Date of birth:

September 14th, 1927 (Papendrecht, Netherlands)

Date of death:

August 14th, 2020 (Papendrecht, Netherlands)

Nationality:

Dutch

Cornelis "Cees" de Koning was a son of Pieter de Koning, pseudonym "Ouwe Piet" from Papendrecht. The family worked in the gravel trade and had previously leased a number of grienden in the Biesbosch. So they knew the area like the back of their hand. During the occupation, the entire family soon became involved in the resistance. They provided shelter for Allied pilots and also helped other people in hiding, including in an ark they had in the Biesbosch.

During the last Winter of War, the need arose for a connection between the occupied and liberated parts of the Netherlands. Thus, several routes through the Biesbosch to Drimmelen and Lage Zwaluwe emerged, especially from Sliedrecht and Werkendam. Apart from the crossers from the well-known "Groep Albrecht", other crossers, also called wild crossers, from Hardinxveld and Papendrecht, among others, were also active. This is how the so-called "Line of De Koning" came into being in Papendrecht. The house of the De Koning family on Oosteind was a central point where people gathered from their hiding addresses. These were Allied Pilots or British Military who had escaped after Market Garden, but also Couriers and other people who wanted or needed to make the crossing.

Apart from together with father Piet, brothers Flip and Cees (only 17 at the time) also made the crossing independently or were in charge of a group of boats or canoes heading for liberated territory. They departed from the De Koning Family house which was located outside the dike on the water. In a roughly six-hour trip full of dangers, Pieter de Koning and his sons brought numerous people from Papendrecht to Lage Zwaluwe in the liberated South using rowing boats and canoes. On the return trip, the boats were filled with medicine, weapons and food.
During the last crossing under his leadership, there were even 10 rowboats filled with people at the same time, with other boats joining in during the trip. Modest as they were, the family never kept track of how many people they had brought over, but it was probably hundreds.

In 2016, on the recommendation of the Stichting Verzetsgroep De Liniecrossers, the then 88-year-old Cees de Koning was awarded the Mobilisation War Cross after all. In the vicinity of the Moldiep in the Biesbosch, the remains of one of the De Koning family's arks can still be found, and at the site in Papendrecht where their house stood at the time, an information board still recalls the "Lijntje van De Koning.

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• Photo: Ruim 70 jaar na de oorlog toch nog onderscheiding voor Liniecrosser Cees De Koning | Brabant | bd.nl
  
• - WIJNGAARDEN, P. VAN, Papendrecht tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog, WW2Books, Papendrecht, 2020.
  - Remains Boat.
  - https://blokland.dordtenazoeker.nl/oorlog_01.htm