The fallen resistance people in Limburg

Hay “Lou” Bouten
(Henricus Jozef Hubertus)

The birth and death dates of H.J.H. (Hay) Bouten are from the Venlo city archives. [1]

Cammaert writes about him: Velden and elsewhere. Initially involved in helping Allied refugees. Plays a modest role in the regional L.O. In 1944, Bouten becomes increasingly involved in the K.P. and is appointed leader of the K.P. in North Limburg. Retreats with a group of men to the woods near Baarlo in the fall of 1944. After the liberation, he joined the Stoottroepen. [2.1]

You can read more about him in chapter 7 of Het verborgen Front:
On February 18, Bouten had supported the K.P.-Nijmegen in an incidentally unsuccessful raid on the Venlo police headquarters.
… The composition of his K.P. varied according to location and action. There was only a small core of permanent comrades-in-arms. To a certain extent, Bouten thus continued the tradition of Helden. [2.2]

Sub-district leader of the organized resistance for Arcen, Lomm, Velden and Wellerlooi. Leader of the Knokploeg Noord Limburg. Member of the Baarlo woodland partisan group in Baarlo. [3]
The knokploegen (battle squads) in Limburg found that they had too few weapons and also that there came too little from the side of the Allies. Therefore, Jacques Crasborn was ordered “…to raid Germans with groups of K.P. people, take away their weapons and take them prisoner.” Crasborn, who was still staying in Swalmen at the time, passed the order on to H. Bouten. That was the beginning of an adventure that could easily have ended in tragedy. [2.3]
The group around Bouten was too successful in capturing weapons and making prisoners of war. It began with four older and fairly cooperative Germans, but later it was twenty-seven. All this under the precarious conditions of a forest camp.

Veldense-volkscultuur.nl writes about Hay Bouten in addition: Organizes and leads raids on distribution offices and sabotage actions. Detects traitors and eliminates them. Helps Allied aircrews escape to a safe haven. Captain of the Stoottroepen, part of the Internal Armed Forces. [4]

He was leader of the arrest team, which apprehended the supreme NSB leader of Limburg in Hamm, Westphalia, Germany, on April 30, 1945. That Max de Marchant had fled to Germany on Dolle Dinsdag. [5.1][5.2]


Bouten & Marchant [5.1]

Footnotes

1. Henricus Jozef Hubertus Bouten
   Gemeentearchief Venlo, geboorten
   openarchieven.nl † 7 december 1999, Sittard
2. Cammaert, A. P. M. (1994). Het verborgen front: Geschiedenis van de georganiseerde illegaliteit in de provincie Limburg tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen.
   1. Hoofdst. 0, pp.18ff: Vaak genoemde personen
   2. Hoofdst. 7, pp.778-779: $II.6.
      De K.P.-Noord-Limburg
   3. ibidem, pp.790-753: $II.9. De bossen van Baarlo
3. liberationroute.com • De bospartizanen van Baarlo • Die Waldpartisanen von Baarlo • The Forest Partisans of Baarlo
4. veldense-volkscultuur.nl Verzet Velden 1940 – 1945 in kaart gebracht
5. 1. beeldbankwo2.nl De arrestatie van Max de Marchant et d’Ansembourg
   2. Dolle Dinsdag, Wikipedia • Nederlands • Deutsch • Mad Tuesday • Français • Español