Wars of The World
Wars of The World
The Bombing of Rotterdam: May 14th, 1940...
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On the afternoon of May 14th, 1940, beleaguered citizens in the Dutch city of Rotterdam looked skyward as they heard the approaching drone of German bombers; through the thick, noxious smoke drifting upward from burning buildings, they could just make out the massed formations of Heinkel HE-111’s, the infamous black balkenkreuz insignia stark against their white undercarriages. For the next quarter of an hour, over a thousand high explosive bombs would smash the Dutch into submission, murdering over 700 civilians and devastating an entire city, callously shattering its short-lived defiance in the face of Nazi tyranny. When the dust had settled, questions arose about how this atrocity - which German field commanders claimed was accidental - happened? Worse, were the theories that it was a deliberate act intended to force Dutch capitulation...