In the movie a bridge too far the airborne commander said that the Gemrans were slaughtered when they attacked the bridge in 1940, is this true ? I looked up the 1940 invasion and all it says is that the bridge was blown when they got there.
I have always been curious about that comment, but thats not the only one from that movie. I have always put this down to Hollywood.
No, this is an inaccurate statement. Several key bridges in Nijmegen were simply detonated to stall the german advance into the Netherlands.
Dutch army forces were more or less overrun for the most part because they had nowhere the equipment or manpower needed to enforce anything else than border patrols and such. The dutch government never provided for this as we were convinced we could remain neutral as we did in the first world war. Also Hitler gave my country some of his famous “guarantees”… Sadly enough we believed him.
Our airforce did give them a run for their money for a few days with obsolete fokkers though[:p]
Richard
well the dutch did butcher the Fallschirmjager air drops on the two key air fields.
Speaking of statements what else has hollywood said that is inaccurate?
Patton has one of the biggest false statements…
“Our tanks are gas, theirs are diesel”
German AFVs ran on gasoline, just like US AFVs. The Soviets used a diesel on their tanks.
And from every Netherlander I have ever spoken to, the Germans stole all the Dutch bicycles…
Just watch SPR, and i think thats one right at the end. Ryan calls the P-51’s tankbusters. That name wasn’t used for those was it.
They did steal all our bicyles!
And our 1974 World Cup…