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Accidental American bombing of Dutch cities in World War II

American bombers destroyed the center of Nijmegen in eastern Netherlands on 22 February 1944, mistaken for German territory. Three other Dutch cities also fell under attack the same day, victims of an enormously-complex operation gone awry. About 800 people died in Nijmegen - as many as in the Nazi destruction of Rotterdam. Thousands lay wounded. Enschede, Arnhem, Deventer - all near the border - also suffered American bombardment. For many Dutch, this was worst day of World War II.

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The attack was at the end of a quest for targets of opportunity after a failed mission over Nazi industrial sites. It struck Nijmegen from a clear sky at 1:30 in the afternoon, obliterating most of the inner city and eliminating its train station. The "jewel of Holland," arguably the oldest Dutch city, fell into rubble in a few minutes of intense bombardment.

"Operation Argument," the mission that went awry on that day, was an immensely complicated plan - the largest Allied bombing run to that date - intent upon the total destruction of Nazi air capability. Hundreds of bombers were to fly in coordinated groups of smaller coordinated groups in a pattern of movement that would be difficult on a clear day in peacetime.

The mission would require specific weather conditions - a deck of clouds over England and clear skies over Germany. The clouds would obscure the formation of battle-groups, and clear skies would allow visual targeting. Plans would be tightly synchronized between thousands of people and would wait for a command based upon prediction of the weather.

The Americans had developed a method of large-scale bombardment that was more effective than that of the British — also more complicated. The British had been overflying targets in the form of a queue — a straight line, tip to tail. This method, clearly easier to plan, made easy targets of any but the first several craft.

In the American sytem, battle groups formed around the element of three aircraft — one in lead; another behind, right, and above; the other behind, left and below. Four groups of these, and three groups of those groups, would make an arrangement of 36 craft that would appear from ground-level to be flying almost at wingtip to each other. These 36 bombers in formation, a "battle group," could overfly a target within moments, and at the command of the lead craft release ordnance with an advantage of surprise.

In order to form the battle groups, individual planes departed a given airfield, one or two every minute depending upon conditions, and rose in a great circle around a vertical radio beam which coordinated their arrangement "in place." This battle group would then depart for a second position above another vertical radio beam, where the group would form position relative to other battle groups — and in this way organize the pattern for onward movement, into territory where the radio contact would be strategically limited.

Over Germany, each battle group had a list of three targets arranged in order of priority. In case the primary goal was unachievable, the battle group was to attempt goal number two, and of course the same directive would apply onward to number three. If none of the three pre-selected objectives were achievable, the leader of the battle group would be under orders to select a "target of opportunity."

The clouds that unexpectedly covered every specified objective over German territory that day were the doom of the unfortunate eastern Dutch cities on that hard day. In the confusion of moving about in a heirarchy of priority targeting, and responding to the logistics of re-directing massive groups of large airplanes along huge arcs — under fire, and in limited radio-contact — the American crews didn't realize that the cities just across the border from Germany were indeed in the Netherlands.

In 2005, the Dutch War Studies Commission determined that, rumors aside, the Allied bombing of Dutch cities was indeed accidental.*

*In 2005, the Dutch Institute for War Documentation concluded that the bombardment of Nijmegen was accidental.

The principal reference was the book "De Fatale Aanval," published in 1984 by Alfons Brinkhuis, an amateur historian. The Institute called Brinkhuis' work "definitive."

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