6857914 Rifleman Louis John VAN HEERDEN, King's Royal Rifle Corps & LRDG: POW - BFC? Death?

Army Number: 6857914
Rank: Rifleman
Name: Louis John VAN HEERDEN
Unit: King's Royal Rifle Corps ; Long Range Desert Group

 

View Record via Ancestry
Name: Vanheerden Louis John
Date of Birth: 2 Oct 1921
Date of Enlistment: 7 Jan 1942
Date of Capture: 21 Oct 1943
Place of Capture: Levita. (Dodecanese Isl.)

PART I.
GENERAL QUESTIONNAIRE FOR BRITISH/AMERICAN EX-PRISONERS OF WAR.

1. No. 6857914
RANK - Rifleman
SURNAME - VAN HEERDEN
CHRISTIAN NAMES - LOUIS JOHN
DECORATIONS -

2. UNIT (ARMY) - K.R.R.C. (served with Long Range Desert Group)

3. DIVISION (ARMY) -

4. DATE OF BIRTH - 2nd Oct. 1921

5. DATE OF ENLISTMENT - 7th Jan. 42

6. CIVILIAN TRADE OR PROFESSION - WELDER & STEEL PLATER

7. PRIVATE ADDRESS -

8. PLACE AND DATE OF ORIGINAL CAPTURE - LEVITA (Dodecanese Isl.) 24/10/43

9. WERE YOU WOUNDED WHEN CAPTURED? - NO

10. MAIN CAMPS OR HOSPITALS IN WHICH IMPRISONED
Camp No. / Location / From / Till
STALAG IIIA - Nov. 1943 - Feb. 44
STALAG IIID - Feb. 44 - 24 March 44
STALAG IIE - 25th Mar. 44 - 2nd May 45


11. WERE YOU IN A WORKING CAMP?
Location / From/ Till / Nature of Work
DRöNNEWITZ, STALAG IIE 11 April 44 - 24th April 45 Agricultural


12. DID YOU SUFFER FROM ANY SERIOUS ILLNESSES WHILE A P/W?
Nature of Illness / Cause / Duration
NO

12 b. DID YOU RECEIVE ADEQUATE MEDICAL TREATMENT?
YES


GENERAL QUESTIONNAIRE PART II TOP SECRET

1. No. 6857914
RANK - Rfm.
SURNAME - VAN HEERDEN
CHRISTIAN NAMES - LOUIS JOHN


2. LECTURES before Capture:
( a ) Were you lectured in your unit on how to behave the event of capture? (State where, when and by whom).
NO
( b ) Were you lectured on escape and evasion? (State where, when and by whom.
NO

3. INTERROGATION after capture:
Were you specially interrogated by the enemy? (State where, when and methods employed by enemy).
NO

4. ESCAPES attempted:
Did yo make any attempted or partly successful escapes? (Give details of each attempt accurately, stating where, when, method employed, names of your companions, wherein when recaptured and by whom. Were you physically fit? What happened to your companions?)
-

5. SABOTAGE
Did you do any sabotage or destruction of enemy factory plant, war material, communications, etc, when employed on working-parties or during escape? (Give details, places and dates.)
NO

6. COLLABORATION with enemy:
Do you know of any British or American personnel who collaborated with the enemy or in any way helped the enemy agains other Allied Prisoners of War? (Give details, names of persons concerned, camps, dates and nature of collaboration or help given to enemy).
Have already given information regarding personnel in the British Free Corps (Waffen SS)
(Corlander 2nd N.Z.E.F. captured Greece) (John Wilson Commando captured Sicily)

[Some other individual, presumably from MI5, has added the annotation below]
Sgt. Trinder RE camp leader Lager ?Genshagen Berlin
C.Q.M.S. Brown, Stalag III B
can confirm this


7. WAR CRIMES
If you have any information or evidence of bad treatment by the enemy to yourself or to others, or knowledge of any enemy violation of Geneva Convention you should ask for a copy of "Form Q" on which to make your statement.
(NOTE: Form Q is a separate form inviting information on "War Crimes" and describes the kind of offences coning under this title.)



