The bombing of Nijmegen on 22 February 1944 was an opportunistic
aerial bombing raid by the
United States Army Air Forces
The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...
on the city of
Nijmegen
Nijmegen (;; Spanish and it, Nimega. Nijmeegs: ''Nimwèège'' ) is the largest city in the Dutch province of Gelderland and tenth largest of the Netherlands as a whole, located on the Waal river close to the German border. It is about 6 ...
in the Netherlands,
then occupied by
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
. In terms of the number of victims, it was one of the largest bombardments of a Dutch city during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. Officially, nearly 800 people (almost all civilians) were
killed by accident due to inaccurate bombing but, because people in hiding could not be counted, the actual death toll was probably higher. A large part of the historic city centre was destroyed, including Saint Steven's Church. Saint Augustine's Church and
Nijmegen railway station
Nijmegen railway station is the main railway station of Nijmegen in Gelderland, Netherlands. It was opened on 9 August 1865 and is located on the Tilburg–Nijmegen railway, Nijmegen–Venlo railway and the Arnhem–Nijmegen railway. It was extens ...
(the intended target)
were heavily damaged as well.
Because the
Dutch government-in-exile
The Dutch government-in-exile ( nl, Nederlandse regering in ballingschap), also known as the London Cabinet ( nl, Londens kabinet), was the government in exile of the Netherlands, supervised by Queen Wilhelmina, that fled to London after the Germ ...
in
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
, which was able to reestablish itself on the continent in early 1945 thanks to the U.S. Army and other
Allies
An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...
' military efforts, tried to avoid criticism against the countries it was relying on for
its liberation and future security, it and local authorities largely remained silent on the unfortunate event for decades, leaving survivors with unaddressed grief and questions, and allowing wild
conspiracy theories
A conspiracy theory is an explanation for an event or situation that invokes a conspiracy by sinister and powerful groups, often political in motivation, when other explanations are more probable.Additional sources:
*
*
*
* The term has a nega ...
to thrive. Although officials long maintained it had been an "erroneous bombardment", as if Nijmegen was the wrong target, historical research has shown that the attack was intentional, but had been executed poorly.
Background
A planned raid on the city of
Gotha
Gotha () is the fifth-largest city in Thuringia, Germany, west of Erfurt and east of Eisenach with a population of 44,000. The city is the capital of the district of Gotha and was also a residence of the Ernestine Wettins from 1640 until the ...
was part of the so-called '
Big Week
Big Week or Operation Argument was a sequence of raids by the United States Army Air Forces and RAF Bomber Command from 20 to 25 February 1944, as part of the Strategic bombing during World War II#US bombing in Europe, European strategic bombin ...
' (official name: Operation Argument), a series of Allied bombardments on German aircraft factories to weaken the
Luftwaffe
The ''Luftwaffe'' () was the aerial-warfare branch of the German ''Wehrmacht'' before and during World War II. Germany's military air arms during World War I, the ''Luftstreitkräfte'' of the Imperial Army and the '' Marine-Fliegerabtei ...
in preparation for
D-Day
The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as D ...
(June 1944). On 20 and 21 February, the first bombings had been carried out.
At the time, it was common within the Allied air forces to attack secondary targets if the primary target could not be reached. These secondary targets were called ''
targets of opportunity
A target of opportunity is a Targeting (warfare), target "visible to a surface or air sensor or observer, which is within range of available weapons and against which fire has not been scheduled or requested." A target of opportunity comes in two f ...
''.
Because a bombing raid was risky and expensive (because of enemy fire and fuel), and the main target could often not be hit, an opportunistic bombing attack could still deal an important blow to the enemy, thus turning the operation into a partial success, and providing some return for the costs and risks.
The railway station area of Nijmegen was marked as such a target of opportunity, because the Allies knew that the Germans were using it for weapons transport.
There was pressure on the flyers to bomb anything if possible, because it was unsafe to land with unexpended bombs and, once the flyers had carried out 25 raids, they were given
leave of absence
The labour law concept of leave, specifically paid leave or, in some countries' long-form, a leave of absence, is an authorised prolonged absence from work, for any reason authorised by the workplace. When people "take leave" in this way, they are ...
