Chris Cornelisse

Rhenen 22 Apr 1901 – 23 Jul 2002

About: Christiaan "Chris" Cornelisse of the Rijnstraat, Amerongen, a resistance man who rowed and ferried evaders over the Rhine, worked with "Captain King" on the crossings, and with his wife hid Bob Porter and Roger Schjelderup over Christmas 1944. By the guide Maljers's statement he set out with Schjelderup and Porter on 2 January 1945 for the crossing on which Murphy's party was caught.

Unit or role: The R.V.V. and the K.P.; "private infantery" by his army rank; known to the Allied men as "Chris" (his questionnaire, p. 20).

Where: Rijnstraat B 472, Amerongen.

Evidence: ✓ His helper file with the Americans, US National Archives 286644267 (recommendation, questionnaire, list); ✓ his wife's, 286644312 (her account); Geschiedenis Magazine; Fowler, Canadian Military History, 1996; ✓ his Dutch award card.

He was born at Rhenen on 22 April 1901 and lived with his wife, Elisabeth Cornelisse-van Brink, at Rijnstraat 472, Amerongen (his questionnaire, p. 20; the recommendation, p. 15).

• ✓ The Rhenen birth register has Christiaan Cornelisse born on 22 April 1901, son of Leendert Cornelisse and Helena Dijkhuizen (the record, Het Utrechts Archief; index only).
• ✓ At Maurik on 7 July 1926 he married Elisabeth van Brenk, 20, born at Maurik, daughter of Cornelis Leendert van Brenk and Janna Maria Mazelina van Ewijk; he was 25, born at Rhenen, a factory worker (fabrieksarbeider) (the record, Gelders Archief; index only). Her age fits the 2 February 1906 birth on her own questionnaire (Mr and Mrs Cornelissen).

The household, as Porter knew it, is on Mr and Mrs Cornelissen.

With Coen Esveld, Chris Cornelisse ran evaders across the Rhine on the Amerongen–Eck en Wiel ferry, which operated throughout the occupation: three parties of six. One of Amerongen's three ferrymen warned him when Germans were aboard. On the third crossing two Germans boarded at the last moment and were put over the side, and that ended the ferry crossings (Geschiedenis Magazine). ◐ The ferry crossing of 2 January, on which Murphy's party went over, "without incident" by Noble's report (Noble), was therefore not that run; the Geschiedenis Magazine article gives no date for the incident. ⚠︎ Noble's own later account of the same crossing (unpublished private papers, shared with us privately), told long after the war, has "the German ferry run by the German Army near Amerongen at a place called Elst", the party "disguised as farm labourers" and "taken over uneventfully by the Germans to whom we paid a small amount of money"; it names no Dutch ferryman or escort.

✓ Elsa Caspers, the courier at Langbroek, has the same pair at the same work from the Amerongen end: Piet de Springer took small groups by bicycle to "Den Duinen", a house in sand-dunes a few minutes' walk from the river between Amerongen and Wijk bij Duurstede, and "Piet or two local men - Coen (Esveld), in his twenties, and Chris Cornelisse, who was middle-aged - rowed them across.", twice over if there were more than six men. In the autumn floods and ice "Coen and Chris made three or four trips a week" (Caspers, To Save a Life, pp. 61–62). The plate in her book that names both men is at the top of this page. ⚠︎ His own recommendation has him row evaders "on two occasions" (below), against her "three or four trips a week"; the sources do not reconcile the counts.

The Americans' recommendation sums up his work:

During the Pegasus and Sliedrecht operations, Chris Cornelissen worked with Lt. Kirschens (Captain King), a British parachute agent whose duty it was to arrange the evacuation of a large number of evaders from the ill-fated Arnhem operation. Cornelissen on one occasion provided a boat for crossing the Rhine, and rowed several evaders to liberated territory on two occasions. In addition he sheltered 7 evaders for several weeks, 16 men for some days and smaller groups for shorter periods.

