Dutch Famine after Market Garden

Were there any operations to supply Dutch civilians with food during the winter of 44/45?.

Seems to me filling some 4 engine bombers with D rations and dumping them over the cities might have helped.

This thought occurs to me almost every time I stop to eat an energy bar while bicycling

 

Operation Manna and Chowhound
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operations_Manna_and_Chowhound
So yes they did and it were not just some 4 engine bombers but thousands of them

 

That is exactly what happened, and it was called operation MANNA. Google that .

Actually the drop zones were NOT in cities, they were in the open country, to avoid hitting people with the things being dropped. The Dutch resistance marked them with white cloth, as a X. Items that were dropped varied, from actual food stocks, to medical supplies, and clothing, and bedding, and shoes.

A second part of the plan was to land in territory that was allied controlled, to pick up wounded soldiers, and released allied POW's, to take them back to the UK, for medical treatment. This was done with transport aircraft, such as the DC 3, not bombers, which didn't have adequate room to carry wounded passengers who might be on litters. But yes, bombers did deliver lots of supplies to the Dutch population, from April 1945 for a number of months after the peace treaty was declared.

Here is a short series of photos of that operation.

http://www.google.ca/search?q=operation+manna&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=D9PaUZjtDIqErgGRi4GQCw&sqi=2&ved=0CD8QsAQ&biw=1331&bih=714

Jim B

Toronto.

 

Thanks for the replies. I had heard of Operation Manna but thought that it didn't take place until May. I had mistakening thought that it was similar to the food drops to POW camps in the Pacific theather after the Japanese surrender

 

Hi,
My dad was in operation Manna , and dropped out the food from the aircraft. He was in the RASC Air Dispatch, He was 93, and passed away in feb 2019 D.H.Brooker. They did tests first in the UK to see how it would work.
Keith Brooker

 

Thank him on behalf of my parents, they both were young teenagers in starving Rotterdam.. My father was helped by this and my mother was later transported to the farmers countryside to keep alive.

 

Thank you wilco,
My wife is Dutch and her mum and dad had a hard time, her dad was hidden in the cellar in the Hague for most of the war as he did not want to be taken to germany to work in one of there factories, [ forced labor ]. The house was hit in a air raid and blown to bits and they lost all that they owned, they were out at the time so they went to the countryside to live. Her mum worked for the underground during the war. They got married on the 5th of may 1945 in what they had on, i met my wifes mother when she was 90, six years ago and had a good talk.
Keith

 

I took part in Operation Aintree, the taking of Overloon and Venraij. (Autumn 1944) Indeed my war ended on the road between these two places. Where possible, we shared what we had with the Dutch folk. During the winter months we also employed Dutch folk, and supplied them with food. My last place in Holland was at the German SS training camp for young Dutch boys. That was a large wooded camp (Shelled) North of Venraij?????

 

For me, this picture speaks volumes about the Hunger Winter, beyond imagination.
I also have read somewhere if you eat to much sugar beet it could cause constipation that could only be cured by surgery.!

regards lofty

picture credit THE HUNGER WINTER

 

from 29 April to the end of World War II in Europe on 8 May 1945 (with most activity towards end)....
not exactly on time or rapid...winter 1944 ?
So answer would be rather "no", not until very late.


(not meaning to blame the allies or pilots in this regard, far from it, but those ultimate 9 days were merely a drop in a ocean of need...).

On a personal note though; my father and uncles as kids managed to get from Rotterdam to the farmers 10-20 kms south on foot multiple times without big difficulty (past german guards that let them through) and were able to buy (inflated prices and trading goods, but not extorionate) their produce.
That proves to me that when you were sufficiently entrepeneurial(guts) you would not have to have starved.

 

Mom remembers eating tulip bulbs as there was nothing else, this while the Canadians were fighting in Groningen

 

Do you have any additional info about why there weren't any emergency rations dropped during the winter?

After reading about how few calories some Japanese service men survived on, it seems some K-ration drops might have saved some lives in Holland. 500 calories would make a big difference if a person hadn't eaten a thing for a week.


