Nijmegen is a city in the province of Gelderland in the east of the Netherlands, not far from the border with Germany and about 15 km south of Arnhem on the river Waal.
During the war, the city of Nijmegen was badly hit by an aerial bombardment on February 22, 1944. At around half past one in the afternoon, American bombers dropped a deadly load of bombs on the inner city. More than 800 people were killed in the bombing. The American pilots were on their way to Germany, but had to turn bad weather back. If the original target was not reachable, the aircraft had to look for a target of opportunity, another suitable target that could be bombed.
On February 22, 1944, the bombers therefore bombed Nijmegen, Arnhem, Deventer and Enschede. Because Nijmegen were bombed, for a long time, and sometimes even today, there was talk of a bombing mistake.
The bombs wreaked havoc in the city. In particular, the upper town of the historic center, where Plein 1944 is today, was seriously damaged. The tower of the Stevenskerk collapsed.
The city was liberated during the largest military operation on Dutch territory, Operation Market Garden, between 17 and 20 September 1944. The Allies were received with open arms by Nijmegen's residents.
The most important battlefield of this operation was near Arnhem, but Nijmegen and especially the bridge over the Waal were an important target of the Allied forces. At Groesbeek, the 82nd paratrooper corps of the American army landed on September 17, 1944, led by General James Gavin.
After heavy fighting, the Allies managed to capture the Waal Bridge. The conquest of Nijmegen took longer than expected, claimed hundreds of civilians and caused great damage. Finally, with the Waal crossing on September 20, both bridges were captured, but it was too late to relieve the British 1st Airborne Division in Arnhem. For this reason, from a historic perspective, Operation Market Garden was a failure.
This film shows the battles of American paratroopers in Nijmegen and the entry of the vanguard of the British 2nd Army, which advanced from Eindhoven with destination Arnhem and the IJsselmeer. Also recordings of the Allied bombing raids, the street fighting and German shelling by V1's that destroyed lower part of the town can be seen.
Please turn on the CC captions to get more information about the events and locations while watching the film.
NOTE: For those who wonder why all my recent films are accompanied by spoken commentary I can tell you that this is not only done to be more informative about historic topics, but also because Youtube more or less forces me to do so in order to be able to continue to monetize this channel.
Surprisingly enough Youtube considers meticulously restoring and colorizing historic footage as not providing enough added value, and thus this channel has already been sanctioned twice.
Source: Beeld En Geluid
Music: Hampus Naeselius - Dark Turns to Light
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