During Nazi Germany occupation of the Netherlands during the Second World War (1940–1945), Allied air forces carried out a number of operations over Rotterdam and the surrounding region. These included bombing strategic installations, leaflet dropping, and during the last week of the war, the dropping of emergency food supplies.
At March 31, 1943 the United States Army Air Forces accidentally bombed a residential area in Rotterdam close to shipyards and docks. The death toll was between 326 and 401 and made between 10,000 and 20,000 people homeless.
Below you find a short March 1943 Dutch journal item about the Allied bombings of Rotterdam.
Until the 1990s, the raid that took place on 31 March 1943 was not mentioned in local school history lessons about the region’s war time experiences.