What Did the Dutch Do on D-Day? | The Netherlands' Contribution 1944

two days ago it was the 80th anniversary of D-Day that is the name given to the Allied Landings in Normandy which would then lead to the liberation of the rest of Europe from Nazi control in the second world war five beaches were assaulted on D-Day by American British and Canadian Forces however in reality many more nationalities took part in these battles the most obvious of course are the French both free French forces and indeed the French Resistance fighting behind German lines helped to make the plan a success other than that the forces fighting for the British were the most diverse in terms of the number of nationalities involved of course Britain had a colonial Empire and so Airmen and other servicemen from South Africa Rhodesia that's today's Zimbabwe Australia and New Zealand were also involved in various capacities at the same time many of the Nations that had been occupied by the Germans earlier in the war such as poles czechoslovaks belgians Norwegians and Greeks were also involved fighting under British Direction with the aim of at one point being able to liberate their own homelands from the Germans and their allies however in this video I would like to talk about the Dutch it will not come as a big surprise to you but the Dutch did also play a role in D-Day so today I want to find out what was that role what did the Dutch do on D-Day first let's take a look at the broader Dutch role in the second world war the Netherlands was neutral up until 1940 when the the Germans invaded after several days of resistance by the Dutch Army the German lufa bombed the second largest city of rodam to the ground following this they threatened to do the same with Amsterdam and Dutch forces realized that fighting anymore would be hopeless and so they surrendered to German forces on the 15th of May while more fighting continued in the province of Zealand as part of the broader Battle of France however before this had happened the plan for the Germans hadn't exactly gone entirely as they had wanted in fact the German attack on denh involving many paratroopers was beaten back by the Dutch incurring several hundreds of casualties on the Germans and taking over a thousand prisoners too more importantly however for Dutch morale it stopped the German plan of capturing the royal family at their residence and meant that they were able to escape to Safety in England from where they could continue the fight now as I mentioned in my video about the role of the Dutch Navy in the second world war several Dutch Navy sh ships and many Dutch Naval Personnel would go on to fight with the British in the North Atlantic and the North Sea it's in this capacity the Dutch ships would also fight on D-Day the numbers involved were some 13 torpedo boats 20 Merchant vessels being used about half of them as tugboats and others in other capacities and there were two gun boats employed as well these two gunboats something more is known about these were the hrms Flores and the hrms sumba these two there is actual footage of them fighting at D-Day which will show a little clip of of what they did [Music] [Music] from the [Music] [Music] up more there [Music] [Music] [Music] Mar [Music] at ners for ners [Music] the Suma and the Flores were so effective at bombarding the German positions in an absolute Relentless barrage that other British and Commonwealth troops on board other ships saw them and nicknamed them the terrible twins as they said in the video there were only two of them so they were only few but that meant that we had to do it well that's what they said at the end of the video and I thought that was quite an important and touching sentiment to the smaller Nations who contributed on D-Day it wasn't just the Navy however there were also Dutch Airmen involved on D-Day particularly 320 Squadron which was the Dutch Squadron of the RAF at the time some of these had actually flown over after the end of the battle of the Netherlands they realized the Dutch Army was about to capitulate so they flew their planes over to Britain and said okay we're going to join in the RF and they had been fighting the war with the British RAF since then this is a picture of uh one of the bomb of 320 Squadron actually on D-Day the bombing of Normandy of course happened the night before so the night of the fifth of June and here are members of that Squadron being addressed by General Eisenhower they suffered very heavy casualties on dday with 12 Crews going out on the night of the 5th the next day only four of these Crews would actually return meaning that around 25 Airmen of the 320th Squadron were killed in action the Infantry were also involved but this is more after the end of D-Day so in the the later Landings after the beach heads had already been secured and this was in the form of the royal Netherlands motorized infantry Brigade or as they became known during the war the princess Irena Briar being named after the granddaughter of the Dutch queen the current princess Irena of the Dutch royal family this was basically the uh remnants of the Dutch Army that were able to get over the channel as well as other Dutchmen who volunteered not only from the Netherlands but also uh those Dutch uh people who had already immigrated to the United States and Canada New Zealand Australia as well as many in South Africa who wanted to volunteer with the Dutch Armed Forces given the historic connection between those Nations they received training in England to become part of the British Army and to fight in this Dutch unit when they would go over the channel which of course they would do but after D-Day after the beaches had been secured they would land on Normandy Shores on the 8th of August and very soon would become embroiled in fighting in northern France around adom which is where they came on land another interesting fact actually at adom is that several Allied ships were scuttled to create a kind of bridge so that the uh the tides weren't as strong and one of the Old Dutch warships that was long overdue being scrapped the Sumatra was actually scrapped as part of that to help in that effort not quite a glorious moment really but I mean I guess it's also a contribution there which is worth mentioning but anyway the princess Ira Bri then was also involved after dday had been done and the later fighting through France they would also fight through Belgium and of course be involved in the liberation of the Netherlands when it came that far as we can see here in this picture and it's actually as part of the princess Ira Briar that the last surviving Dutchman who uh was involved at D-Day Max wolf should be mentioned because he was there he was there two days ago at ad Marsh at the uh commemoration of D-Day uh here seen with many other servicemen currently serving in the Dutch armed forces and it's important to mention his story because his is a very interesting and indeed a very tragic story because Max Wulf was a Dutch Jew he was born and lived in Aram but in 194 41 his house was requisitioned by the SS and he and his family had to go into hiding which they would do for the next several years they tried to escape to neutral Switzerland but on the way his sister and various other family members were caught and later murdered by the Germans in aitz he however managed to escape and managed to make his way to Normandy where in June of 1944 the Allies would land he decided that he wanted to fight back so he made the connection with Allied Forces and when the princessa Bri landed he joined them and would help them with the liberation of the Netherlands several months later [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] second [Applause] mer all right everyone thank you very much for watching this video on what the Dutch did during D-Day and a little bit of after D-Day as well let me know in the comments did you know that there were any Dutchmen involved in D-Day I must say I was aware that there were a few I knew about the princessa Briar but not so much about the uh two gunboats that were involved and that they had this nickname of the terrible Twins and certainly not about Max wolf and and his story story and the fact that he is the last remaining uh Dutchman who who was involved with dday and and more broadly I suppose with the Normandy Landings and uh the fighting that took place in 1944 so I would like to dedicate this V video to everyone who fought who everyone who served who uh made it possible to defeat uh this terrible evil that was uh in the second world war and uh yeah everyone who's working for the good in the world today anyway thank you very much for watching Stick Of The Dun and I will see you in the next one links to things will be in the comments below if you'd like to check things out more