大象传媒

Operation Manna was organised by the British and American Command in 1944/45. The purpose of this operation was to drop food to the starving population of Holland. During the course of the winter of 44.45 between 16.000 and 20,000 Dutch women, children and men died of starvation. This story was well documented on Dutch television who took photographs at the time it was happening, you could see young children scraping the bottom of dustbins, and it showed people dying in the streets of Holland. People would go about their normal daily business passing people who had died or were dying in the curbside. So as a member of the bomber command we were detailed to load up some food which were contained in sealed bags, they contained powdered milk, eggs and chocolate. The remarkable thing about this operation was that a few days before we had been bombing over Germany at some 15,000 feet and within a short space of time and with little training we had to fly in at 200 feet. The reason for this was that the germans had agreed to a truce provided that we flew in at 200 feet with our guns elevated they would not open fire. I did a number of these trips and will always remember the Dutch people leaning out of their windows and on the roofs of their houses waving anything they could get hold of, we were that low we could read the number plates on vehilcles. I was the rear gunner of the Lancaster and probably had a good view of what was going on because the pilot had to use all his concentration to say at that height. What I do remember is that unlike listening for the famous words , bombs gone, I would hear food gone - as soon as the job was done we headed out on a recipricole course to return to base. These trips were done some days before the war acutally ended but on VE day itself we were on our way to do anther drop and half way across the sea we heard Winson Churchill declare the ceasation of hostiltites, we carried on to make the drop, this is where the transformation take place. Unlike the previous drops where the garmans were manning their batteries,this time as we crossed the coast they were standing ontop of their batteries waving at us. and the transformation was as follows. The people who on previous drops had been waving form windows were still doing exactly the same thing but they were now waving Union Jacks and American Flags. So to end this short story, as a crew of a lancaster bomber we had been a few days before on what I call a killilng mission and here we are now on a life saving mission and this is probably the reason this memory overtakes any memories I have of actual bombing mission of which I took part in 23 and managed to come out unscathed. Finally I often wonder about the small children who couldn not possibly understand what was goingon at that tender age and wonder how they manage to cope in their adult life and especially the people of Bergen have never forgetten the food drops and have always made aricrews who were part of the Manna opeartion welcome in their homes.

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