bombing of the barn, my Dads story

hi,
thought i would share one of my Dad's stories with you of his childhood days in Holland. He doesn't remember the date this happened, but he is very descriptive of what took place. My fathers family was eating breakfast after having done teir morning chores. My grandfather heard the all to familiar sound of aircraft overhead, he rushed outside to see the bombers heading in their direction. They all ran back in to the house to get in the section of wall between the barn and the house, they had put sand in-between the walls for in this room to guard against an attack. One of the bombers dropped the load over the farm, my Grandfather did not understand why they would want to bomb them? He thought it was done by accident, anyway one of the bombs fell quite close to the room where they were hiding. In fact, in the picture you see the barn wall that has blown out, the room to the right of the broken wall is where they were hiding.
My Father remembers very little of what happened afterwards, only that they went outside to look around and see what happened. No one was hurt, not even the livestock. The only damage was the building and a few items inside the house.

 

great story bigfun

may I ask : the house is attached but is it on the other side of the barn or to the right in the photo ? I do know of my relatives in the Pfalzland have their own home atop of the storage or mini barn

 

thanks,
the home is on the right in the photo, behind the hay stack.

 

yeah i'm sure accuracy is not what it is today!
but my Dad said they all thought it was the Allies who bombed them, there was a lind of defense stretching from Groningen, south to Belgium is what they told him, i actually haven't looked into that much.

 

Hello Bigfun, were about was your dad's farm located? and when did it happen? It sound to me like the bomber might have been in trouble and jettisoned its load. Then again, they might have tried to bomb a bridge or so nearby and bombed short or long.....

 

Ten Post, Groningen. in northern holland, althought i'm sure you know that, now that i see the banner on your signature! anyway, the only thing he remembers that they were bombed towards the end of the war. there was a bridge down the road from them but my Dad said the Germans blew that up earlier.

 

That would have been a bridge over the Eems-canal. Sounds like it was a bombardment in support of the ground war. That area was not liberated until late April 1945. Going quickly through my books, I can't find anything that might relate to this.

Do you know if it was a heavy bomber or perhaps a fighter-bomber that dropped those bombs? Anyway, maybe we are looking for a needle in a haystack. I have a former-colleague living in the neighborhood. Maybe he can find someone who remembers the incident.

BTW, is that your dad in his uniform in 1940????

 

Now that is what I call a close call!!!

Glad that all of you made it out in one piece along with the livestock!

 

Re: Bombing accuracy (rather lack thereof)

Yep. I remember one of Dad's friends talking about daylight bombing missions early in the war saying "on one raid to Berlin they could see bombs falling from Berlin all the way back into the English Channel, hundreds of miles away." I am sure he was mostly joking... but Churchill / Bomber Command at one point put a complete halt to all raids into Axis territory, accuracy was so bad. (A complete waste of aircraft, crews, fuel and bomb loads...) Thus the research and development projects on bomb sights, HS, G, Oboe etc., then the decision to send RAF bombers on night "terror" raids into Germany for the rest of the war. Yes, Lancasters and Wellingtons had a better chance of surviving fighter attacks at night, but the truth was the RAF could never bomb consistently-accurately, leaving daylight precision bombing to the USAAF with their B-17's Norton bombsight and overwhelming defensive firepower using their "Fortress" formations and fighter escorts.

Anyhow, my Dad's friend went on to 9 Sqdn, which with 617 (Dambusters) did the vast majority of the RAF precision bombing from then on... and he thought it was a bad joke on 9 when his crew was attached to 9! (He was, like my dad, the crew's navigator, so he could off load at least a bit of the blame on the bomb aimer...)

But don't forget that flak accuracy increased during the war, with Axis development of radar attached to flak groups (not to mention fighters.) He said that bombers were frequently hit over cities (that's what flak batteries were protecting) and that crews would take desperate measures to avoid bombing residential areas. Burning and / or crippled airplanes routinely had very, very little time and would, for safety / survival requirements, dump the load as soon as they were clearly over open (farm) land. There are many, many recorded cases where the crew chose to go down with the plane rather than dump on population centers - given no other option. Also note that bombs would often release inadvertently or hang up and fall out later.

Brave, brave boys.* We honour their memories and salute their courage.

RAF Bombers typically carried a mix of:
a) bombs designed to shatter buildings, and:
b) incendiary bombs designed to burn the rubble intensively and then spread to surrounding buildings.
These incendiary bombs were susceptible to catching on fire if hit by flak, machine gun bullets and/or canon fire. The crew would then have the horrific challenge of trying to stop the spread of the fire to the remaining bomb load - thus the minimal time to proceed to a safe bomb-dumping area.

When, as a last resort or by accident, bombs were inadvertently dropped on "friendly" residential population areas, it made "headline news" on both sides of the war. The RAF was up-front about this and would publicly apologize, often sending special flights to drops leaflets apologizing for the error. So there is historical record of these incidents.