GENERAL QUESTIONNAIRE PART II TOP SECRET
(continued)

8. Have you any other matter of any kind you wish to bring to notice?
-


SECURITY UNDERTAKING
I fully realise that all information relating the matters covered by the questions in Part II. are of a highly secret and official nature.

I have had explained to me and fully understand that under Defence Regulations or U.S.A.R. 380-5 I am forbidden to publish or communicate any information concerning these matters.

Date 11th May 45
Signature LJ van Heerden

 

See also:

• List of members of the British Free Corps - Wikipedia
• MI5 Number: -
• BFC Rank: Not known
• Surname: Van Heerden
• Forename: L.P.
• Alias: nil
• Details: Weale – Left Pankow December 1943 – "Killed in action on 12 February 1945, during bombing of Dresden"[87] also said to have gone from Dronnewitz to Schwerin in May 1945[88]
• Sentence: -
• MI5 Cat: t[n 7][n 6]
• Jackals of the Reich: Possibly P 112 – Jan Pieterson
• British Rank: Rifleman – RH6857914[87]
• Unit: Long Range Desert Group
• Landwehr Number: 68.
  
  
• Roy Courlander - Wikipedia
  
• British Free Corps/Freikorps
  
• What have you learned about WW2 recently?
  
• 
  
• South African Nazi in the Waffen SS ‘British Free Corps’
  Van Heerden (South African)
  Van Heerden’s whereabouts are unknown – it was said he left Pankow December 1943 – “Killed in action on 12 February 1945, during bombing of Dresden” also said to have gone from Dronnewitz to Schwerin in May 1945. He is thought to be listed as Jan Pieterson with the alias “Jackal of the Reich”. He was originally a Rifleman in a British or Allied Commonwealth Long Range Desert Patrol."

The website linked below submits that he died on 12/02/1945 - 3 months before he apparently completed the questionnaire in previous post.
[Content quoted has now been removed from the website linked below]

• South African War Graves Project -

"Name: VAN HEERDEN
Initials: L J (VIC)
Service No: RH6857914
Date of Death: 1945-02-12
Cause of Death: Killed in action, during bombing of Dresden
Citations: ***Not yet accepted for War Grave Status by CWGC, need service file
Additional Information: L. J. Van Heerden was known as 'Vic' Van Heerden to his fellow members of the Long Range Desert Group (LRDG). He was a member of the King's Royal Rifle Corps and had then transferred into the LRDG. Van Heerden would have been a member of either S1 or S2 (Southern Rhodesian patrol) of 'B' Squadron of the LRDG. He was captured in the Dodecanese Islands on a operation with this unit in October 1943. Van Heerden, along with a number of other Commonwealth soldiers, was press-ganged into joining the BFC during his stay at Stalag III-A in Luckenwalde. This Stalag was a special camp set up for the interrogation of POWs as soon as possible after their individual capture in September and October 1943. The POW's were often slightly wounded, or in shock, as they were shipped to Luckenwalde. Once they arrived they were strip searched, and forced to watch as their uniforms and identity papers were destroyed. They were then placed on strict rations, and in some instances, forced to only wear a blanket in their cell. All of the men were placed in solitary confinement. These men were given the option of spending the rest of the war in these conditions, or to join the BFC. A few unfortunates would agree under this duress to give in to the pressure, and these men were moved to the BFC headquarters on the Schonholtzerstrasse in Pankow during October and November of 1943. The vast majority of these men, after they overcame their initial treatment at the hands of the Germans, would demand to leave the unit. Finally Van Heerden, and the other men that wanted to leave, were sent to the isolation camp at Dronnewitz just before Christmas 1943. At Dronnewitz, the men were employed on local farms. Van Heerden is believed to have returned to the BFC at some point, and during the bombing of Dresden on February 12th, 1945 was killed. He was the only individual that was killed during service with the BFC."​

 

Point here is, why he returned: Did he have real Nazi tendencies, or on a mission for MI6?

Being a South African, Afrikaner, could support the first possibility, and on the other hand, the date of his eventual return to the BFC could support the second; too late in the war, IMHO, would have been a waste of manpower.

 

I just find it a bit puzzling that he managed to complete a Liberated POW Form in May 1945 when, apparently, he'd already died in February ...

 

Absolutely dbf!