.
Course of events
Gotha mission cancelled
At 9:20 in the morning of 22 February, 177 American
B-24 Liberator
The Consolidated B-24 Liberator is an American heavy bomber, designed by Consolidated Aircraft of San Diego, California. It was known within the company as the Model 32, and some initial production aircraft were laid down as export models des ...
bombers, escorted by dozens of
P-38 Lightning
The Lockheed P-38 Lightning is an American single-seat, twin piston-engined fighter aircraft that was used during World War II. Developed for the United States Army Air Corps by the Lockheed Corporation, the P-38 incorporated a distinctive tw ...
,
P-47 Thunderbolt
The Republic P-47 Thunderbolt is a World War II-era fighter aircraft produced by the American company Republic Aviation from 1941 through 1945. It was a successful high-altitude fighter and it also served as the foremost American fighter-bombe ...
and
P-51 Mustang
The North American Aviation P-51 Mustang is an American long-range, single-seat fighter and fighter-bomber used during World War II and the Korean War, among other conflicts. The Mustang was designed in April 1940 by a team headed by James ...
fighters
Fighter(s) or The Fighter(s) may refer to:
Combat and warfare
* Combatant, an individual legally entitled to engage in hostilities during an international armed conflict
* Fighter aircraft, a warplane designed to destroy or damage enemy warplan ...
, took off from
RAF Bungay
Royal Air Force Bungay or more simply RAF Bungay (known locally as Flixton) is a former Royal Air Force station located south-west of Bungay in the English county of Suffolk.
The airfield is also known after the village of Flixton, near ...
airbase near the
Suffolk
Suffolk () is a ceremonial county of England in East Anglia. It borders Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; other important towns include Lowes ...
village of
Flixton.
They flew in the direction of the German city of Gotha, where the
Gothaer Waggonfabrik
''Gothaer Waggonfabrik'' (''Gotha'', GWF) was a German manufacturer of rolling stock established in the late nineteenth century at Gotha. During the two world wars, the company expanded into aircraft building.
World War I
In World War I, Got ...
aircraft factory was producing
Messerschmitt
Messerschmitt AG () was a German share-ownership limited, aircraft manufacturing corporation named after its chief designer Willy Messerschmitt from mid-July 1938 onwards, and known primarily for its World War II fighter aircraft, in partic ...
fighters and other Luftwaffe planes. This required a four-hour flight over German territory, making it a highly dangerous mission.
If Gotha could not be reached,
Eschwege
Eschwege (), the district seat of the Werra-Meißner-Kreis, is a town in northeastern Hesse, Germany. In 1971, the town hosted the eleventh ''Hessentag'' state festival.
Geography
Location
The town lies on a broad plain tract of the river Wer ...
was the next target, and if even that failed, the pilots had to seek out a target of opportunity by themselves on the way back to their bases in Britain.
Because the clouds were unusually high, the aircraft had trouble gathering into formation, and quickly lost sight of each other. In consequence, a considerable number of bombers broke off their mission 15 minutes after take-off and returned.
While still above the
North Sea
The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian S ...
, the Americans were unexpectedly fired on by German fighters.
When the group passed over Nijmegen at 12:14 (
CET
CET or cet may refer to:
Places
* Cet, Albania
* Cet, standard astronomical abbreviation for the constellation Cetus
* Colchester Town railway station (National Rail code CET), in Colchester, England
Arts, entertainment, and media
* Comcast Ente ...
), the
air raid siren
A civil defense siren, also known as an air-raid siren or tornado siren, is a siren used to provide an emergency population warning to the general population of approaching danger. It is sometimes sounded again to indicate the danger has pas ...
was activated by watchman Van Os, and residents ran for their shelters until it was safe. Shortly after, around 13:00 when the bombers had reached about 10 miles into Germany, they received a message from command that the raid was cancelled due to too heavy cloud formations above Gotha for an effective bombardment; the units were recalled. Because Eschwege was still far out of reach, looking for targets of opportunity on the way back was now recommended.