— US National Archives · RG 498, helper file of Christiaan Cornelisse · recommendation for award, grade 3, 5 June 1946 · the archive's copy

His questionnaire adds the crossing he arranged for Gilbert Kirschen, "Captain King":

helped King to find a boat with which they could cross the Rhine. This was about the middle of January and they should go via Tiel. Cornelissen rowed them across in 2 trips

— US National Archives · RG 498, helper file of Christiaan Cornelisse · questionnaire, December 1945 · p. 20

The men he could name: the Canadian airmen Robert Gelfand and Lawrence McElroy from the beginning of October to November 1944 and again from the middle of March to the liberation; Porter and Schjelderup "half Dec. 1944 till 3 Jan. 1945, 2 men for 3 weeks"; V. Brock Christie and Carl A. Ellement in March 1945; and K. Buckley ("Bucklry") from 22 March to the liberation. "Thereby we had a group of 16 men for some days and smaller groups for some days all waiting for crossing" (p. 21).

• ✓ How the first two came to him is in Maljers's enclosure of 3 July 1945: "Robert and Larry (see report Chris Cornelissen)", whom "Piet Dirk picked these 2 up from the street at Maarn. He took them to Chris Cornelissen at Amerongen" (Maljers, p. 13); "Dirk" is Adriaan Maljers and "Piet" ◐ Piet de Springer. Mrs Cornelisse has them "brought by Piet" about 10 October (Mr and Mrs Cornelissen).
• ✓ The Australian pilot Ross Stoner was "brought to Mrs. ESVELD by her son Gerrit", stayed two or three weeks, "and was taken away by Chris in March for a crossing" (Mrs Esveld, p. 5).
• ✓ B. A. (Flip) Esveld's table has "to C. Cornelisse, Amerongen: 2 Canadians, Christie and Carl, and Jack (English detective)"; he sheltered and nursed "these 2" in a shelter in the woods, as head of the K.P., before they went to Cornelisse (Flip Esveld, p. 10; Berend Esveld). ◐ Flip's table says only "to C. Cornelisse"; Mrs Cornelisse has Christie arrive "in the beginning of March from BARNEVELD, where he stayed with Dik" (her account, p. 4), so the route to the Rijnstraat is not settled between the two; "Jack" is not on Cornelisse's own list.
  • ✓ Christie is Valentine Brock Christie, RCAF (the evidence is on Mr and Mrs Cornelissen), the "P/O CHRISTIE, R.C.A.F." whom Stearns's report has set out south with him, Stoner and Craven after a note of 22 February, spend seven days at Amerongen, and go on 10 March to 't Waal by Schalkwijk (E&E 2870); how the dates fit Mrs Cornelisse's fortnight is on her page.
• ◐ The Belgians' pistols. Cornelis Dieckmann of Rhenen wrote that a group of Belgian airborne soldiers and a Norwegian airman, put through by Dick, were to be taken to Tull en 't Waal by Joop Doornebosch and Dick of Doorn, with "Chris Cornelisse from Amerongen" standing on the way with another evader to make six; at Tull "Joop and Chris, who had leaded the transport" were already gone when Dieckmann arrived (Dieckmann, p. 7).
  • The Belgians had agreed to give their pistols to the underground, "the pistol of the captaine" being meant for Joop, and "About two days later we were informed that Joop's pistol had arrived at Wout (the farmer, Verwey) at 't Waal. Joop fetched here the pistol" (p. 7).
  • The report, addressed to "Captain I.S. H. van Loenen" on 14 July 1945, gives no date for the crossing, and says that "neither Joop, nor Chris nor me had compelled them in some way to yield their weapons" (p. 8).
  • An unsigned enclosure about Dieckmann, of the day before, has, after its account of him, "We have to take his information with a grain of salt"; its compiler is not named (p. 6; Joop Doornebosch).

Another Amerongen helper, Pieter van Veenendaal, sent five airmen and a Polish paratrooper on to "C. Cornelissen Rynstr." among others (his file, p. 3).

March 1945, from the Barneveld end. Two more helpers' forms put men through his hands in the last weeks:

