Five Brothers and a War

Operation Manna/Chowhound

Allied military permission to undertake the aerial mission was granted on April 23, 1945, by U.S. Army Chief of Staff, General of the Army (the first 5-Star General) George Marshall, pending the resolution of an agreement with the Germans. It was obviously critical to get Germany's approval, because lumbering bombers flying low and slow would have been very simple to shoot down. But a negotiation/coordination meeting between the Allies and the Germans could not be arranged until April 28. Lt. General Charles Foulkes, Commander of the 1 st Canadian Corps, was tasked with setting up that meeting. Maj. General Sir Francis de Guingand, who was British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery's Chief of Staff in the 21st Army Group, was designated as the leader on behalf of the Allies. His orders were to obtain agreement for the immediate entry of food, and also to sound out the enemy regarding their possible capitulation in Holland. By now, Berlin was ordering Seyß-Inquart to begin the scorched earth program of destroying Holland's infrastructure, including its ports and dykes. Without getting permission to do so, and in fact disobeying his orders, Seyß-Inquart was himself interested in developing options to get food to the starving Dutch, but with the cutting off of all supply routes, he had no hope of doing so without the assistance of the Allies. So the first meeting was set, to be held in the very small village of Achterveld, located just a few kilometers east of Amersfoort, within an area the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry had just taken a couple weeks before. Moving between enemy lines was no simple task, and cease-fire orders had to be delivered to both sides to avoid a potential incident resulting in the deaths of very senior officers on either side. A rendezvous point, close to the front, on the German side, was agreed to using “wireless radios” between the enemies. The Canadian greeting party, led by Brigadier Mortimer Bogert, along with a number of other officers, traveled as far as they could in military vehicles, then arrived at an unmanned roadblock, at which point the Brigadier, Brigade Major and an interpreter set off on foot under the protection of a white flag. As no one was found at the appointed meeting place, Brigadier Bogert had to walk a little further into enemy territory before contacting the first Germans. The leader of the German party, representing Seyß-Inquart, a lawyer himself, was a German judge, Reichsrichter Dr. Ernst Schwebel (in Germany, lawyers are granted the use of the prefix “Dr.”), Judge Advocate-General for Occupied Holland, who greeted the Canadian Brigadier with a “tired” Nazi salute. The other German of note was another judge, also on the staff of the Reichskommissar , Dr. Friedrich Plutzer. There were Wehrmacht officers, including a translator present, but it was clear that the role of the Germans was to conduct negotiations, not to make decisions. Prior to crossing into Allied-controlled territory, the Germans were blindfolded and then driven to the negotiation venue, which was located in the Achterveld's schoolhouse, the St. Jozef School. Judge Advocate-General Schwebel rode with the Brigadier in the latter's staff car and the remainder of the German party was driven in plain jeeps.

the war

Five Brothers and a War

Page 577