The best traffic-free bike rides in Sonse Heide

The green side of Brabant. Beautiful here!

Lovely resting spot during a bike tour through the Brabant landscape.

A beautiful piece of Brabant nature.

Lookout tower 't Meulke' on the Meulekensweg, Liempde.

One of my favorite parts of this region. Beautiful scenery and a separate bike path, a few twists and a small bridge. Brabant can be beautiful.

During the war years, Henkenshage Castle served as a distribution office for coupons. During Operation Market Garden, the castle became General Taylor's headquarters for the 101st Airborne Division. On September 20, 1944, the headquarters of the 101st Airborne Division moved from Son to Henkenshage Castle in Sint-Oedenrode. On September 24, General Horrocks, commander of the British XXX Corps, was informed that he could make one last attempt to reach the British troops north of the Rhine. If this attempt failed, Operation Market Garden would fail. Meanwhile, German troops had breached the corridor at Koevering (between Veghel and Sint-Oedenrode). The Allied advance was halted. Citizens of Sint-Oedenrode still remember General Horrocks cursing and swearing in the market square. He didn't reach his own headquarters in Nijmegen until the next morning. The final attempt to reach the British and Polish troops at Oosterbeek was unsuccessful. As discussed in Henkenshage, Operation Market Garden was halted.

On September 19, 1944, the U.S. Military Cemetery Son was established in Wolfswinkel. This temporary war cemetery held the graves of 411 American, 48 British, one Canadian, and 236 German soldiers. Many soldiers were killed during the landing in what is now Sonniuswijk, as part of Operation Market Garden, and the fierce fighting that followed the capture of Son and the bridge over the Wilhelmina Canal. They were buried in Wolfswinkel, along with the dead from the field hospital at the Son sanatorium. Soldiers from the American Graves Registration Department wrapped the deceased soldiers in parachutes, and German prisoners of war were forced to dig the graves. The grounds were lined with impressive rows of white crosses. At the entrance to the cemetery stood a sign reading "Here lie the honored dead of the 101st A/B DIV." From 1944 to 1946, several hundred German soldiers were also buried at the edge of the cemetery. These German soldiers were subsequently reburied in Ysselsteyn, Limburg. The British soldiers were reburied in 1947 in British war cemeteries in Mierlo and Bergen op Zoom. Around 1948, relatives of fallen American soldiers were given the choice of reburying their family member in America or giving them a final resting place at the American cemetery in Margraten, Limburg. Approximately 60% of the American dead were thus transferred to the United States. After the dead were reburied, the cemetery was closed on May 30, 1949.

The sanatorium in Son en Breugel was used as a field hospital during Operation Market Garden. Many people were wounded during the airborne landings and the fierce fighting that captured Son and the canal bridge. In the garden and woods behind the sanatorium, soldiers from the American and German armies fought fiercely. The American paratroopers advanced from the landing zone near what is now the Sonniuswijk district through the woods to the Wilhelmina Canal, with the crucial task of capturing the bridge. When they emerged from the edge of the woods, they came under fire from the two German 88mm guns positioned near the canal to defend the bridge. Because the sanatorium was already equipped to care for patients, the American army established a field hospital there. Tents were erected in the gardens, and surgeries were performed in the hospital. The Emilius School and the Zonhove residential care facility are now located on this site. The spire of the old sanatorium is still visible.