• ◐ Cornelis (Kees) Niessen of Rijnstraat B 475c, Amerongen, wrote of the glider pilot Haller that "Kees received him in March from Chris, arranged for shelter for 4 days and then he crossed with Chris"; and that "Jacques, a Scot, Captain in the R.A.F." went "with Chris from BARNEVELD to Kees NIESSEN", stayed "3-4 weeks and then crossed with Chris. It was successful" (Niessen's enclosure, p. 7, read from the image; his form is p. 4).
  • He gives no surname, so ◐ Chris is very probably Cornelisse, whose house was Rijnstraat B 472; Bernard Haller has Haller's whole chain.
• ◐ The K. Buckley he lists from 22 March is also on Gerrit Bronkhorst's table at Kootwijkerbroek, with Robert de Lange and Jan Falkowski, 16 days, received from and passed to "Joop en Dick" (p. 4, checked on the image; Dick Kragt).
  • ✓ Bronkhorst's 1 March and 16 days end before 22 March, and Cornelisse's list has no host between; Mrs Esveld fills it: "K. BUCKLRY (see supplement for Cornelissen van BRENK No. 00258). Stayed from mid March until 25 March with Mrs. ESVELD" (her statement, p. 5). Mrs Cornelisse has him brought by "van ESVELD" about 25 March (her account, p. 4), so the 22 March of Chris's own list is three days early; ⚠︎ not settled.

Others came to him by the same road as Murphy's party. J. H. Alberts of Langbroek passed "W. Prince (Bill)" and "Jack Lynch", whom he had taken over from Mrs H. J. Cramer-Cornelis of Wijk bij Duurstede, on to "Mr. C. Cornelisse, Rijnstraat, Amerongen" (Alberts's file, p. 5; William Prince; Jack Lynch).

◐ Mrs Nely Achterberg-Cornelisse is very probably the "Nellie" Porter calls the couple's daughter (the foster child of 18 on her foster mother's form, Mr and Mrs Cornelissen); Fowler's article on Schjelderup lists among its sources "Correspondence with Mrs. Nely Achterberg (Cornelisse), Amerongen, May 1996" (note 15; Fowler; Roger Schjelderup).

No source names Chris Cornelisse with Murphy; ⚠︎ Murphy may have been in his house for a few hours on 23 December, but the sources do not identify the house Hardy was taken to (Mr and Mrs Cornelissen). He hid two of the Canadians of Murphy's crossing party (Porter and Schjelderup; the other five were at the Esvelds' and Hoogland's: Porter, p. 136; Maljers, p. 13), took the same ferry, and set out with those two on the day of the crossing on which Murphy was caught.

Porter's party of seven Canadians was brought to Amerongen before Christmas 1944, and the Rijnstraat house took two of them:

• Porter, in The Long Return, on the arrival:

  Roger and I were taken into the house of Cornelissen. There we found a husband and his wife who couldn't speak English, but their sixteen year old teenage daughter could speak a little. Her name was Nellie.

  — Bob Porter · The Long Return (1997) · p. 136

  They had "a big attic"; "a Jewish fellow and a Dutchman" hid in the same house; on Christmas Day they played cribbage in the front room and walked over to see Berry and Briere and then Gri, Harvey and Louis (pp. 136–138). - Schjelderup's MI9 report: "23 Dec 44 – 2 Jan 45. Mr. CORNELISSEN, AMERONGEN … Food and shelter for Source and Sgt. PORTER" (the columns re-joined); in the text, "We were there put up in the house of Mr. CORNELISSEN … I, together with Sgt. PORTER, stayed at his house. The others were put up in nearby houses" (the transcript; the Kew original not seen). - His wife's account has Porter brought from Zeist "by Dirk and Piet" and staying "at Chris and Mam's till 3 Jan", and Schjelderup coming, staying and going the same way (her account, p. 4). His own list has "half Dec. 1944 till 3 Jan. 1945, 2 men for 3 weeks" (p. 21). The dates the two Cornelisse accounts give do not fit the report's (Mr and Mrs Cornelissen). - Before Christmas Maljers had "consulted Cornelisse from Ameringen" and brought the seven Canadians from De Bilt to him to be shared out (Maljers, p. 15). He had used the house even earlier: before he first met the Amerongen organisation in December 1944 he had Allied soldiers sheltered at Cornelisse's, and from that address took twelve of them to the Veluwe (p. 18); in November 1945 Maljers himself was living at Rijnstraat B 472 (p. 14).

Fowler's article on Schjelderup has him and Porter "hidden at the home of Chris Cornelisse, a member of the local Resistance" (Fowler).

