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"Emmastraat 29" Bombardment in 1945 The following information was sent to me by my friend Frans in December of 2005. 60 years ago when I was on the cover of Life Magazine in 1946, he wrote to me and we became pen pals. He was seven and I was six years old. Now, after 60 years, he has sent me a photo of the neighborhood where he lived and where the bombardment leveled multiple blocks of housing, including his own home! He went to a presentation of a book about the bombardment of his first home where he lived from birth in 1939 until March of 1945! In the foreground of this photo you can see the ruined church Frans and his family attended. Frans' old house is under the text Old at "Wilhelminastraat 84" (This was the forbidden name of our queen so it was changed to 'Agathastraat' at that time). His new home where he lived from June 1945 untill September 1969 is under the text New at "Emmastraat 29". Frans also wrote me the following information about the bombing: | ||
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The bombing raid was done by
the English tactical air force because of the V-2's being fired from the
woodland "Haagsche Bos" underneath the photograph. It was a
mistake, or so they said. The lieutenant who setup the coordinates changed
the horizontal and vertical co-ordinates so the target was in the middle of
our build up area instead of the woods! But there was also a
north-westerly wind and the bombs were dropped from about 4000 feet so
they may have been blown away from the target, or so we were told.
There was hardly any water to extinguish the fire and not enough petrol for the firemen's cars and ambulances. So they carried the wounded by handcart to the hospital nearby in town. There wasn't much new information yesterday at the presentation but we did buy a booklet with an explanation of the fact findings.
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