Thanks

 

Manna and Chowhound:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6r66DCvp9I





Memorial Flight Manna:




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZ8NxEplNKA

 

It's easy, when the Allies would have dropped before having an agreement with the Germans, it would have been a slaughter among the aircraft. The railwaystrike which was the leaidng event up to the hungerwinter, started in September. At first reasonable amonts of food were available, until the Germans stopped all foor transposrt due to the events unfolding in battle. Negotiations started early in 1945 when the Dutch appealed to Eisenhower for the food help. It took up to April to get the authorisations from the highest chiefs, Winston Churchill and Roosevelt. After that negotions went faily fast.
The aircraft needed to fly very low, in order not to damage the food to much. Flying that low with that many aircraft without permission by the Germans would have resulted in many of the aircraft being shot down.

 

Thanks Vermeer

I didn't realize that the planes would have to be low

 

The operations to drop supplies to the Dutch only came about from a truce organised by the Allies with the local German commander...something that would have been unheard of a few months previously.The German local commander realised that the game was up and with the Third Reich in its dying throes, there was no intervention from the German High Command.

Food drops commenced on 29 April 1945 and continued until 8 May 1945 when Allied food transports were able to get into the region.

Bomber Command used 33 squadrons from No 1,3 and 8 Groups after initial trials on low flying had been
conducted by No 115 Squadron.Food was dropped in 6280lb pannier loads from a height of 300ft taking 3150 sorties.Bomber Command during this period delivered 6685 tons of food.

In addition to this,B17s of the 8th USAAF delivered 3700 tons of food in 5343 sorties.

For B.C,the drop zones were marked by No 8 Group Mosquitos and were:

Leiden (Valkenburg Airfield)
The Hague (Racecourse and Ypenburg Airfield)
Rotterdam (Waalhaven Airfield and Kralingsche Plas)
Gouda

Saw a note by a Hemswell WAAF who was invited by a Lancaster skipper to join his crew for the ride.... when she turned up to get into the aircraft,the crew were not aware of the arrangement and were surprised at what they thought was an uninvited passenger....the skipper turned up and the crew realised she had been invited.

She related how she threw out a bag of flour which burst on hitting a German gun emplacement showering the German crew with flour....thought she would be in trouble.

I have the text of a letter sent to RAF Hemswell from a young Dutch lady thanking the RAF for saving them from starvation.Sadly she died in the early 1990s. (Nos 150 and 170 Squadrons involved from (Hemswell)

On the 10th Anniversary of Operation Manna in 1955,No 83 Squadron flying Lincoln B2s from Hemswell overflew the Manna Drop Zones to celebrate the operation.

 

Chowhound:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4utm_gB_zs0

 

That really explains why food drops were impossible during the winter.
Since the failure of Market Garden in September, the Dutch population were subjected to severe repercussions, bridges, roads and canals being wrecked making movement of food or other supplies extremely difficult.

Aware of the starvation conditions the Dutch Government in Exile tried to arrange safe transport for humanitarian food drops, but the Germans refused to consider these appeals until almost the end of the War, when it was obvious they were about to capitulate.

Even then, the aircraft were restricted to only a narrow safe corridor, outside of which they risked being fired at and shot down.

Efforts were being made long before April and May to try and provide food supplies to the civilians in Holland, but the Germans refused until too late for many.

Impressive footage, and note that the B 17's also had their undercarriage lowered, usually a sign of surrender (or at least non-aggression!).

 

One of the other point regarding the plight of the Dutch,apart from the gateway to Northern Germany,Holland provided the strategic base for Hitler to launch his V2s towards London Despite the attentions of the Allied Air Forces,the flexibility of the V2 weapon by quickly relocating the weapon launch site, ensured that the V2 weapon could be launched against London until March 1945.(It would appear that the last V2 launch against London occurred on 6 March 1945 from the Hague)

Blockaded by the Allies,the Dutch suffered during the winter of 1944/45 from lack of food and heating...apparently the majority of the trees in the urban areas were cut down for heating.The occupiers were determined to hold on to territory for strategic reasons...a hard slog for the British and Canadian units engaged in attempts to overrun the German defences.

 

I believe that during "the truce" there were also road convoys of Canadian vehicles carrying food etc. to Dutch civilians