Schjelderup's report of the day:

By parties of one and two we moved on bicycles from AMERONGEN. I was with CORNELISSEN and DERRICK. We crossed the RHINE by ferry … by paying 10 cents. We assembled the whole lot of us in a brick factory

— Capt. V.R. Schjelderup · MI9 report, WO 208/3351/2349 · the transcript (the Kew original not seen)

From the brick factory eleven Allied men set off at about 18:30 with Derrick and two other Dutchmen as guides; Murphy is on Schjelderup's list of the party. Maljers, the guide, wrote that he "went away last with Cornelisse, Captain Scheldrop and Phorter", and was introduced in the brickworks to the man who had investigated the route and to the guide (Maljers's statement, p. 16). His wife's account has him take Porter "to OPHEUSDEN" (her account, p. 4), the day given as 3 January, a day after the party left (The crossing and recapture); the party was fired on near Opheusden that night.

His part ends there as far as the sources go. His questionnaire leaves its question on arrests blank (p. 20), and no source held records an arrest of him. Murphy's own part is told on Amerongen and the last night.

On 7 October 1945 Capt. F. D. Coslett of the American office issued him a used service bicycle (p. 27); his wife's account had said they lost two bicycles giving clothes to the men, and asked for a lady's and a man's bicycle and for help to a permanent post with the municipality (her account, p. 11). ◐ A second receipt, of 25 September 1945, has Capt. Coslett issuing a used service bicycle to "Cornelius van BRINK", Rijnstraat NB 472, Amerongen, signed in a hand that reads "C Cornelior" [?]; it is filed in the folder of another helper, Cornelis van de Brink of Soest (the receipt, checked on the image). It is very probably this house, where the Americans also wrote him as "Chris van Brink", but no source says whether it was for Chris, for his wife or for someone else. The British helper index has "CORNELISSEN, Christiaan", Rijnstraat 472, Amerongen, certificate 21071, grade 5 (What the British recorded afterwards). The Americans graded him 3 and awarded him the Medal of Freedom with bronze palm (General Orders 320, 6 November 1946, which gives his period of service as "October, 1944 to April, 1945": the order as copied in another helper's file, checked on the image); he wrote that he would come to Amsterdam (p. 28), and was decorated at the Indisch Instituut on 21 November 1946 (p. 6; "Chris Cornelisse, Amerongen", De Nieuwe Nederlander, 22 November 1946), though his order and citation had not yet arrived (p. 4). Stichting Kroon's list of awards adds the British King's Medal for Courage in the Cause of Freedom, of 9 March 1948 (Decorandi); ⚠︎ it calls him a "Garage proprietor, Amerongen", which fits the Esvelds better than anything else known of him.

✓ The Dutch Chancery of Orders' card for Christiaan Cornelisse, born at Rhenen on 22 April 1901, records the bronze medal of the Order of Orange-Nassau by royal decree of 20 December 1963, no. 5, as "Werkzaam b/d N.V. Gerofabriek te Zeist" (employed at the Gero works, Zeist), on the proposal of the Ministry of Social Affairs; its register number is 39102. He was living then at Koningin Wilhelminaweg 72, Amerongen, and the card notes his death on 23 July 2002 (his award card, Nationaal Archief 2.02.32). ⚠︎ The card gives no reason; a medal proposed through Social Affairs for a factory worker reads as one for long service at the works, not for the war, but that is our reading. His 1926 marriage entry (above) has him a factory worker too.

• His name. The Americans first sent his award through as "Chris van Brink", his wife's maiden name (the file of Hendrik van Loenen, p. 13), then as "Cornelissen"; General Orders 344 of 7 December 1946 corrected "Christiaan Cornelissen" to "Christiaan Cornelisse" (p. 17), and he signed "C. Cornelisse" (p. 28). Porter writes "Cornelissen" (Porter, p. 136), as does the British index.
• His wife's surname. Her own forms and his say "van Brink"; Mrs Esveld's statement calls her "Cornelissen van BRENK" (p. 5), and the Maurik marriage entry has "van Brenk" (the record). ◐ The register spelling is Brenk; the families' own was Brink.
• His wife. One office list of April 1946 gives his next of kin as "CORNELISSEN-VAN BRINK, Eliz., sister" (p. 3); every other page, hers among them, has her as his wife.
• The day he took Porter to Opheusden. His wife's account has Porter with them "till 3 Jan" (p. 4); the party left Amerongen on 2 January (The crossing and recapture).
• When King crossed. His questionnaire puts the crossing he found a boat for "about the middle of January" (p. 20); Kluiters has Kirschen back in February or March 1945 (Gilbert Kirschen).

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