A tiny village has commemorated being the first Dutch place liberated from World War II occupation

MESCH, Netherlands — Walking arm-in-arm with the Dutch queen, American World War II veteran Kenneth Thayer returned Thursday to the tiny village that he and others in the 30th Infantry Division liberated from Nazi occupation exactly 80 years ago. Thayer, now 99, visited Mesch, a village of about 350 people in the hills close to the Netherlands’ borders with Belgium and Germany, and was greeted by King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima for a ceremony beginning nearly a year of events marking the anniversary of the country’s liberation. American troops from the 30th Infantry Division, known as Old Hickory, were among Allied forces that liberated parts of Belgium and the southern Netherlands from German occupation in September 1944. Residents of Mesch were among the first Dutch citizens to taste postwar freedom, at about 10 a.m. on Sept. 12, 1944, when Thayer and other American infantry troops crossed the border from Belgium.