The airfield under attack
After the departure of many aircraft toward the East in order to be deployed against Russia a couple of Ju.88’s and Do 215’s of KG30 remained behind. The night hunters of 1/NJG2 also remained stationed on Gilze-Rijen. During September 1941, many aircraft arrive again on the airfield, which lead to a lot of air traffic. The coming and going of the various Geschwaders and Staffels on Gilze-Rijen resulted in many different types of aircraft that were based on the airfield. Some types of aircraft from the periods 1941, 42, 43 were: Ju.33, Ju.52, Ju.88, Me.109, Me.110, Do.215, He.111, He.177, Fw.109, Do.23, Do.217, Do.24, Fw.189, Siebel.204 and other English and American captured aircraft.
Gilze-Rijen was for the Germans a very important airfield, the location in relation to England was good, the early warning system of camp Bisam had proven its value and worked and the possibilities for training pilots and observers was optimal. This al explains the many different type of aircraft that were stationed here. There were days of more than one hundred take off and landings. Many English and American aircraft on bombing missions into Germany came over the area of Gilze-Rijen. The German night fighters took off nearly every night to attack the Allied aircraft overhead. The Allied bombers were usually accompanied and protected by fighter aircraft, so many duels in the air were fought in the vicinity of Gilze-Rijen. The result was that of both sides many aircraft were shot down. Often before the formations of Allied bombers reached the Dutch coast, Allied fighters would attack Gilze-Rijen to prevent the take off of German fighters. Most Germans fighters were of the type Me.109.
One of the most daring air attacks from the second world war was the attack on the Ruhr dams called Operation Chastise. This attack was intended to destroy three dams in the Ruhr area. During the night of 16 on 17 May, 1943 three formations of Lancaster bombers, a total of 19 aircraft, took off from England loaded with a, for this mission specially designed mine.
Fliegerhorst Gilze-Rijen, part IIII
Airfield during the war
The bombers flew over Gilze-Rijen towards the Ruhr dams. Two of the three dams were destroyed and as a result the German industry was caused a great deal of damage by the floods that followed. The electricity supply for a large part of Germany failed and was destroyed. Of the 19 aircraft which left England eight were shot down or crashed to the ground. One Lancaster was attacked over Gilze-rijen and ended up crashing on the airfield which caused a great deal of damage on the ground. It was Lancaster ED865 AJ-S of 617 Squadron. The Lancaster was piloted by Pilot Officer, Louis Burpee. He was slightly of course over Holland around 02.00 hrs during the night and flew very low and too close over Gilze-Rijen. Despite the fact that the German FLAK had not enough time to zero in on the Lancaster the German searchlights on the airfield blinded the pilot on witch he hit a number of tree tops and crashed into the ground. The aircraft blew up killing all crewmembers and several seconds later
a big explosion followed caused by the detonation of the mine. The aircraft is said to have crashed in the middle part of the airfield.
De crewmembers onboard this Lancaster where;
Pilot Officer Lewis Johnstone Burpee, DFM, RCAF
Sergeant Guy Pegler, RAF
Sergeant Thomas Jaye, RAFVR
James Lamb Arthur, RCAF
Pilot Officer Leonard George Weller, RAFVR
Sergeant William Charles
Arthur Long, RAFVR
Joseph Gordon Brady, RCAF
The other seven Lancasters that did not return where; Lancaster ED864 AJ-B, Lancaster ED925AJ-M, Lancaster ED937 AJ-Z, Lancaster ED887 AJ-A, Lancaster ED927 AJ-E, Lancaster ED934 AJ-K, Lancaster ED910 AJ-C.
In the summer of 1943 the allies realized that the large number of German bombing missions on England were flown from Gilze-Rijen. This resulted in more attacks on the airfield from the summer of 1943, which in turn meant that the Germans stationed more Me.109 fighter aircraft on the field. In August of 1943 more than 50 Me.109 were based on Gilze-Rijen. On August 19, 1943 the American 303rd Bombardment Group(H) belonging to the 41st Combat Bombardment Wing bombed the airfield. Under mission No.61, 38, B-17’ each loaded with 42, 100-pound bombs took of to bomb the airfield around mid day. During their first bomb run most bombs were dropped in the northeast corner of the airfield. In the second bomb run the bombs fell centre on the field. Because it was summer and many people were in the fields harvesting lots of casualties fell under the population of the village Hulten and many farms were damaged or destroyed.
On October 20, 1943 there is a second major attack by the Americans on Gilze-Rijen airfield counting 20, B-17 bombers from again the 303rd BG (H) under mission No.79. Their initial target for this mission was the bombing of the city Duren in Germany. By events during their flight to Germany the decision is made to cancel the initial target for this mission and use their bomb load on an other target instead. The decision is made to drop the bombs on either airfield Woensdrecht or airfield Gilze-Rijen. Eventually Gilze-Rijen is chosen as target due to formations position and so the formation headed for the area and the bomb aimer started to search for their target. But due to heavy clouds above Gilze-Rijen a 100% identification of the target was not possible so several bombers decided to cancel their drop. How ever, the bombers that did decided to drop their bomb load during these poor weather conditions were wrong and bombed the German fake airfield Kamerun instead. As a result of this mistake the civilian population in the immediate area of kamerun suffered the consequences with lots of civilians getting killed or injured and many homes and farms being damaged or destroyed. Instead of huge numbers of aircraft to attack Gilze-Rijen the British came up with another tactic. They sent one or two aircraft called ‘intruders’ to attack Gilze-Rijen. These aircraft approached the airfield at low level at night to keep from being detected and unseen tried to inflicted as many damage to the airfield as possible. Many times at night they were able to position them selves between the German aircraft that were taking off from the airfield or were approaching to land to suddenly open fire and cause havoc amongst these enemy aircraft. This was a very dangerous but successful tactic and the German anti aircraft around the airfield could do nothing about it, afraid to hit their own aircraft. Because of these ‘intruder’ attacks a lot of German aircraft were lost or damaged but the infrastructure of the airfield suffered less damage. This had endured more damaged in previous bombings.
