the hard hit KG on an air base in Holland. “How he cursed the
Dutch,” recalled one listener, radio operator Corporal
Schürgers, shot down soon after:
He said, “I noticed this morning as I was driving
here through Holland, how the mob of women was
loafing around with rucksacks and picnicking in the
woods of a Sunday morning, instead of working for a
living like any decent German woman. She is standing
at a lathe right now, while these lazy beggars gallivant
around and gape at me as I drive past.”
“Gentlemen,” says he, “I’ll soon put a stop to that.
I want all Dutchmen who are too idle to work locked
up.”
Up speaks old Sperrle. “Well, Herr Reichsmar-
schall, that’s easier said than done. We’ve got to show
respect ”
“To hell with respect in wartime,” says he. “Do
you think the Russians would have their own soldiers
laboring on an airfield or something? Let’s show them
who’s boss around here!”“In Holland,” continued another NCO, a Dornier observer,
“Hermann told us that the evacuees from the Ruhr are coming
to Holland. The Dutch will have to live in encampments.”
Göring spent the night of October – at the main
fighter-control center at Arnhem. That night’s RAF attack un-
furled with all the cunning of a poker game with feints and
decoy runs, with the main bomber stream and Mosquitoes
darting about Germany tossing out aluminum foil and false
flares. As the fighter controller began broadcasting the running
commentary, a German émigré began transmitting false, coun-
termanding directions from Dover. Göring intervened several
times, warning the pilots, “Achtung! Those orders were fake!” An
unholy confusion resulted. By midnight the city of Kassel