Operations Manna and Chowhound

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American B17 dumps food over the devastated Schiphol airfield, May 1945

The operations Manna and Chowhound were humanitarian military operations of the Allied air forces with the connivance of the German occupying forces to rescue the starving Dutch population at the end of World War II . As part of Operation Manna (named after the biblical manna that fell from the sky), the Royal Air Force, supported by Australian, Canadian, New Zealand and Polish forces , threw food from heavy bombers over parts of the Netherlands from April 29 to May 7, 1945 who suffered from the so-called Hongerwinter . The United States Army Air Forces flew similar missions from May 1 to May 8, 1945 as part of Operation Chowhound (English for gobble bag). Since the supply flights alone would not be sufficient, the Allies and the German side also agreed to supply food with trucks in the Rhenen area (Operation Faust) and on the waterway to Rotterdam .

Background - starvation winter

Starving baby, four months old, Breda , January 1, 1945
Hongerwinter : People steal tram sleepers , 1944/45

In September 1944, the Allies attempted a quick advance to the Rhine as part of Operation Market Garden , which failed. On the orders of Prince Bernhard and the Dutch government- in- exile in London, the Dutch railroad workers started a strike and went underground to paralyze the German supply. Thereupon the German Reich Commissioner for the Netherlands, Seyß-Inquart , issued a transport stop for food. When the early onset and particularly cold winter brought shipping to a standstill, the predominantly urban population of West Holland suffered as a result, dependent on food and fuel supplies and occupied by German troops until Germany surrendered. Electricity, gas and telephone connections were mostly interrupted, dikes partially destroyed by the Dutch resistance , the German occupiers and bombs. The so-called Hongerwinter came about , the last Western European famine , to which more than 20,000 people fell victim to malnutrition and the cold. Led by Sweden and Switzerland , the neutral states organized some aid deliveries through the Red Cross , but they were not enough to stop the catastrophe.

Negotiating a local armistice

When the supply situation for the approximately three million Dutch citizens became increasingly desperate at the beginning of 1945, the Dutch government in exile and Prince Bernhard tried unsuccessfully to persuade the Allies to take relief measures. Finally, Bernhard asked the Allied Commander-in-Chief, General Dwight D. Eisenhower , for help on April 15, 1945, who was initially unable to provide it as humanitarian aid supplies would require a local armistice , which he was not authorized to make. However, on April 17, 1945, he already commissioned Air Commodore Andrew Geddes to plan supply flights and work out a draft agreement for the German side ( no negotiations, only instructions ). Seyss-Inquart had already signaled that under certain conditions he could agree to an armistice, but also threatened to ruthlessly devastate the fortress of Holland on Hitler's orders if the Allies continued to advance in the Netherlands. Much of the organization of the meetings and the communication between the warring parties was carried out by Seyss-Inquart's subordinate, Ernst Schwebel . After the Dutch government-in-exile had obtained the approval of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and US President Franklin D. Roosevelt , Eisenhower received permission on April 23 to agree a local armistice with the German side. On April 28, the Allies met with German representatives in Achterveld and announced the start of the air supply for the following day, but it was not until April 30 that Seyss-Inquart agreed to appear together with Ernst Schwebel at the meeting with Walter Bedell Smith , Prince Bernhard and General Ivan Alexejewitsch Susloparow and on May 2nd the contract with the technical details was signed in Wageningen with the following points:

  • Approach lanes, entry times and ten drop zones for air supply, whereby the dropped goods would be controlled by the German side in order to prevent the Dutch resistance from being secretly supplied with military goods.
  • Rhenen and the surrounding area were declared a neutral zone and the handover modalities for truck transports of food to the occupied zone were regulated. ( Operation Faust started on May 3rd).
  • The Nieuwe Waterweg waterway to Rotterdam should be cleared by the German side for relief supplies from mines.

Operation Manna

A Lancaster is loaded with groceries in cement sacks, April 29, 1945

The Royal Air Force began Operation Manna on the morning of April 29, although a ceasefire had not yet been agreed. The supply flights had already been announced by the BBC on April 28th so that the dropping points could be marked by the Dutch and enough personnel would be available for collection and further transport. Since there was not enough parachute silk available, the goods had to be dropped at low altitude without a parachute. First there was a test supply flight by two Lancaster bombers , which flew low over the German air defense, dropped their supplies and returned to their airfield without incident. The RAF then flew a total of 3,156 Lancaster flights and 145 Mosquito flights, during which 6,684 tons of supplies were dropped.

“MANY THANKS” written with tulips, May 1945

Operation Chowhound

The American Operation Chowhound (dt. Feed sack ) began due to poor visibility on May 1st, when 10 bomber groups of the 3rd Air Division of the Eighth Air Force dropped around 4,000 tons of food during 2,268 flights.

Drop zones

losses

Three Boeing B-17s crashed, two of them as a result of a collision, whereupon the dangerous formation flight at low altitude was abandoned. A machine was lost due to an engine fire. Bullet holes from infantry weapons were discovered on several returning aircraft.

literature

  • Nicolas Best: Five Days that Shocked the World , Osprey Publishing, 2013, ISBN 978-1-78200-624-4 , pp. 201 ff.
  • Tom Bijvoet, Anne van Arragon Hutten: The Hunger Winter: The Dutch in Wartime, Survivors Remember , Mokeham Publishing, 2013, ISBN 978-0-9868308-9-1
  • Stephen Dando-Collins: Operation Chowhound: The Most Risky, Most Glorious US Bomber Mission of WWII , Macmillan, 2015, ISBN 978-1-4668-7915-7
  • William I. Hitchcock : Liberation: The Bitter Road to Freedom , Simon and Schuster, 2008, ISBN 978-0-7432-7381-7 , pp. 98 ff.
  • Henri A. Van der Zee: The Hunger Winter - Occupied Holland 1944-1945 , University of Nebraska Press, 1998, ISBN 0-8032-9618-5

Web links

Commons : Operations Manna and Chowhound  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Stephen Dando-Collins: Operation Chowhound: The Most Risky, Most Glorious US Bomber Mission of WWII , p. 115
  2. ↑ Stephen Dando-Collins: Operation Chowhound: The Most Risky, Most Glorious US Bomber Mission of WWII . St. Martin's Publishing Group, 2015, ISBN 978-1-4668-7915-7 , pp. dev . ( google.de [accessed on March 1, 2020]).
  3. ^ William I. Hitchcock: The Bitter Road to Freedom: A New History of the Liberation of Europe, pp. 116 ff.
  4. ^ The Bad Penny Crew of Operation Manna , Canada, accessed February 22, 2016
  5. ^ Jon Lake: Lancaster Squadrons 1944-45 , Osprey Publishing, 2002, ISBN 978-1-84176-433-7 , pp. 84 ff.
  6. ↑ Bergen - Abandoned, Forgotten & Little Known Airfields in Europe , accessed March 3, 2016
  7. ^ Martin Bowman, Mark Styling: B-17 Flying Fortress Units of the Eighth Air Force , Osprey Publishing, 2013, ISBN 978-1-4728-0052-7 , p. 82