Airborne 101 Monument Eindhoven

Airborne 101 Monument Eindhoven stands in Eindhoven as a concrete memorial to the city’s liberation during the Second World War. It recalls the American 101st Airborne Division, the British Second Army, and their meeting after Eindhoven became the first Dutch city liberated on 18 September 1944. American paratroopers from the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment landed on the Sonse Heide before entering the city alongside British tanks from the Irish Guards.

A circular platform supports bronze relief plaques measuring about 1.44 metres high, 2.09 metres wide, and 34 centimetres deep. Parachutes, a burning torch, the Screaming Eagles emblem, the American flag, and Eindhoven’s coat of arms show the operation and its allies. Dutch and English inscriptions honour the liberators, including the 22 American soldiers who died during the liberation. Veterans unveiled the memorial on 22 September 1969, after friends of the Airborne gave it to Eindhoven.

One plaque disappeared in 1992 and later returned from the Dommel river, where it had been found. Flowers and stories still connect this concrete structure with the soldiers remembered there.