Friendly fire WWII

[B.F.M. Droog]

Hello Brian,

As promised some info on Allied bombings on Dutch cities:

Nijmegen (near the border with Germany)

In an air attack on 22/02/1944 (ca. 13.30 hrs local time) by the 8th Air Force - supposed to hit a German town - at least 771 Dutch civilians lost their lives. A bilangual victims list (Dutch/English can be found on the site www.noviomagus.nl

Enschede (near the border with Germany)

In heavy allied air attacks on 10/10/1943, 22/02/1944 and 22/03/1945 the inner city of Enschede was heavily damaged. More than 250 civilians lost their lives. (source: Overijssel Province - history of Enschede)

Enschede was an important industrial town and industrial buildings were throughout the war attacked on purpose - but at least two of these bombardments (the last two) were a mistake; the bombs were supposed to hit a target in Germany.

Further Dutch cities attacked on the 22/02/1944 were Arnhem and Deventer.

The book 'De fatale aanval' (the fatal attack) by Alfons E. Brinkuis can be read on the site of Nijmegen City. It's in Dutch, but with a wee bit of effort even Englishmen should be able to distill the American units responsible for these attacks out of it.

I'll report later on an air attack on The Hague.

Regards,

Bart