Airstrike
![15th AF B-24 Liberator](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/da/15th_AF_B-24_Liberator.jpg)
It was an extremely difficult task to turn around hundreds of planes and stay in formation, leading to a great deal of chaos and fragmenting the group into several squadrons who each sought their way back to Britain independently. Underway, they looked for targets of opportunity, and eventually the Dutch cities of Nijmegen,
Arnhem
Arnhem ( or ; german: Arnheim; South Guelderish: ''Èrnem'') is a city and municipality situated in the eastern part of the Netherlands about 55 km south east of Utrecht. It is the capital of the province of Gelderland, located on both banks of ...
,
Deventer
Deventer (; Sallands: ) is a city and municipality in the Salland historical region of the province of Overijssel, Netherlands. In 2020, Deventer had a population of 100,913. The city is largely situated on the east bank of the river IJssel, bu ...
and
Enschede
Enschede (; known as in the local Twents dialect) is a municipality and city in the eastern Netherlands in the province of Overijssel and in the Twente region. The eastern parts of the urban area reaches the border of the German city of Gronau ...
were selected and attacked.
The squadron flying to Nijmegen consisted of twelve Liberators of the
446th Bombardment Group, which were joined by two detached Liberators of the
453rd Bombardment Group. Beforehand, the flyers had been poorly informed about whether Nijmegen was a Dutch or a German city, whether German-occupied cities could or could not be bombed, and if so in what way, and they were negligent in finding out exactly which cities they were about to strike,
partly due to miscommunication that can be ascribed to technical problems such as a stuck radio operator's
morse key
A telegraph key is a specialized electrical switch used by a trained operator to transmit text messages in Morse code in a telegraphy system. Keys are used in all forms of electrical telegraph systems, including landline (also called wire) ...
.
Watchman Van Os had given the clear sign at 13:16. For reasons that are still unclear, he failed to activate the air raid siren a second time immediately 14 of the aircraft returned in Nijmegen's airspace, mere minutes after the clear sign had been given, causing citizens not to run for cover as quickly as possible in time on this occasion.
Van Os stated afterwards that he did not ring the siren a second time until he heard explosions coming from the city centre. At 13:28, 144
brisant bombs (each weighing 500 pounds) and 426
shrapnel shell
Shrapnel shells were anti-personnel artillery munitions which carried many individual bullets close to a target area and then ejected them to allow them to continue along the shell's trajectory and strike targets individually. They relied almo ...
s (20 pounds a piece) were dropped. The actual target of opportunity, the train station area, was successfully hit. However, a considerable number of bombs fell on the city centre in residential areas, destroying homes, churches and other civil targets and killing hundreds of civilians.
After the fact, official Allied sources claimed that the pilots thought they were still flying above Germany, and had misidentified Nijmegen as the either the German city of
Kleve
Kleve (; traditional en, Cleves ; nl, Kleef; french: Clèves; es, Cléveris; la, Clivia; Low Rhenish: ''Kleff'') is a town in the Lower Rhine region of northwestern Germany near the Dutch border and the River Rhine. From the 11th century ...
(Cleves) or
Goch
Goch (; archaic spelling: Gog, Dutch: Gogh) is a town in the district of Kleve, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is situated close to the border with the Siebengewald in Netherlands, approx. south of Kleve, and southeast of Nijmegen.
His ...
. Yet some flyers themselves stated just an hour after landing in England that they had bombed Nijmegen, and a navigator even reported this in the air moments after the raid.
Allied and German reactions
The Nazis reported that the
Dutch government-in-exile
The Dutch government-in-exile ( nl, Nederlandse regering in ballingschap), also known as the London Cabinet ( nl, Londens kabinet), was the government in exile of the Netherlands, supervised by Queen Wilhelmina, that fled to London after the Germ ...
in
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
had given permission for the airstrike on Nijmegen, and that it therefore was an intentional bombardment.
They made passionate attempts to exploit the bombing for
propaganda
Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded ...