Don't forget there were many battles within battles going on throughout the war. There were giant leaps in technology vs counter-technology. There was also the battle of wits. The RAF would send missions on torturous, gas guzzling routes to avoid known nests of Flak and fighters. The Axis would then quietly move masses of defences into a hitherto safe zone / route and wait for an opportunity to inflict horrific losses on Bomber Command. A real cat and mouse game.

* NB: They really were just boys.
26 years old and you were likely drummed out of Bomber (and fighter) command(s)
Young boys had the necessary reaction time at the controls. 26 and you were too old and slow. Hard to grasp, 60 years later - considering all they did and went through.

 

Stevin:
just got off the phone with my Dad, and he said he has things a little mixed up, so he called his older sister and clarified it. It was night/early morning, and the plane ( they don't know what it was as it was dark) was being chased by German fighter planes! But she said that he was heading west when the bombs dropped, only one hit in front of the barn, they think there were 5 or 6 bombs, most of the rest hit in the fields behind the house and one hit the bridge going into the town of Ten Post, but did not detonate, my Aunt said that a painter got it and had it on display in his front yard for a long time! He thinks it might be in the Museum at Groningen. How many bombs does a fighter carry?
BTW- no, that is not my Dad, he was a boy. this is just a photo of a Dutch soldier, a member of a gun crew ws the title, i found it online.

Fred:
thanks! lots of good info there! you should start a thread with that story of your fathers!!!

 

darn I wish we had a date, or even a month, this is getting quite interesting. possibly a German night fighter chasing an RAF bomber which dumped his load ? well that is just a guess of course.

another quick note bigfun does your dad remember any other bomb damage in his general area besides the barn, like any cross roads or neighboring properties during the same evening/morning ?

 

yeah it is getting more interesting to me as well, in fact this makes me want to contact all of my Aunts and Uncles and ask them to write down all of their experiences in Holland! i'm sure everybody will have a different take on this event! as for other damage, the other bombs dropped in the fields leading into the town of Ten Post, and the last one hit the bridge, but did not detonate, my Aunt said that the planks of the bridge scattered everywhere!
and she thinks it was in the spring, probably of 1945, because she said that not long after that the canadians cam in tanks and liberated them!

 

Thanks for that Bigfun. Pity we don't have more details. it sounds like Erich says....No way of knowing if the bomber made it back to England and if not, were it crashed. German claimlists from 1945 are scant and more is missing than there is available, so that is not much of an option. I can't find anything in Ab Jansens books on this nor Zwanenburg's volumes, but that would require a more precise reading in any case. I will ask my colleague, who live about 20 Km from there if there is a way we can get more info....maybe get a date...

 

Bigfun, I think I found it! Date; 11 November 1942!

The farm was called "Graslanden" and it was hit, as Erich said, "when an english bomber had to get rid of its load"..

ok, now i will get back to the date....more later...

I found this pic online as i was doing an internet search.....

 

Ok, checked the missions for 10/11 and 11/11 1942. Only missions flown were mine laying missions, both to the Frisian islands. This bomber was most likely part of this force. However, this pilot must have been skilled as he must have evaded his German attackers as no planes were lost these nights! Two planes later crashed in England, however.

Now to find out which sqns these planes belonged to and maybe the ORB's can shed some lights on what happened and what crew went through this ordeal. This is an intensive search though, which might even require a visit to the National Archives in London, if we can't find a sqn historian.....

I guess from the German side we won't get much help as they didn't claim a British bomber for the 11th... Erich, any ideas? I guess the LW boys did not report these chases when they didn't result in a shoot down?

 

Stevin I am missing 2 full pages of LW Night fighter claims lists during the fall of 42 with it ending in later December of that year.

Excellent detective work friend in finding out the date.

let me get back as I will check through another data base real soon....

 

That depends on the fighter, but most of them carried around 4, I think (Fighter specialists help me out here). My guess it was a Mosquito light Bomber.

 

a few things don't add up, when I think about it. Bombers on mining missions, like on 10/11-11-1942, carried mines, and I think a very limited number and not bombs. I am no expert but the damage doesn't seem to me to be caused by a mine.

Second, if the incident took place shortly before the liberation we talk about half way through April 1945. I am not sure, but I don't think the nachtjagd was able to play any significant role then. Wasn't it next to non-existent by then? What are the chances of German night fighters attacking a plane over northern Holland in April 1945? Erich?

A mossie could be the answer, as we don't know how many bombs were dropped. I get back to the Ten Post Historical Society...

 

the night fighter aces were still in the air plus any of the units using forward fields and there was a conglomeration of them not all from the same NJG.anyone know where Kölleda is located ?? many of the kills obviously in spring of 45 are over German held territory or over Germany itself. Also the NJG's are now performing night and early morning ground attacks against both US/British and then east against Soviet forces. NJG's could account for claims from both sides during a night through morning affair plus the strafing of a ground troop movements building up. Let's just say the last war weeks are very very confusing

E ~ last note I./NJG 3 when I pictured their crews and one of the Ju 88G-6's was active in April month till the end primarily hunting RAF mine-layers off the coast but also anything found inland close to Denmark/northern Germany