Need info...

[Paul Hanson]

I`m considering making a scenario about Holland during WW2, and these are my questions:

a) Is it worth it? Is there enough that happened that is worth translating into a scenario?

b)Where can I find reference material on the subject?

c)Is there a map of Holland during the late 1940`s? Seeing as it changes almost constantly during to land reclamation, the date is important.

Any help would be appreciated!

[Hendrik the Great]

Most certainly you can make a good scen about that!

a)There wasn't much in the first half though.Exept that Rotterdam got almost wiped out by the Luftwaffe and the Netherlands were overrun by the Wehrmacht within 12 days (Blitzkrieg)as far as I remember. But how about trying to do it even faster when playing the germans or when playing the dutch try to slow them down long enough for help to arive?
However, when the germans were on the retreat there was A LOT of fighting.
Just think of Eindhovenm, Nijmegen and Arnheim( The Bridge of Arnheim).
The V2 missiles were launched from The Hague(I life here at the moment)
and in the winter of '44 or '45 there was an enormous famine in the german controlled part of the netherlands.

Are you just thinking of Holland or also Belgium? Then you could included the Battle of the Bulge(Ardennes) and Antwerpes(many V2 attacks here, almost nothing left of the city)

b)There are several sites on the net but I don't know their url.I'll have a look around.

c) Yes, there are! You best ask Allard for one! He knows where to fing one!

Hendrik the Great

[Paul Hanson]

Great, so at least there`s potential here!

Most of what I know about Holland during the war comes from my Dutch grandparents, who surprising remember very little (or they`d rather forget what happened). My grandfather (or opa, as we call him to distinguish him from my English grandfather) can remember watching the Germans bombing Rotterdam, as can my grandmother (or oma), as they both lived there. Other than that, they remember the famine, and very little else.

Belgium could be included, and the Allied nations, like Britain, could be represented by Holland in the form of extra troops.

[Hendrik the Great]

Just thought of it...
Why not make a scenario about Operation Market Garden? It was the largest airdrop ever undertaken. There were about 35.000 allied troops involved. That is those are the troops that landed by parachute.
Another large army group had to fight its way from Belgium to Eindhoven then to Nijmegen and last but not least to Arnhem.
The entire operation had a very small timeframe to work. So you can very easily make it a great challenge.
They didn't reach Arbhem though. That city was totally devastated by german tank divisions

Hendrik the Great

[Allard HS]

Finally! Someone else has seen the light! A scenario about Holland! Fantastic! I will give all possible cooperation to your project!

a) It's definately worth it! No doubt!
Hey, there were also some V2's launched from my village (Bergen (NH) bij Alkmaar)
b) don't know about that, perhaps in a library or on the Internet. Or I can ask my grandfather (opa, I actually call him opi to separate him from the other ) he was a pilot at the start and then he went in the resistance.
But unfortunately my "opa" hardly wants to talk about it.
c) You can use the map of Holland from my Republic scenario. As for the reclaiming of the land, you can simply fill the lakes in with land. I have exact maps with statistics on what polder was made when.

[Paul Hanson]

Thanks Allard, I`m sure I`ll need your help in several places!

The main problem I have is with the map.I know that the lakes around Holland (the provinces rather than the country) were filled in some time ago, but areas where I`m a bit sketchy include the polders (did the Flevoland polder exist during the war?) and Zeeland, for instance, my grandparents used to live in Walcheren, which is now joined to Zuid Beveland, but was it so 50 years ago?

Other than that, my lack of knowledge on the subject holds me back, but by doing this scenario I could learn a lot! For instance, I didn`t know that there was an organized resistance, as my grandparents were not even 10 when the war began, and all they remember is being hungry, rather than living in fear of the Germans. Also, my opa had a story about being run over by a cart and falling into a ditch, but this is hardly the place to go into that. Anyway, I`ve waffled on a bit too much there.

The scenario itself could begin with the German invasion, and culminate in Operation Market Garden, or possibly a bit after that.


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"I`m a rugged individualist, just like everyone else".

-Bart Simpson`s Guide to Life

[Hendrik the Great]

If you need some info about the dutch resistance I cloud ask my neighbour...
She used to smuggle all kinds of stuff(those kinds and those kinds...you know...) across the dutch-belgium border during the time.

Would you need new unit icons or so?

Hendrik the Great

[Paul Hanson]

Asking your neighbour is your decision, not mine. It could be interesting to learn what kind of things the resistance got up to, though...

