On the road from Klijndijk to Odoorn, Chief Gendarme Bolesław Laskowski, commander of a Polish tank platoon, was fatally wounded. Just before Odoorn, he stopped his tank to run reconnaissance of the area, as he suspected that German soldiers had taken position there. While sitting on his Cromwell tank scouting with his binoculars, he was hit by a bullet in the head. The impact caused him to fall off the tank and he was badly injured. The tank crew immediately fired with all the weapons they had towards the German position. The windows of the farmhouse they were standing next to flew out of their frames. Laskowski was transported to the hospital in Emmen, but he died of his wounds on the way, aged just 30.

Stuck in the peat bog

Incidentally, on 11 April 1944 between Valthermond and Nieuw-Weerdinge, not far from Odoorn, three Polish tanks got stuck on a dirt road . Under the sand the surface was peat and it was so soft that one of the tanks sank as far as the barrel. The three tanks ended up being stuck for three weeks before they could be pulled out of the peat.