By the start of May 1945, 75 years ago this month, Nazi Germany had been ravaged by the the war which she herself had ignited over 5 1/2 years earlier. As if caught in a giant vise, the German homeland was now being crushed between the Russian army advancing from the east and American and British forces from the west.
On April 30, Hitler had committed suicide in his Berlin bunker. Karl Donitz, German navy admiral and a leading figure in the Third Reich, succeeded him and quickly signed terms of unconditional surrender to the Allies late on May 7. World War II in Europe officially ended on May 8, a day we now remember as VE (Victory in Europe) Day.
Sadly, 75th anniversary ceremonies commemorating VE Day scheduled across Europe, the United States, and in other parts of the world, have been cancelled or modified due to the current coronavirus crisis.
Starvation in Holland
In the waning days of the war in Europe, as Allied forces pushed into Germany itself on all sides, the western portion of the Netherlands remained occupied by some 120,000 Nazi troops. Like an island among newly liberated lands and peoples, the 3.5 million Dutch citizens living in this most populous part of Holland were literally starving to death.
During five years of Nazi subjugation, food for the people of the Netherlands had become increasingly hard to acquire. For starters, the occupiers always made sure that they had enough to eat. They even shipped significant quantities of Dutch food products back to Germany.
After a defiant railway strike in Holland during the final months of 1944, the Germans had lashed out at the inhabitants of this western area, the remaining part of the country still under their control. The strike had been undertaken due to the belief that liberation would occur before year’s end. When it did not come, their punishment was to have all incoming shipments of fuel and food cut off.
With the specter of starvation now settling in as the coldest months of the year approached, the winter of 1944/1945 only added to the misery, proving to be one of the harshest on record in Europe. It is known in the Netherlands today simply as the “hunger winter.” Facing deprivation, cold and disease, the Dutch people began to die by the thousands.
By April 1945, as the bitter conditions of winter stretched into early spring, British intelligence sources estimated that some half a million people living there were on the very precipice of death, due to a lack of food. Every day was now critical to a people who had resorted to cutting off their own hair, boiling it, and drinking the broth as a source of protein.
When the German armies invaded the Netherlands back in May 1940, the Royal Dutch family had managed to escape and set up a government in exile in England. Learning of the rapidly escalating hunger crisis in their homeland, both Queen Wilhelmina and her son-in-law, Prince Bernhard, appealed directly to General Dwight Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of allied forces in Europe, British Minister Winston Churchill, and U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt, just prior to his death on April 12.
Although the wheels of government, and even the military bureaucracy, moved somewhat slowly in this case, approval was soon granted to pursue some sort of humanitarian relief mission. Absolutely critical to such an operation, and yet a seeming impossibility, was the cooperation of the Nazi occupying force.
Strange as it may seem, and almost certainly motivated by a desire to avoid a firing squad after the war for crimes he had committed, the German governor of Holland ultimately agreed to a food airlift.
Unarmed Allied bombers would be allowed to fly over specified sectors and drop tons of food to the starving Dutch people. German troops would be ordered not to shoot at them.
Operation Chowhound
The Americans code-named their part in this grand undertaking Operation Chowhound. The British called their contribution Operation Manna, an obvious reference to the Biblical account of God supplying food from heaven for hungry Israelites during their exodus from Egypt.
The cast of characters in this incredible tale of mercy during the final days of brutal fighting in Europe is fascinating. There is the Dutch Prince Bernhard, although German born and raised, fighting tenaciously to save the people of the Netherlands. Then, there is the compassion of Eisenhower and the toughness of his deputy, General Walter Bedell Smith, who threatened the German governor of Holland with a firing squad should he not cooperate.
Lieutenant General Jimmy Doolittle, heroic commander of the Doolittle Raiders during their much celebrated surprise attack against the Japanese homeland three years earlier, was now commanding the U.S. Eighth Air Force in England and in charge of the execution of Chowhound.
There was the behind the scenes work of British spy Ian Fleming, who would go on to author all of the James Bond novels. Farley Mowat, a Canadian army captain who traveled far behind German lines under a white flag of truce to initiate negotiations, would go on to become a celebrated conservationist and prolific author of books for children and young adults.
Audrey Hepburn, future film star, was a skinny, starving teenager in Nazi controlled Holland when food began falling from the sky. Corrie ten Boom, later to become a much beloved Christian author and speaker, was miraculously released from a concentration camp in Germany and traveled hundred of miles to return to her home in Nazi occupied Holland, in the midst of “hunger winter.”
Courage and mercy
Operations Manna and Chowhound lasted for 10 days, from April 29 to May 8, VE Day. During that time more than 11,000 tons of food showered down from the skies in and around cities like Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Haarlem. More than 5,000 individual aircraft sorties were flown by American, British and Canadian bombers retrofitted for mercy missions. On one peak day alone there were more than 900 such missions launched.
Each flight, especially the earliest ones, was fraught with danger. Would any of the multitude of German anti-aircraft batteries below open fire on the vulnerable bombers turned food transports? The drops took place without parachutes, meaning that every aircraft had to slow to barely above stalling speed. Used to dropping bombs from 20,000 feet, they now had to deliver their precious “manna’ from a mere 300 to 400 feet. Each plane was a veritable sitting duck.
All of the crew members for Chowhound were volunteers. Most later said that their participation in the operation was the best thing they ever did during the war, something they would never forget. Despite their obvious vulnerability, not a single aircraft or crew member was lost to enemy fire. Sadly, three aircraft and several airmen were lost due to an engine failure and a midair collision.
For 10 days in late April and early May of 1945, Dutchmen looked up into the skies with tears in their eyes and gratitude in their hearts. They watched life-giving food fall to earth from bomb bays that had days before delivered destruction and death.
Allied airmen, in turn, looked down from their bombers with lumps in their throats. Below were Dutch citizens waving handkerchiefs and bedsheets, along with American flags and British Union Jacks. Sometimes with piles of stones, sometimes by cutting tulips out of their fields, they had also spelled out simple, heartfelt messages like “Thanks Boys.”
Operation Chowhound paved the way for one of America’s finest hours only three years later, when U.S. military aircraft undertook a herculean effort to feed and sustain the beleaguered and isolated inhabitants of West Berlin during the Berlin Airlift.
More U.S. humanitarian missions have followed in the years since American airmen came to the rescue of starving millions in Holland. May we always remember and give thanks to God for the legacy of the boys of Chowhound. Their courage and compassion exemplify the best of what it means to be an American. Let us never forget what they did in the last days of World War II ... 75 years ago.
