Posts with the Rotterdam tag

Barris Beat

A tradition of helping the hungry

Written by Ted Barris on . Leave a comment
Joe English (centre) and his Lancaster crew volunteered for the Dutch Food Drops in April 1945.

He didn’t have to do it. Still in an RCAF uniform and duty-bound to King and Country in April 1945, nevertheless Joe English stepped up. He and his entire Lancaster crew had completed the requisite 30 operations, a full tour, over occupied Europe. They all had done their bit in the war, but Joe and his entire crew volunteered for one more flight.

Operation Manna delivered 10,000 tons of food to starving Dutch civilians.

“The Germans say they’ll permit bombers to fly in low over the big Dutch cities – Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht, the Hague,” their RAF commanders told them. “People are starving there. They need us to drop tons of food.”

“As far as I was concerned,” Joe said, “it was about improving people’s lives.” (more…)

Barris Beat

Youth, the cost of war

Written by Ted Barris on . Leave a comment
Dutch liberation vet Ron Charland (left) is joined by air cadet Bo Gibbons during VE Day parade in Apeldoorn, May 9, 2010.
Dutch liberation vet Ron Charland (left) is joined by air cadet Bo Gibbons during VE Day parade in Apeldoorn, May 9, 2010.

As a boy, not surprisingly, he joined the scout movement. He loved to listen to the wireless radio broadcasts that came all the way from the BBC in England. But in every other way Jan Van Hoof was an ordinary Dutch boy during the Second World War. That is, until Sept. 17, 1944. During the next 24 hours, as Allied paratroops descended through the skies over his hometown of Nijmegen, Van Hoof left his youth behind. And it was summed up in what he said to his parents that day.

“The bridge is safe,” he said.

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