New unit icons: I don`t know, as I have got a fair collection. What would be handy to me is to find out what the Dutch army wore at that time, as I could edit an existing icon to fit the requirements.

Wonder icons would be nice (representations of famous Dutch buildings, like the Rijksmuseum and the like).

------------------
"I`m a rugged individualist, just like everyone else".

-Bart Simpson`s Guide to Life

[Paul Hanson]

This post has several reasons behind it:

1) To keep the post near the top of the topic listings.

2) To attract attention to it by puttin the red folder by it`s name rather than just the boring yellow one.

3) To keep people interested in my scenario up to date. Which reminds me...

I`ve found three types of planes used by the Dutch air force during the war: Fokker D.21, Fokker G.1 and Fokker T.5. Are there any others I should include?

I found a pretty entensive case study on Holland during the war on university lecturer`s site which is proving helpful. It doesn`t contain much on military ops, which is what I`m more interested in.

Can`t find any examples of Dutch army clothing. I did find a photo of a Dutch marine in New Guinea, but it was black and white, which helped very little. And I don`t think that the marines would be representative of the Dutch army as a whole.

Anyone with any info, please tell me!

[techumseh]

I think that the scenario could be in two parts, the invasion by the Germans and the liberation by the Canadian Army. The same map could be used, but 2 scenarios. There was some very interesting fighting from September 1944 on, starting with the Market-Garden operation, clearing the Scheldt estuary, especially the Walcharen operation, the V-1's and 2's and the German threats to flood the polder lands.

[Paul Hanson]

Yea, I read that the Canadians played a big part in the Liberation of Holland, but I think I`ll have them represented under the British (or I might go for an Allies civ rather than just Britain).

Two parts for the invasion and the liberation? There`s a whole bit inbetween that I want to cover! Market Garden will obviously be a main point of the scenario (see if you can succeed)!

Hendrik and Allard: Are you still there?

[Hendrik the Great]

I can't speak for Allard but I'm still here...
I just ran out of things to say. Sometimes it even happens to me

I happened to be in the city today and I tried finding books, images or whatever about dutch forces in that time. It's really hard to fing anything useful.

I have to do some thinking about this because I'm kind of low on ideas in the moment. My next scenario is taking up most of my time I'm willing to spend on civ a day.

But I wont forget you.

Hendrik the Great

[Allard HS]

I am still here
First some data. North East Polder was made in 1942 (apparently during the war. Quite strange they did it then, I didn't know that). Flevoland East only in 57 and Flevoland West in 1968. Flevoland is the big thing in the "middle", norht east polder is on the north east of Flevoland.
In 1930 Wieringermeer was poldered (east of Den Helder, under the Afsluitdijk). For the rest all polders were done.
Actually. to be short all was there in 40 except the big ones in the Ijsselmeer.

I don't know exactly the Dutch uniform, but I could watch the beginning of "Soldaat van Oranje" again and then I'll let you know what uniforms they wore. It was pretty old-fashioned anyway..

I don't know about the planes we had, but according to my grandfather they were extremely primitive planes compared to those high-tech German planes. A lot of planes were also shot down while still on the ground. There were however some succesful air-offensives (at the Grebbeberg), and the adaption of the "hu-bo-bé" (huisje-boompje-beestje = house, tree, animal) technique, which means flying extremely low to not be discovered also worked extraordinarely well.
In my village (Bergen, near Alkmaar) was a very important military airport and there they did a trick with building fake-fighters while hiding the real ones in the forest. So the Germans bombed the fake ones and were then followed and shot down by the real ones.
In my village by the way, two important writers, Ed du Perron and Menno Ter Braak, lived and they killed themselves when we capitulated.

As for the resistance. It was mostly a matter of stealing "distributiebonnen" (foodvouchers), hiding Jews, students (who refused to sign a contract of not resisting Germany), labour forces not willing to work in Germany and crashed pilots (and smuggle them back to England). Rarely Germans were being killed by the resistance, cause if they were, whole villages were shot.

Perhaps it's better to continue this discussion via email (my new email is a.h.s.hofelt@student.tn.tudelft.nl).

[Paul Hanson]

OK Hendrik, fair enough. I`ve had some success looking around the internet, and had a reasonable bit of success. A found a poster encouraging young Dutch men to join the army, and I copied the army uniform from that. Other than that, I haven`t found anything new.

[Hodad]

Remember not to add too many units for construction or it will be too complicated to play.
Keep it interesting, but keep it simple.
Too much diversity will make amateurs bored and your .scn won't succeed.