Being one of the representatives for The Netherlands in the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) Association's Monuments & Memorials Directory Committee, I advised not to include the fountain on the corner of Boslaan and Heistraat in Son, The Netherlands. I assumed that the 101 design in the concrete in two of the six sides of this fountain was just a coincidence. My recent visit to Fort Campbell in Kentucky proved me wrong.
The 101st division historian, CPT James Page, showed me the Brigadier General Don F. Pratt Museum archives and in one the drawers we found a miniature version of the fountain, called a 'planter' in the museum's records.

Miniature ('planter') design of the fountain in the
Brigadier General Don F. Pratt Museum Archive in Fort Campbell, Kentucky

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Documents about the miniature fountain

The design seems to have been made by a Dutchman named Theo van Amstel in the late 1960's probably for the commemoration of the 25th Anniversary of Operation "Market Garden" in 1969.

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The fountain in Son, The Netherlands

This is an impression of the fountain. Two of the six sides have impressions in the concrete basin in the shape of the figures 101 and two sides feature a stylized sun, which represents the old Dutch spelling of the name of the town Son; officially named Municipality of Son & Breugel. This town's heraldry also features the sun.

(click to enlarge)


This report is to prove that the fountain on the corner of Boslan and Heistraat in Son in the Netherland is indeed a monument to the 101st Airborne Division dedicated to its liberation by this unit on the 17th of September 1944.

Eindhoven, The Netherlands
November 2012

 

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