Bombing of the Bezuidenhout

The bombing of the Bezuidenhout (bombardement op het Bezuidenhout) took place on March 3, 1945, when the Royal Air Force mistakenly bombed the Bezuidenhout neighborhood in the Dutch city of The Hague, resulting in the death of 532 people.

Bombing
On the morning of March 3, 1945, 51 medium and light bombers of the North American B-25 Mitchell and Douglas Boston types from No. 137 and No. 139 wings of the Second Tactical Air Force took off from Melsbroek near Brussels and Vitry in Northern France with a payload of 67,000 kg of high-explosive bombs.

The British bombers were intended to bomb the Haagse Bos ("Forest of the Hague") district where the Germans had installed V-2 launching facilities that had been used to attack English cities. However, the pilots were issued with the wrong coordinates (vertical and horizontal interchanged),  so the navigational instruments of the bombers had been set incorrectly, and combined with low fog and clouds which obscured their vision, the bombs were instead dropped on the Bezuidenhout residential neighborhood. Eventually, a wind force of 9 instead of the expected 5 added to the catastrophe. All bombs missed the rocket installations in the 2.4 km x 0.8 km forest target (Haagse Bos) by 1.2 km ("incorrect allowance for the wind" /"map-reading error"), and hit the Bezuidenhout neighborhood instead.

At 9:08 a.m. the 51 bombers dropped 67 tons of high-explosive bombs on the Bezuidenhout, wreaking widespread destruction.

""Everyone went out and into the street. You saw people running, running, running everywhere. But whichever way you ran, there was fire everywhere.""

- Survivor

At the time, the neighborhood was more densely populated than usual with evacuees from The Hague and Wassenaar; tens of thousands were left homeless and had to be quartered in the Eastern and Central Netherlands.

Response
Due to insufficient fire engines and firefighters (as many of them had been either called up for forced labor in German industry or had gone into hiding to prevent being signed up) the resulting fire was largely unchecked, killing 511 people, including ten firefighters at the Schenkkade. In total 532 people were killed by the bombing.



As soon as the British realized the extent of the damage, they dropped fliers over the neighborhood expressing condolences for the civilians who were killed by their error. Trouw, the Dutch resistance newspaper, reported:

"The horrors of the war are increasing. We have seen the fires in The Hague after the terrible bombings due to the V2-launching sites. We have seen the column of smoke, drifting to the south and the ordeal of the war has descended upon us in its extended impact. We heard the screaming bombs falling on (the) Bezuidenhout, and the missiles which brought death and misery fell only a hundred metres from us. At the same time we saw the launching and the roaring, flaming V2, holding our breath to see if the launch was successful, if not falling back on the homes of innocent people. It is horrible to see the monsters take off in the middle of the night between the houses, lighting up the skies. One can imagine the terrors that came upon us now that The Hague is a frontline town, bombed continuously for more than ten days. Buildings, burning and smouldering furiously, a town choking from smoke, women and children fleeing, men hauling furniture which they tried to rescue from the chaos. What misery, what distress."

Commemoration
The bombing is commemorated every year on the first Sunday after 3 March. In 2011, Mayor Jozias van Aartsen of The Hague as well as the Mayors of Wassenaar and Leidschendam-Voorburg (residents of both towns helped with firefighting and caring for the survivors) were present at the remembrance ceremony, which consisted of a church service, the laying of a wreath at the Monument of the human mistake (Monument van de menselijke vergissing) and a remembrance concert in the Royal Conservatory of The Hague. A similar church service and concert were held in 2012.

Casualties, losses, and damage

 * 532 fatalities
 * 344 wounded
 * 30,000 people left homeless
 * 3,300 completely destroyed residences
 * 3,250 burned out residences
 * 3,241 damaged residences
 * 391 irreparably damaged residences
 * 290 completely destroyed businesses
 * 5 completely destroyed churches
 * 9 completely destroyed schools
 * 10 completely destroyed public buildings