By Lindsey Cole
The Oshawa Express

The search for relatives of a local fallen WWII airman has one man reaching for help all the way from Zwolle in the Netherlands.

Mike Kleinlugtebeld has been researching the history of air war in and around his town for the past three years and says one of the fallen airmen was from Oshawa.

Sergeant Serbert Norman Hall was from Oshawa where he lived on Church Street with his wife Evelyn Lavonia and two children Anne Marie and Robert Dean, he says. From 1922 to 1926 he worked for the Oshawa Railway Co. and enlisted with the Royal Canadian Air Force on May 28, 1940 in Toronto. At that time he worked with General Motors in Oshawa.

Sgt. Hall was a crewmember on a Halifax bomber, which was shot down near Zwolle on April 3, 1943, Kleinlugtebeld's research suggests. All seven crewmembers were killed and buried at Duur cemetery, he says, adding this is all the information he has on this man.

Now Kleinlugtebeld is looking for information on Sgt. Hall and any other airmen that may have fallend uring that time, as around 50 planes crashed in the area during the Second World War, he says, adding some were from the Royal Canadian Air Force and the German Air Force called Luftwaffe.

"there were about 300 men on board those planes. About 160 were killed and most of them are buried in local cemeteries in and around my hometown," he says in an email interview. "The allied planes and the German planes fought a bloody air battle over my country and other countries in Western Europe. From bases in the United Kingdom the allied planes flew almost every day to Germany to bomb German cities, railway stations, docks, factories etc. Many planes were shot down by the Germans during the flight to Germany or on the way back to England."

Kleinlugtebeld is hoping to find photos and information on all the fallen airmen who went down as he hopes to tell their story in a book.

"People won't forget the sacrifices these men paid. The men are more than just a name here in the Netherlands. I have found photos and info on about 50 killed airmen so I have some more work to do," he adds.

He says he got the information on Sgt. Hall from the National Archives of Canada where he was able to look up some biographical information through his services record.

"When I manage to get in contact with relatives I want to tell them that there are still people in the Netherlands who are still remembering their loved ones. His grave is still taken care of... I would love to know if the relatives ever visited the grave of their loved one," he says.

If you have any information, email editor@oshawaexprses.ca or call Lindsey Cole at 905-571-7334.