Dutch liberation experience in 1944 – Help Wanted

I am searching for a man who might have immigrated to the United States after WWII. He was involved in the historic Operation Market Garden, but only in a peripheral way. My uncle, Haynes M. Baumgardner, was a B-24 pilot in the 491st Bomb Group of the U. S. 8th Air Force. He flew a supply mission on Sept. 18, 1944, dropping supplies at treetop level near Best and Son around 4 p.m. During his return flight from the drop zone he flew “below dike level”, as he put it, between Udenhout and the seacoast. As he flew over one of those dikes, he narrowly missed a man on a bicycle who threw himself to the ground at the last second to avoid the propellers of the plane. I would like to find that man, or anyone to whom he told the story of his encounter with my uncle’s plane. If you have ever heard this story, told from the perspective of “the man on the bike on the dike”, please let me know, and tell me how to contact the source of the story. (I have already contacted every WWII-related museum in the Netherlands.)

Robert Baumgardner <rbphotos@austin.rr.com>