10 May 1940-attack on Dutch airfield-which JG involved?

[Wybe Buising]

Hello All,

l have short question which l am dealing with some time now and unfortenately did not find the answer yet.

On the early morning of 10 May 1940 - at around 0400 hrs - the airfield Hilversum (located south of the city of Hilversum and north of the city of Utrecht) was attacked by German fighter planes. The planes machine gunned the whole place causing several wounded soldiers and one fatality. Now one report mention that Bf109s were involved and apparently 8 or more planes were participating, other reports are conflicting for type and numbers. Sofar l was not able to
find any evidence of unit and aircraft involved.

Is there anyone with any clue?

Appreciate yr help!

Regards from Holland.

Wybe

[Pieter H]

Hi Wybe,

Difficult, if not impossible to say exactly which unit it was.
On May 10 many units, including BF109 Gruppen, were active over western Holland. Most of these units got combined tasks of first ground attacks on carefully selected targets, followed by "freie Jagd" over the dutch airfields protecting the Junker 52 transport planes and the bombers.

The area around Soesterberg and Schiphol airfields was attacked by He111 bombers of 4./KG4 (two of these collided over Soesterberg and were lost) while being escorted by Bf109's of II./JG26. Hilversum being close to Soesterberg it is most probable that either of these units also attacked Hilversum. Now indeed the smaller airfields like Eindhoven, Gilze Rijen and Hilversum seem to have been attacked (at least during the first wave) predominantly by fighters. It is reported that Hilversum was attacked by 8 Bf109s. In that case II./JG26 seems like a good candidate. Would be interesting to see whether someone with more insight into the flight plans of this unit on May 10 can confirm this.

Regards, Pieter