Unfortunately, if all the web-based stuff has eminated from Adrian Weale's book I'm thinking that casualty lists were not looked at or checked for information on Rifleman Van-Heerden, maybe. I'm still looking into that but in the meantime here are the appropriate list extracts. (Note; Rifleman Van-Heerden was captured in the attempt to re-take the Island of Levitha launched on the night of 23rd/34th October 1943)

List No. 1869 (the third image below) publication date was 27th September 1945.

Keep up your good work, it is very, very much appreciated.

Kind regards, always,

Jim.

 

Hello D.

A quick update. I very much think Adrian Weale would have carried out all due diligence with the documentation available to him at the time prior to publication of his book, which it appears numerous websites have used for their pieces about the BFC. So much more has been released/come into the public domain since that can make a difference.

Kind regards, always,

Jim.

 

Thanks for checking Jim. Sounds like a reasonable explanation, esp given the bulk of paperwork not previously digitised.

 

Sounds to me like something derived from the murky world of the intelligence community. Maybe the firebombing of Dresden provided the perfect excuse (maybe even coordinated) for his exfiltration as an MI6 mole.

Would be interesting to check his whereabouts after the inmediate end of the war (say 1946 onwards), if information is available.

 

Louis John Van-Heerden was a loyal commonwealth soldier who would have no truck with the BFC. Contemporary evidence gathered in 1945 will be posted up to illustrate this (it's gone 04:30 hrs now so posting will have to wait till later today, after I've had a few hours kip).

Kind regards, always,

Jim.

 

Apologies for the delay folks, and if you're wondering why this has taken me so long just have a wander through the KV (Security Service) series of files via The National Archives Discovery (It's taken me an age just to scratch the surface, and that with me knowing where to look).

Rifleman 6857194 Louis John Van-Heerden was never a member of the British Free Corps. I've not as of yet been able to nail down where the idea emanated that he was, a mis-read document maybe? A wrong interpretation along the lines? That side of things to be continued (with the first being to request the South Africa War Graves Project to amend their website, as highlighted/linked by the good work of dbf in a post above).

Images/extracts below from Statement and Appendix given by Thomas Heller COOPER (member of the SS) on 23rd of May 1945 to Reginald SPOONER (Captain, Intelligence Corps). Heller's statement is 21 pages long, and the appendix 15 pages (note: my box-outs and underlining). Last image attached is Appendix A from MI5 report of 30th August 1945. Please notice the absence of Rifleman Van-Heerden's name from said list.

More will be added to the thread here, and to the British Free Corps thread within the forum (at sometime).

Always remember, never forget,

Jim.

 

Extracted from S.L.B. 3 Progress Report Number 3 of 18th January 1946.

No Rifleman Van-Heerden listed here (or subsequently either).

Kind regards, always,

Jim.

 

Jim,
Most impressive, especially given the quick response.
Thanks for the research and efforts to get the record changed.

 

Very interesting Jim, thanks for giving me the heads up - Some points to note (and some questions raised):-

1) 114438 Gunner Anthony John Pretorius - Appears to be the soldier who made the initial allegations against VAN DYKE and "LOGGENBERG" now known to be 51259 Sgt Lochrenberg, thanks to your attached document.

2) In VAN DYKE's affidavit he mentions a number of names - an Afrikaans speaker named LAUE* and a Dr STRAUSS (certainly German).

I'd certainly like to know if LAUE appears in any of your documents and if anyone else would like to speculate as to who Dr STRAUSS may be -

* Could be 5315 H M K Laue SADF, or 5257 O C W Laue SADF.

Cheers

 

Apologies for not getting to this last night (had turned in early)

I'm re-reading stuff today, as I think I've seen name/reference to STRAUSS previously, and anything pertinent that I find I'll post over in your thread here:

Advice re: POW Collaboration docs forwarded to Mi5

Will get back to you soonest. Many, many, many pages to re-read.

Kind regards, always,

Jim.

 

Further reference to Louis John Van-Heerden gleaned from the SIS KV series files.

It appears the chap tried all he could to put an end to the BFC (of which, I remind again, he was never a member himself).

Still trying to get erroneous web entries about JLV-H corrected.

Always remember, never forget,

Jim.