The Accidental Bombing of Bezuidenhout

At eight o’clock in the morning of 3 March 1945, the air-raid sirens were heard for the first time over Hague. A short while later a wave of bombers appeared over the horizon heading straight towards the city. But instead of bombing the city center, the formation veered to the east and released their bombs over the Bezuidenhout neighborhood. Wave after wave of bombers followed dropping their load on the peaceful city. “They have lost count. The earth trembles. Buildings and entire blocks collapse like houses of cards collapse. Still others are starting to burn and are soon ablaze,” reported The Telegraph the following day. The bombing of the Bezuidenhout area on Saturday, March 3rd, 1945. Seen from the tower of the Church of St. James the Greater in Park Street. Photo: Wikimedia Commons A strong westerly wind picked up the fires caused by the bombing and spread it further across the neighborhood. The fire department was not adequately equipped to handle the fire, and often there was no water to put out the conflagration. Help had to be brought in from South Holland and even from Wormerveer and Zaandam. More than three thousand buildings were destroyed, five hundred killed and twenty thousand people were rendered homeless. What’s tragic about the devastation in Bezuidenhout was that the perpetrators were not Germans but the Allies. Early that morning, bombers of the the British Royal Air Force received instruction to bomb the V2 installations in the Haagse Bos, a large forested area inside the Hague that was being used by the Germans as a launch site for their V2 rockets. The V2s were unstoppable. Traveling at supersonic speed and as silently as a hawk, they rained devastation from above, striking at the heart of Britain without warning. Britain had many early warning system installed along its coastline but these could only detect slow moving bombers and fighter planes. No effective defense existed against the fearful V2s.