Emergency hospital in wartime

In the morning of Sunday October 29, the 5/7th Battalion Gordon Highlanders are ready to advance through Tramlaan (now Van Heeswijkstraat) and Gasthuisstraat to the centre of Kaatsheuvel. The 5th Battalion Black Watch prepares at the sand road of the Eftelingsestraat to advance through the woods (the present Efteling), Kinkenpolder and the Hil on the south side of the village. Major General Rennie, the commander of the 51st Highland Division, expects strong German opposition and therefore orders an artillery bombardment of the village. He does not want to be surprised again, as he was during the fighting around Loon op Zand.

The shelling begins at two in the afternoon and is brief but intense. In fifteen minutes, 8,000 shells are fired. The results are terrible. A total of thirty people are killed, many others are seriously wounded. The youngest victim is only eight months old. Even during the shelling, courageous first responders go through the streets to help victims. Risking their own lives, they carry the wounded on stretchers to the Theresia School on Gasthuisstraat, where the local Red Cross has set up an emergency hospital. Until late in the evening, they work to save lives. Later Scottish medics join them.

After the shelling, the advance of the Scots proceeded smoothly. Around four o'clock the Gordon Highlanders captured the centre of Kaatsheuvel. The next morning Allied trucks and ambulances take the wounded first to Oisterwijk and then to hospitals in Boxtel and Eindhoven. Miraculously, the Theresiaschool has been spared during the shelling. Out of gratitude, a terracotta plaque of Mary of Perpetual Help, is bricked in next to the front door after the war, a silent tribute to protection during the violence of war.