News, Manchester
An RAF veteran has described how British aircrew disobeyed orders to air-drop chocolates and sweets for starving Dutch children in the final days of World War Two.
Speaking during VE Day commemoration, 99-year-old Jeff Brown recalled his part in Operation Manna, an aid mission to feed millions of people facing famine in the German-occupied Netherlands in May 1945.
“All the crews gathered any bits of food they could lay their hands on, toffees and bars of chocolate”, Mr Brown said.
“We made little parachutes out of handkerchiefs, added little notes to them and got the rear gunner to drop them out.”
Mr Brown, from Hyde, Greater Manchester, was a 19-year-old gunner on a Lancaster Bomber at the time of the operation.
He said crews were told not to dispatch anything other than the official food parcels provided.
“Nobody took any notice. We wanted to give the children a little surprise,” he said.
Mr Brown and other RAF veterans have been marking the 80th anniversary of Operation Manna, which was carried out by Allied forces shortly before VE Day.
After lengthy negotiations, the UK and US had agreed a truce with Germany to allow the food parcels and supplies to be dropped to part of the Dutch population, who were facing starvation.
Hundreds of bombers took part in the 10-day mission, with nearly 7,000 tonnes of food dropped.
It is estimated up to 20,000 Dutch civilians died from starvation during the war-impoverished period.
Mr Brown said crews were told how “people were dropping dead in the streets” because of the lack of food, and the parcels could help save lives.
However, he said it many years passed before he realised the true impact of the aid mission.
“One fellow said if you hadn’t dropped the food I wouldn’t have been born,” he said.
“He said his parents were on the verge of starvation.”
Mr Brown was involved in five Operation Manna flights, with the final one departing on the morning of VE Day.
“We were operating right up to the very end of the war,” he said.
Frank Pleszak from the AVRO Heritage Museum in Woodford, Stockport, said Operation Manna was considered to be the “very first airborne humanitarian mission”.
He added: “It is so significant. It’s still commemorated to this day with the Dutch authorities still giving out medals to the aircrews who took part.”
