Today, 75 years ago, Nijmegen's city centre was destroyed in what has been called an 'erroneous' bombardment by the Allies. What is the reason that it has been called an erroneous bombardment?

by Zebra_fish

I'm asking this since I am aware that recently (only 10 years ago or so) it has come to light that the bombers were in fact aware that they had bombed a Dutch city, rather than having mistaken the city for one of the nearby German cities. Is it only because it was uncomfortable news that the Allies had bombed a friendly (though occupied) nations territory or are there other possible reasons?

I am currently living in Nijmegen, and even in the present time there is only little attention for this bombardment compared to, say, the German bombardment of Rotterdam in WWII. I don't want to give the impression that both actions are in any way comparable to another, just want to know a little more about the place I live in on a day like this.

Bacarruda

The Nijmegen attack was accidental. It's worth noting there were deliberate attacks by Allied bombers on factories, bridges, railyards, and airfields in Belgium, France, and the Netherlands during WWII. Despite efforts to avoid civilian losses, tens of thousands of civilians died in Occupied Europe from Allied bombing. This thread has more on this, if you're interested.

The 22 February attack on Nijmegen is a classic example of a cascade failure. One problem lead to another, which lead to another.

  • Bad weather forced American bombers to cancel their mission and turn back before hitting their primary target. High winds and bad visibility caused some aircraft to join the wrong formation, causing confusion.
  • As planned in such an event, the commander of the 446th Bombardment Group (Heavy) elected to hit a target of opportunity in Germany.
  • Technical problems and weather interference prevented effective radio communications, which only heightened the confusion.
  • The navigator in the lead aircraft made an error and mistakenly took the formation over the railywards of Njimegen, rather than over a German target.
  • High wind speeds caused the lead bombardier to compensate for the effect of the wind blowing bombs off coursr. He didn't actually aim at the Njimegen railyard, but just outside of it. This wasn't communicated to other aircraft, who ended up dropping their bombs too early ... right on the city center of Njimegen.

From "Nijmegen Bombardment on 22 February 1944: A Faux Pas or the Price of Liberation?" by J.A. van Esch, which has a very detailed explanation of what went wrong.

...the Allies realized that the Luftwaffe had to be defeated first by attacking the German aircraft industry. On 22 February 1944, the U.S. Eighth Air Force conducted a mission as part of this offensive. During this mission, the bombers were recalled because of severe weather. On the return trip, the airmen decided not to abandon the mission outright, but to attack targets of opportunity. Because of navigational errors a section of 446 Bombardment Group misidentified the Dutch city Nijmegen as a German city, and bombed it. Due to aiming errors, the greater part of the bombs missed the designated marshalling yards by a kilometer and hit the city center instead. The bombardment caused chaos on the ground. It surprised the citizens, and the damage caused great difficulties for the provision of aid relief.

This article also has a good overview of what went wrong on the raid.