RAF
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Eddy de Neve occupies a unique place in the history of Dutch football. On 30 April 1905, he became the first great scoring hero of the Dutch national team, scoring all four goals in the Netherlands’ historic 4–1 victory over Belgium in Antwerp. For a brief moment, he seemed destined for sporting greatness. Eddy de…
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On 17 August 1940, as the Battle of Britain raged above southern England, Pilot Officer William Meade Lindsley “Billy” Fiske III died in a hospital in Chichester. He was just 29 years old. An American citizen serving in the Royal Air Force, Fiske had been badly burned when his Hawker Hurricane was hit by German…
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It is strange how things can come full circle. My first real blog was about an event during WWII in my hometown of which I was blissfully ignorant about, until I stumbled upon it by accident.. I came across the story of Frieda Goldschmidt-Jakob which actually ties into that story. On October 5,1942 the RAF…
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I have always been fascinated by aerial shots taken during World War II. These are just some of them. The photograph above:A reconnaissance photo taken after bomb smoke lifted over the three ball-bearing plants at Schweinfurt shows the damage inflicted by the The Mighty Eighth US Air Force during a concentrated attack on 21 July…
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On March 27/28 in 1940, the Dutch Fokker G.I recorded its first aerial victory when it shot down a British Armstrong Whitworth Whitley over Pernis. As a neutral nation at the time, the Netherlands was obliged to intercept any aircraft violating its airspace. Of the five crew members aboard the Whitley, one was killed. On…
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Between February 13 and 15, there were four raids on Dresden. The Allied bombing of the German city of Dresden was carried out by the British Royal Air Force and the United States Air Force (USAAF) in four phases from the night of February 13 to 15, 1945. The photographs included in this blog were…
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For 10 years I worked for Philips and was not aware of this bit of the company’s history, although I worked in a different plant in another city, the links to Eindhoven were substantial because HQ was located there. On 6th December 1942, the RAF mounted Operation Oyster, a daylight low-level bombing raid on the…
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The image above is from Episode 6 of Masters of the Air. In this scene, captured USAAF airmen are marched through the burning streets of a bombed German town. A furious mob of civilians, spurred on by a local party official, overpowers the guards and attacks the Terrorflieger (“terror flyers”). Most of the airmen are…
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On October 5, 1942, the small Dutch town of Geleen, located in the province of Limburg, experienced a devastating bombing raid during World War II. This event is significant not only for the destruction it caused but also for the tragic error that led to the bombing of a civilian area instead of its intended…
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I have written about the bombing of Geleen before, but since today is the 81st anniversary, I thought it a good idea to revisit that awful day. Geleen is a town in the southeast part of the Netherlands. It used to be a mining town. Although the Bombing of Geleen was a devastating event, I…
History of Sorts 
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