Hi there again. For my first "real" thread I would like to discuss the town where I live in now; Rieme. During WW2 the Germans had built an oil refinery near Rieme, they did this for the simple fact that it was right next to the canal “Gent-Terneuzen”. This canal had easy acces to Gent, Antwerp, the North Sea and even Dutch ports as well as Belgian coastal ports such as “Zeebrugge” and “Oostende” This had not gone unnoticed by the Allies and right after the invasion had started they commenced the bombing of said refinery, the presence of two U-boats did probably have a part in this too. When I ask my grandparents about these bombings they are relatively reluctant, mostly due to them being young at the time, but when I ask locals who witnessed the bombings they do not like to mention it besides “Hell on earth” and “our price for liberation”. I decided to do some of my own modest research but because Belgium does not post any historical documents online I had to use American and British information, but if they would be as accurate as their bombings back then, I wouldn’t have an easy task of finding any info. After some searching I found not allot of information, but it did sort of shine a light on the dates engraved in our monument. These snippets are from various sources: If you would compare this with the monument that is not far from my house, you would see that there are allot of unfilled gaps. The only info I found being Dutch was quite meaningless but I’ll post it anyway and translate the most important parts. I found this quite interesting but I do not have enough info yet and if anyone knows more about this, please share this with us. If more information is needed, I will gladly post it. Thanks in advance, Kjell.
I might have missed it while making the thread since bumping into the wrong keys made me type this twice. Anywho, I was wondering if anyone is able to fill the gaps and maybe find some stories or even pictures of said raids. I myself found some more info but nothing of real vallue.
Hello, Colt and very interesting information. I'm afraid I haven't got any details for you, but I would like to say that it brings home the sacrifice made by so many people in Occupied Europe, but it was necessary to deny the enemy fuel and transport links during the invasion and race to get to the German border and hopefully end the War in 1944. I did note that the Dutch site seems to imply that Rieme was destroyed by British and American bombing without commenting that the Germans had built the refinery in the town, making it seem as if the town was simply targeted because it was there, not for it's strategic target of the refinery. Whilst any civilian deaths are regrettable, for the town to be described as flattened, then 30 or so deaths look to be a small number compared to the bombing. In order to help you, can you detail which CWGC cemeteries are near Rieme? It might help locate crew and thus which Squadrons were tasked with attacking Rieme. Were any Resistance fighters in the town killed by the Germans?
Sorry for digging up this old thread... but I just HAD to reply to a thread about the village I live in! As far as I know, the closest CWGC cemetery would be the Canadian Cemetery in Adegem. Yes, there was a place where resistance members were shot. When I was young, one could visit this place. Nowadays, sadly it has dissapeared, because of the extension of the Port of Ghent. Some things in the village still point to the bombing.... there is a monument for the victims, next to that monument is the "Monumentstraat" (streetname), there is also a "Bombardementstraat" (roughly translated: bombingstreet). And the biggest reminder is that every time something is built, bombs are found during the earthworks. Now, this thread has made me think... and I'm going to "dig" around a little bit for more information. Kind regards, Jos
