The fallen resistance people in Limburg

Franciscus Johannes Molenaar

www.geni.com …

The above information and the death notice on the right are from geni.com. Click on the link under it to see it in full resolution. The accompanying text reads: Molenaar participated during the war years in Heerlen to produce the then resistance newspaper HET VRIJE VOLK. [1]
Cammaert wrote in a summary about him: Heerlen. Associated with the O.D. and the Bongaerts group. Participated in aid for Allied refugees and in the publication of Het Vrije Volk, a regional resistance magazine. When the occupying forces were about to arrest the publishers and distributors at the end of 1942, Molenaar disappeared from Limburg. [2]
For more information about the resistance magazine Het Vrije Volk from the mining region, see Underground press. It should not be confused with the post-war newspaper, which was a successor to the Amsterdam resistance newspaper Het Volk.
Shortly after the war, the Heerlen OD commander Charles Nicolas set up a committee of former resistance fighters with the aim of arresting political offenders. In its work, the committee was able to draw on the lists that Molenaar and Bongaerts had started in 1941, which included a total of eight hundred people who had supposedly behaved “unpatriotically”. [3]
There is a document in the National Archives that mentions a Cross of Merit (Kruis van Verdienste 233) for the then Major F.J. Molenaar for Oct. 1942. [4]
On tracesofwar.nl they are more specific.
Captain Observer in the I-5 Office (Air Forces), Field Army Headquarters
Captain-observer on the staff, 2nd Aviation Regiment  [5]
At this time he was still a captain. On his Im Memoriam card he is listed as a colonel out of service and as a former garrison commander of Nijmegen. [8]
He wrote a study on the beginning of the war: In addition, another study specifically on the air forces was published in 1970: F.J. Molenaar, De luchtverdediging in de meidagen 1940, 2 vols (’s-Gravenhage 1970). [6]
Chapter 6 of it is available online. [7]

Footnotes

1. geni.com Franciscus Johannes Molenaar
2. Cammaert, A. P. M. (1994). Het verborgen front: Geschiedenis van de georganiseerde illegaliteit in de provincie Limburg tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen.
   Hoofdst. 0, pp.18ff: Introductie van vaak genoemde personen
3. Dr. F. Cammaert, Het Verborgen Front – Geschiedenis van de georganiseerde illegaliteit in de provincie Limburg tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog. Doctorale scriptie 1994, Groningen
   8. De Ordedienst, pp.923-926
4. nationaalarchief.nl Kruis van Verdienste (233)
5. tracesofwar.nl Molenaar, Franciscus Johannes
6. niod.nlVeelgestelde vragen. Heeft het NIOD materiaal over krijgsverrichtingen en individuele militairen?
7. grondgebondenluchtverdediging.nl 09-Hoofdstuk_6.pdf
8. https://www.geni.com/photo/view/6000000156283370828?album_type=photos_of_me&photo_id=6000000156325250833