: in public places, posters were hung with texts such as 'With friends like these, who needs enemies?' and 'Anglo-American Terror'. The German-controlled newspapers also furiously rebuked the Allies and the Dutch government-in-exile, one remarking "The Anglo-American pirates of the sky have once again executed the orders of their Jewish-Capitalist leaders with extraordinarily positive results". It appears that the propaganda was ineffective: seven months later, the American ground troops were welcomed as heroes by the inhabitants. Internal sources of the occupying government's Department for Popular Education and Arts even suggest the propaganda may have been counterproductive.
On the day after the raid, the Allied air force launched an investigation: all air raids planned for that day were cancelled (also due to poor weather conditions), and all flyers and briefing officers involved were held on the base and questioned. The full scale of the disaster was not yet clear on 23 February, but American aerial photographs taken during the attack that Dutch naval commander
Cornelis Moolenburgh managed to obtain via the
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...
left no doubt that Nijmegen (and especially civilian targets in its centre), Arnhem and Enschede had been hit. Moolenburgh informed Dutch ambassador
Edgar Michiels van Verduynen
Edgar Frederick Marie Justin, Baron Michiels van Verduynen (2 December 1885 – 13 May 1952) was a Dutch politician.
Michiels van Verduynen was born in The Hague. He was a wealthy businessman, distinguished diplomat and conservative Catholic. He ...
, who confronted American ambassador
Anthony Joseph Drexel Biddle, Jr.
Anthony Joseph Drexel Biddle Jr. (December 17, 1897 – November 13, 1961) was an American diplomat who served as ambassador to several countries between the 1930s and 1961. He served in the United States Army during World War I and after World Wa ...
(until then ignorant of the events) on the matter in the presence of Dutch queen
Wilhelmina. Biddle quickly informed U.S. President
Roosevelt
Roosevelt may refer to:
*Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919), 26th U.S. president
* Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945), 32nd U.S. president
Businesses and organisations
* Roosevelt Hotel (disambiguation)
* Roosevelt & Son, a merchant bank
* Rooseve ...
. American air force commander
Henry H. Arnold
Henry Harley Arnold (June 25, 1886 – January 15, 1950) was an American general officer holding the ranks of General of the Army and later, General of the Air Force. Arnold was an aviation pioneer, Chief of the Air Corps (1938–1941), ...
was irritated when he discovered that the Dutch embassy had been informed earlier than he himself, and he henceforth denied Moolenburgh access to USAAF documents via the RAF (which Moolenburgh could however still obtain via secret service officer
Kingman Douglass). The USAAF also refused to send out
reconnaissance aircraft
A reconnaissance aircraft (colloquially, a spy plane) is a military aircraft designed or adapted to perform aerial reconnaissance with roles including collection of imagery intelligence (including using photography), signals intelligence, as ...
for taking photos assessing the exact damage in the three cities, whereupon the RAF offered and executed this task. Wilhelmina demanded and received a written statement on what had happened, although it is unclear what it said.
The American army command was relatively late in drawing lessons from the disorderly air raid, which had struck an ally's civilian population hard. Not until mid-May 1944, orders were given to seek out targets of opportunity at least 30 kilometres away from the Netherlands' border.
Post-war investigation
Allied and Dutch governmental officials have maintained for decades that the bombing was a complete mistake, and the flyers supposedly did not know that they had bombed Nijmegen. This led to great frustration amongst Nijmegen's populace, which struggled with questions that were left unanswered. Concerning the real causes and motives of the attack, wild rumours and unlikely
conspiracy theories
A conspiracy theory is an explanation for an event or situation that invokes a conspiracy by sinister and powerful groups, often political in motivation, when other explanations are more probable.Additional sources:
*
*
*
* The term has a nega ...
sprang up and circulated widely. Although they were implausible, and contradicted each other, they satisfied a strong desire for an explanation, any explanation, for the tragic events.