For these intruder attacks the British used their Hurricane fighter aircraft. On December 4, 1943 several attacks on Gilze-Rijen were carried out by British Hurricane, Typhoon and American Republic P-47 Thunderbolts fighter aircraft. They approached the airfield at tree top level around 10 feet and shots at everything they saw on the airfield to inflicted maximum damage to installations and parked aircraft. The fighters were fast and manoeuvrable and operated in small groups. Because they flew so low they were difficult to identify by German radar posts and German anti aircraft fire could not zero in on them.
Several days during December 1943 the intruders were active over Gilze-Rijen. On December 23 for example, when 92 P-47’s of again the 303rd BG attacked Gilze-Rijen and while two squadrons were dive bombing the airfield one squadron served as escort and security. In January of 1944, the Americans started large scale attacks on Gilze-Rijen. On January 4 four Typhoons took off from England in to the direction of Gilze-Rijen for a surprise attack. Individually they flew to Holland and once over the Dutch coast they regrouped an flew at tree top level into the direction of Gilze-Rijen. While they arrived at Gilze-Rijen they witnessed the take offs and landings of German aircraft and directly started to engage and destroy several of them. Two Donier Do.217’s were shot down during their approach and a Junkers Ju.88 was destroyed on the runway after being shot at witch resulted in the explosion of his bomb load. This explosion also caused significant damage to the runway and was out of service for days.
By the many attacks on the airfield a lot of people from the surrounding areas were required to restore the damage oon the airfield caused by these attacks. It was highly dangerous work were the Germans abused civilians and prisoners of war for. Many people that had to do this dangerous work for the Germans became victims of the many attacks, but many had no choice, they were picked up from the street and made to do damage repairs. Refusing was not an option cause transportation to Germany would be certain. The German bombing raids from Gilze-Rijen on England though kept being executed by Donier Do.217 aircraft as most common German bomber.
On January 31, 1944, there was again a major attack on the airfield by as much as 209 allied aircraft, of which 134 served as escorts’ for the aircraft loaded with bombs. It resulted in lots of damage to the airfield but fortunately not many bombs were dropped outside of the airfield though several buildings in the village of Rijen and Hulten were damaged. No casualties were suffered amongst the civilian population because many people were able to get into their shelters in time.
It was a scary period for the civilian population who lived in the vicinity of the airfield. Many people left the area during that time and moved elsewhere out of fear of further air attacks. Because of the attacks of the fighter bombers the population around the airfield thought that bombing from high altitudes was over but on February 10, 1944 the Americans came over head again. From high altitudes 24, B-24 Liberators dropped their bombs on and also outside the airfield. Coming from the North they bombed the airfield field but also the centre of the village Gilze which resulted in a great deal of damage in the village and lots of casualties amongst the civilian population. At the airfield two of the three runway’s are left completely unusable by the destruction, and it would take weeks for the Germans to have them all repaired again for take offs and landings.
On February 20 and 22, 1944 the American bombers attacked again. They now had a new type of bomber in use, the B-26 ‘Mauranders’. Sixty of these type of aircraft bombed the airfield on February 22 over a north-south direction without a bomb falling outside the airfield. Between these large bombing raids the attacks of the ‘intruders’ kept on coming to keep the airfield under attack on a almost daily basis. The confusion was complete and the damage to the field was considerable.
Because of these continued attacks the Germans moved their aircraft towards Germany and to their airfield in the Dutch province of Twente. On April 18 a dozen or so Do. 217 bombers arrive on Gilze-Rijen that, along with the aircraft stationed here, would attack England during the night of April 18 on April 19. This attack was not to be a success because 14 aircraft were lost, off witch one was shot down during take-off by an English night fighter. In the night of April 22 a big offensive was carried out by the allies. Large formations of bombers flew towards Germany and bombed the German industrial area’s. On the return route 13, B-24 bombers were to be shot down however. A few hours later, the British took off in to the direction of Germany counting a 1000 aircraft and destroyed the city of Dusseldorf. In this raid the British lost 42 aircraft. Because of these huge formations of aircraft over the Dutch sky’s the Dutch people regained hope that the tide was turning in favour of the allies.
On May 2 a new kind of aircraft appeared in the sky’s over Gilze-Rijen to be the P-51 Mustang fighter aircraft. That day thirty of these fighters attacked the airfield with their bombs and guns. Many British and American bombing missions to Germany came over Gilze-Rijen with the German anti aircraft guns around the airfield now and then shooting down one of these allied bombers.
On may 24 Gilze-Rijen is again a target with 23, B-17 's dropping bombs on the airfield.
The year 1943 until the summer of 1944 were two years with many attacks on the airfield. The bombing of the airfield from high altitudes was not always successful, but on the other hand, the ‘intruders’ were more successful. It was a terrible period for the civilian population living around the airfield with a lot of death and destruction.
