every person a name and a face, and to keep their memory alive.

Additional information:
Grave location: Section AK, Row 10, Grave 227

Son of Jan Mathijs Bovens and Maria Gertrudis Daniels.

Due to the heavy fighting and during the German retreat and the Allied advance, a great deal of ammunition was left behind; consequently, it was possible that there was still a significant amount of unexploded ordnance in the ground. In the Neerkant area, there were also various ‘Schrapnellmine’ or S-mines which, once triggered, would leap into the air and explode at hip height, sending all manner of sharp pieces of steel flying in every direction.

There were so many mines in the Peel that it would take the select group of mine clearance experts years to clear them all. In Vught, the former concentration camp housed Dutch SS members, and because there were so many mines in the Peel, volunteers were sought there for the dangerous work in the Peel.

August Marie Bovens also volunteered, and after a short training course he was taken from Vught to Deurne every day, along with other Dutch SS men, by camp guards from Camp Vught. Sergeant Jean Dirven, one of the leaders of the group of mine clearance workers, had nothing good to say about these guards. Jean Dirven discovered that, on the return journey in the evening, the camp guards would take their prisoners off the lorries on the Markt in Helmond and, for the amusement of onlookers, make them hop across the square and perform other gymnastic exercises. Furthermore, the SS men in the camp were beaten more often than they were fed; there were even instances where two of them fainted whilst clearing mines. Jean Dirven later learnt that the SS men were given a small piece of bread in the morning and had to make do with that for the whole day, which is why they fainted from hunger. Jean Dirven managed to convince the mayor of Deurne that he could not continue working under such conditions, because if someone stepped on a mine at the wrong moment, several mine-clearers could die. From then on, Jean Dirven was allowed, at the expense of Deurne council, to collect half a loaf of bread for each deminer from Schiks’ bakery in Stationsstraat.

Normally, the mine clearance workers worked in pairs side by side, with the next pair following at a distance of about ten metres. Care was taken to ensure that their probing movements overlapped. On Wednesday 25 July 1945, at around 2.15 pm, whilst searching with mine detector no. 3, an accident occurred. The cause is thought to have been the assistant’s carelessness (according to the detector operator). August Marie Bovens was killed when a fragment struck him above his left eye; a second SS officer was seriously injured. The injured SS officer was taken to the hospital in Deurne, whilst the remains of August Marie Bovens were taken to the former penal camp at Vught.

August Marie Bovens was buried in the cemetery at the former concentration camp in Vught, Plot A, Row 3, Grave 44, from where he was reburied on 20 June 1968 to the German Military Cemetery in Ysselsteyn.

A report of the transfer, containing identification details and drawn up by the Identification and Recovery Service, may be available for inspection from the author.

Death register (date of death given as 26 July 1945)

Dutch SS members from Camp Vucht clearing mines, probably somewhere on the Schans in the Neerkant. They are being guarded by Dutch soldiers.

Below is a photograph of a Schu-Mine (wooden box mine) with its pressure lid raised; the ZZ-42 detonator is still in the explosive charge. One of the many types of mines that were cleared in the Peel.

Report by Sergeant Jean Dirven

Sergeant Jean Dirven

View all persons in the category: German soldiers killed in action