War Stories - Second World War - Holland
As I sit in a museum today, offering what I know about the B-17 that sits in the middle of the hangar to our visitor, I often ponder what those that come teach me.
Take for instance, the five German families and one Dutchman that I encountered today. Especially the guy from Holland, who is 74, he was 8 years old during the Nazi occupation of his small Dutch town and told me, in a still quiet voice, that German occupation was far worse than the American movies lead us to believe.
As an eight year old, he watched the gun battles at night between the Nazi gun emplacements on his shores, aimed at the American B17's and British Lancaster climbing slowly out of England towards his shores. " Flashing blue and red and orange lights," he said.
"First the German fights were hit, caught fire and dived towards the ocean, then some of the allied planes,' he went on. once during the daylight, a B-17 was on fire and was heading right for his apartment, diving, screaming, on fire, smoking directly for his top window, top floor. He could see the airplane, pilot less, nose down, headed directly for his top floor apartment
Scared and only eight, he froze. The plane flew nearer and only then, he saw the face of a young pilot, struggling to pull the 17 up, trying to get it over the apartment roof, up and beyond his building.
At the last second, the B-17 skimmed past his apartment and crashed just the other side of his building killing the young pilot instantly. He told me to this day his sister still lives in that same apartment, dedicating herself to finding some identification of that American pilot who saved all their lives.
Once he said, the Dutch Underground Bobby=trapped a road-way on the street just outside his house. By stringing a wire across the street, they were able to decapitate a German soldier motoring on a motorcycle as he drove by.
The Nazi's believed in retribution. The next day, my friend told me, the rounded up 30 civilians on the spot outside his window where the soldier died and machine gunned them on the very same spot where their solder died.
His father told him, several days later, the Underground paid them back elsewhere in his town.
Standing next to him while he told this story was a youngish German man who I had just had during a tour of the museum. Much appreciative of my tour, he did however express a little "anger" at the " excessive and unnecessary " American destruction " of several small towns in Germany where old houses had once been.
" Totally unnecessary he said.
He sat in silence as the Dutchman quietly recounted the part about executing 30 people at random on a front street. His emphasis was "at random," with a machine gun.
Most of the German folks who arrive in America, in Arizona and our Museum seem quite happy to adopt the attitude to forgive, forget and to learn from "the other side." And from our perspective, that seems fine with us.
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Take for instance, the five German families and one Dutchman that I encountered today. Especially the guy from Holland, who is 74, he was 8 years old during the Nazi occupation of his small Dutch town and told me, in a still quiet voice, that German occupation was far worse than the American movies lead us to believe.
As an eight year old, he watched the gun battles at night between the Nazi gun emplacements on his shores, aimed at the American B17's and British Lancaster climbing slowly out of England towards his shores. " Flashing blue and red and orange lights," he said.
"First the German fights were hit, caught fire and dived towards the ocean, then some of the allied planes,' he went on. once during the daylight, a B-17 was on fire and was heading right for his apartment, diving, screaming, on fire, smoking directly for his top window, top floor. He could see the airplane, pilot less, nose down, headed directly for his top floor apartment
Scared and only eight, he froze. The plane flew nearer and only then, he saw the face of a young pilot, struggling to pull the 17 up, trying to get it over the apartment roof, up and beyond his building.
At the last second, the B-17 skimmed past his apartment and crashed just the other side of his building killing the young pilot instantly. He told me to this day his sister still lives in that same apartment, dedicating herself to finding some identification of that American pilot who saved all their lives.
Once he said, the Dutch Underground Bobby=trapped a road-way on the street just outside his house. By stringing a wire across the street, they were able to decapitate a German soldier motoring on a motorcycle as he drove by.
The Nazi's believed in retribution. The next day, my friend told me, the rounded up 30 civilians on the spot outside his window where the soldier died and machine gunned them on the very same spot where their solder died.
His father told him, several days later, the Underground paid them back elsewhere in his town.
Standing next to him while he told this story was a youngish German man who I had just had during a tour of the museum. Much appreciative of my tour, he did however express a little "anger" at the " excessive and unnecessary " American destruction " of several small towns in Germany where old houses had once been.
" Totally unnecessary he said.
He sat in silence as the Dutchman quietly recounted the part about executing 30 people at random on a front street. His emphasis was "at random," with a machine gun.
Most of the German folks who arrive in America, in Arizona and our Museum seem quite happy to adopt the attitude to forgive, forget and to learn from "the other side." And from our perspective, that seems fine with us.
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