Gibson and Warwick Monument

The Gibson and Warwick Monument, also known locally as the Dambusters Monument, stands in the town park of Steenbergen. It remembers Wing Commander Guy Gibson and his navigator, Squadron Leader Jim Warwick, who died when their de Havilland Mosquito crashed just outside the town on the night of 19 September 1944. Gibson was one of the most famous airmen of the Second World War: in May 1943 he had led Operation Chastise, the raid on the dams of the Ruhr, and he received the Victoria Cross.

On the evening of his death, Gibson flew as master bomber for a raid on Rheydt and Mönchengladbach in Germany. He had no regular navigator, so Warwick, the station navigation officer, flew with him in a Mosquito borrowed from No. 627 Squadron, taking off from Woodhall Spa. On the way home, at about half past ten at night, the aircraft came down at Steenbergen and burst into flames. German troops cordoned off the crash site in the Graaf Hendrikpolder north of the town.

What followed is part of the town's memory. The local deputy mayor arranged a proper funeral, with a horse-drawn hearse, and the coffin was draped in the Dutch flag. The two men were buried in the Catholic cemetery of Steenbergen, with the Catholic priest and the Protestant minister sharing the service. The first grave cross carried Warwick's name with Gibson's beneath it; it was later replaced with a cross showing Gibson's rank and decorations. Both men still lie in Steenbergen.

The monument itself is simple. An aircraft propeller is mounted on a granite column more than two metres tall, with an inscription in English and Dutch. It carries the badge of No. 617 Squadron, the Dambusters, with its motto in French, Après moi le déluge, and the badge of No. 106 Squadron, which Gibson had also commanded. The park setting is quiet, and the memorial is easy to find on a walk through the centre.

The monument suits visitors with an interest in the air war over Western Europe and anyone following the history of the Dambusters. A visit can be extended to the war graves in the Catholic cemetery and, for those who want to see the landscape where the crash happened, to the Graaf Hendrikpolder, where Fort Henricus also stands.