[Pieter H]

Hi

The second version is correct. Since the landings took place at 4 o'clock in the morning at a location that was basically unguarded, no shots were fired at the landing aircraft. There is even a story of a policeman that kept onlookers away while the german troops were debarking from their dinghies. But at a certain moment this or another policeman became suspicious and wanted to stop the german troops, but he was fired at and killed. At this moment there was thus no Dutch fire that could have wrecked four big float planes like the He59. This in contrast to the nearby airport of Waalhaven, where anti-aircraft guns shot down a serious number of Ju52's. Later long range artillery was moved in to shell the airport, damaging even more Ju52's.
While floating on the Nieuwe Maas during the offloading of the troops, for which the He59's had to manoeuver as close as possible to the quays, some of them collided and became damaged preventing take-off. In the course of May 10 these aircraft were all shot up by the two dutch gunboats that came up-river to attack the German troops occupying the Willems bridge.

Regards, Pieter