Motorized Nazi artillery launched 1,027 V-2 rockets at London from The Hague – 79 failed at launch, 600 reached London[6]The desolate landscape of the Hague neighborhood of Bezuidenhout in 1946. At the front the Bezuidenhoutseweg road. Completely at the back, behind the railroad tracks, a part of the municipality of Voorburg.
The bombing of the Bezuidenhout (Dutch: bombardement op het Bezuidenhout) took place on 3 March 1945,[7] when the Royal Air Force mistakenly bombed the Bezuidenhout neighbourhood in the Dutch city of The Hague resulting in the death of 532 citizens.[8][9]
The British bombers were intended to bomb the Haagse Bos ("Forest of the Hague") district where the Germans had installed V-2 launching facilities that had been used to attack English cities.[12][13] However, the pilots were issued with the wrong coordinates (vertical and horizontal interchanged),[9][11][12] so the navigational instruments of the bombers had been set incorrectly, and combined with low fog and clouds which obscured their vision, the bombs were instead dropped on the Bezuidenhout residential neighbourhood.[9][12] Eventually, a wind force of 9 instead of the expected 5 added to the catastrophe.[12] All bombs missed the rocket installations in the 2.4 km (1.5 mi) x 0.8 km (0.50 mi) forest target (Haagse Bos)[14] by 1.2 km (1,300 yd)[9] ("incorrect allowance for the wind"[15]/"map-reading error"),[2] and hit the Bezuidenhout neighbourhood instead.[4][16][17]
At 9:08 in the morning the 51 bombers dropped 67 tonnes of high-explosive bombs on the Bezuidenhout,[9] wreaking widespread destruction.[18]
"Everyone went out and into the street. You saw people running, running, running everywhere. But whichever way you ran, there was fire everywhere."
At the time, the neighbourhood was more densely populated than usual with evacuees from The Hague and Wassenaar; tens of thousands were left homeless and had to be quartered in the Eastern and Central Netherlands.[10]
Due to insufficient fire engines and firemen (as many of them had been either called up for forced labour in German industry or had gone into hiding to prevent being signed up)[9] the resulting fire was largely unchecked,[19] killing 511 people,[4] including ten firemen at the Schenkkade.[9] In total 532 people were killed by the bombing.[9][3]
The Theresiastraat in the Bezuidenhout before World War II
As soon as the British realized the extent of the damage, they dropped fliers over the neighbourhood expressing condolences for the civilians who were killed by their error.[12][20]Trouw, the Dutch resistance newspaper, reported:
The horrors of the war are increasing. We have seen the fires in The Hague after the terrible bombings due to the V2-launching sites. We have seen the column of smoke, drifting to the south and the ordeal of the war has descended upon us in its extended impact. We heard the screaming bombs falling on (the) Bezuidenhout, and the missiles which brought death and misery fell only a hundred metres from us. At the same time we saw the launching and the roaring, flaming V2, holding our breath to see if the launch was successful, if not falling back on the homes of innocent people. It is horrible to see the monsters take off in the middle of the night between the houses, lighting up the skies. One can imagine the terrors that came upon us now that The Hague is a frontline town, bombed continuously for more than ten days. Buildings, burning and smouldering furiously, a town choking from smoke, women and children fleeing, men hauling furniture which they tried to rescue from the chaos. What misery, what distress.[20]
Monument of Juliana of Stolberg and her five sons, which survived the bombing and now also doubles as a monument for its victimsMonument van de menselijke vergissing
The bombing is commemorated every year on the first Sunday after 3 March. In 2011, Mayor Jozias van Aartsen[21] of The Hague as well as the Mayors of Wassenaar and Leidschendam-Voorburg (residents of both towns helped with firefighting and caring for the survivors) were present at the remembrance ceremony, which consisted of a church service, the laying of a wreath at the Monument of the human mistake (Dutch: Monument van de menselijke vergissing) and a remembrance concert in the Royal Conservatory of The Hague.[22] A similar church service and concert were held in 2012.[23]
^Kooy, J. M. J; Uytenbogaart, J. W. H. (1946). Ballistics of the Future With Special Reference to the Dynamical And Physical Theory of the Rocket Weapons. (Kooy-Uytenbogaart launch figures are from Space Travel, Gatland & Kunesch, 1953 Second impression, p. 52-3; and Kooy-Uytenbogaart location information was used as source for the 1973 Gravity's Rainbow.)
^ abTinschert, Carlo (2005). Boodschap aan de bevolking van Den Haag: oorzaken, gevolgen en nasleep van het mislukte bombardement op het Bezuidenhout, 3 maart 1945 (in Dutch). Den Haag: Sdu Uitgevers. ISBN90-12-11188-9. OCLC71711568.
(in Dutch) Carlo Tinschert, Boodschap aan de bevolking van Den Haag – Oorzaken, gevolgen en nasleep van het mislukte bombardement op het Bezuidenhout, 3 maart 1945, Sdu Uitgevers, The Hague ISBN9012111889
United Kingdom
Nazi Germany
902nd Artillery Regiment z.V. (Motorized)[1]