Brinkhuis (1984)
Finally, amateur historian Alfons Brinkhuis, who as a 10-year-old boy had experienced the bombing of Enschede on the same day, became the first person to conduct an elaborate investigation into the archives, and interviewed dozens of eyewitnesses. In the summer of 1984, he published his conclusions in ''De Fatale Aanval 22 februari 1944. Opzet of vergissing? De waarheid over de mysterieuze Amerikaanse bombardementen op Nijmegen, Arnhem, Enschede en Deventer'' ("The Fatal Attack 22 February 1944. Intent or Error? The Truth About the Mysterious American Airstrikes on Nijmegen, Arnhem, Enschede and Deventer"). In doing so, he broke a taboo, and many facts were brought out in the open for the first time, although some of his research has been rendered obsolete by later findings. Brinkhuis' seven conclusions were:
#Hundreds of bombers were unable to gather due to the high cloud formations, and had to cancel their mission prematurely.
#Formation of the attack group was not completed before German fighters carried out an unexpected counterstrike above the North Sea.
#Miscommunication occurred due to poor weather conditions, the American
Mandrel radar jammer and especially the stuck morse key, preventing most aircraft from sending verifiable messages to the bases (vice versa was still possible, however).
#Because of this miscommunication, some units received the ''recall'' sooner than others, and therefore had to choose targets of opportunity far outside the normal routes.
#Because of the wind, planes were driven to the west without realising it (the clouds prevented them from seeing which country they were flying over).
#The
Norden bombsight
The Norden Mk. XV, known as the Norden M series in U.S. Army service, is a bombsight that was used by the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) and the United States Navy during World War II, and the United States Air Force in the Korean and t ...
s were set on Gotha as the target; there was no time to reprogram them, making precision bombing impossible.
#Navigators always flew based on schedules; they were not trained to orientate themselves based on the landscape. This enabled flyers to get lost when missions were not going according to plan.
Rosendaal (2006–09)
In 2006, history
docent
The title of docent is conferred by some European universities to denote a specific academic appointment within a set structure of academic ranks at or below the full professor rank, similar to a British readership, a French " ''maître de conf ...
Joost Rosendaal of
Radboud University Nijmegen
Radboud University (abbreviated as RU, nl, Radboud Universiteit , formerly ''Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen'') is a public research university located in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. The university bears the name of Saint Radboud, a 9th century D ...
started a new study into the bombardment, which was eventually published in 2009 as ''Nijmegen '44. Verwoesting, verdriet en verwerking'' ("Nijmegen '44: Destruction, Grief, and Consolation"). In it, he classified the attack as an opportunistic bombing rather than an error. Rosendaal rejects the notion of an 'error', because the Americans were negligent in properly identifying which city to bomb. The Americans "intentionally bombed a target of opportunity, which, however, had not been unambiguously identified."
Rosendaal added that the death toll was further increased by several disastrous circumstances. The
switchboard operator
In the early days of telephony, companies used manual telephone switchboards, and switchboard operators connected calls by inserting a pair of phone plugs into the appropriate jacks. They were gradually phased out and replaced by automated system ...
, who normally directed emergency services, was killed during the raid, and without her communications were slower. Many water pipes had been destroyed, making
firefighting
Firefighting is the act of extinguishing or preventing the spread of unwanted fires from threatening human lives and destroying property and the environment. A person who engages in firefighting is known as a firefighter.
Firefighters typically ...
efforts much harder and more time-consuming. Dozens of people were still alive, but stuck under the rubble; many burnt to death when flames reached them before they could be extinguished.
Legacy
The Allied bombing of Nijmegen claimed almost as many civilian casualties as the German
bombing of Rotterdam at the
start of the war, but nationally it is not given nearly as much attention.
The population of Nijmegen was told not to express their emotions, because the bombardment had been carried out by an allied nation. Furthermore, it was officially maintained that it was an 'erroneous bombardment' (''vergissingsbombardement''), and the fact that the railway station area was the intended target of opportunity, was covered up.
Many survivors have always found the word 'error' rather painful, and Roosendaal opined that term does not do justice to what has happened.
The memory of the February bombardment overshadows that of the city's destructive liberation during
Operation Market Garden
Operation Market Garden was an Allies of World War II, Allied military operation during the World War II, Second World War fought in the Netherlands from 17 to 27 September 1944. Its objective was to create a Salient (military), salient into G ...
in September 1944 and the five months succeeding it, in which Nijmegen was an oft-shelled frontline city. This caused hundreds more casualties, which may have been prevented had the city been evacuated. The deaths in Nijmegen - over two thousand - make up 7% of all civilian war casualties in the Netherlands, well above the national average relative to its population size. Furthermore, it was long unclear how to commemorate these 'pointless' victims; there were enough monuments for soldiers and members of the resistance, but not of civilian deaths, and they were never part of any official memorial services.
In 1984, a memorial service was held for the first time, and at the 1994 Nijmegen Storytelling Festival amidst great public interest, eyewitnesses and survivors were given the chance to speak after 50 years of silence.
Not until 2000, a monument was erected for the civilian casualties:
'De Schommel' (The
Swing) at the Raadhuishof. Annual memorial gatherings held on 22 February were attended by an increasing number of people in the 2010s.
Nijmegen begraafplaats Daalseweg, monument slachtoffers 22-02-44 e.o., de drie gedenkstenen.JPG, Daalseweg cemetery, victim monument 22-02-44.
Nijmegen begraafplaats Daalseweg, graf Leo Jacobs seinwachter op Stevenstoren 22-02-44.JPG, Daalseweg cemetery, grave of Leo Jacobs, signaller of Saint Steven's Tower, 22-02-'44.Site oorlogsdoden Nijmegen
/ref>
Nijmegen begraafplaats Daalseweg, kapel met links lijst kinderslachtoffers 22-02-44.JPG, Daalseweg cemetery, chapel with a list of child victims 22-02-'44
Nijmegen begraafplaats Daalseweg, kapel met rechts lijst slachtoffers zusters JMJ 22-02-44.JPG, Daalseweg cemetery, chapel with a list of nurse victims JMJ_22-02-'44
Nijmegen begraafplaats Daalseweg, twee rijen graven oorlogsslachtoffers.JPG, Daalseweg cemetery, two rows of war victim graves 22-02-'44
Nijmegen St Stevenskerk plaquette bombardement 22 februari 1944.JPG, Saint Steven's Church bombing plaquette 22-02-'44
Nijmegen, kerkhof Graafseweg, monument vergissingsbombardement.JPG, Graafseweg cemetery, monument 22-02-'44
Gedenkplaatje Brandgrens Bombardement Nijmegen.jpg, 2017 metal plate marking the bombed area's edge
References
Literature
*
* ''Nijmegen '44. Verwoesting, verdriet en verwerking'', uitg. Vantilt, Nijmegen (2009)
*
Het bombardement was geen vergissing - Nijmegen leed zwaar onder de oorlog, ''
Trouw
''Trouw'' (; ) is a Dutch daily newspaper appearing in compact size. It was founded in 1943 as an orthodox Protestant underground newspaper during World War II. Since 2009, it has been owned by DPG Media (known as De Persgroep until 2019). ''Tr ...
'', cahier Letter&Geest, 28 March 2009, p. 81.
External links
Rapport ''Vooronderzoek bombardement Nijmegen 22 februari 1944'', November 2004*
ttps://web.archive.org/web/20060501035826/http://www.bevrijdingsmuseum.nl/nl/archief/bom44/nijm.mpeg Video about the victims' funeral, 1944Video of the 1944 bombingOorlogsdoden Nijmegen 1940-1945
{{WWII city bombing
Germany–United States military relations
Germany–Netherlands military relations
History of Nijmegen
Nijmegen
Nijmegen (;; Spanish and it, Nimega. Nijmeegs: ''Nimwèège'' ) is the largest city in the Dutch province of Gelderland and tenth largest of the Netherlands as a whole, located on the Waal river close to the German border. It is about 6 ...
Netherlands–United States military relations
Nijmegen
Nijmegen (;; Spanish and it, Nimega. Nijmeegs: ''Nimwèège'' ) is the largest city in the Dutch province of Gelderland and tenth largest of the Netherlands as a whole, located on the Waal river close to the German border. It is about 6 ...
Nijmegen
Nijmegen (;; Spanish and it, Nimega. Nijmeegs: ''Nimwèège'' ) is the largest city in the Dutch province of Gelderland and tenth largest of the Netherlands as a whole, located on the Waal river close to the German border. It is about 6 ...