Operation Chowhound (Stephen Dando-Collins)

In early 1945, occupied Holland was in a bad shape. The occupiers stopped providing food for the civilians in the occupied territories and cut off electricity to them as well. The people were pretty much left on their own. Many of the most vulnerable, the old and the very young, would die of starvation. Prince Bernhard, the consort of Princess Juliana desperately lobbied the Allies to do something about it. Three important generals, Eisenhower, Bedell Smith, and Geddes would eventually be responsible for launching Operation Chowhound, perhaps the first humanitarian airlift to provide relief for the suffering Dutch civilians. This book is about this operation carried out by the American 8th Air Force. (The British had started the operation a few days earlier under Operation Manna.)

This operation is full of risks. The war was not over, there was no reason to believe that the Germans would not fire on the bombers carrying food in their bomb bays instead of food. Since they had to fly as long as 500 feet, if the Germans decided to shoot, the bombers were almost sitting ducks. But an agreement was hastily agreed with the Reichskommissar of Holland, Arthur Seyss-Inquart and a group of German officers. An air corridor would be open through which the bombers would fly to the designated drop zones. The operation lasted two weeks through Germany's surrender and is a success, probably saving the lives of many Dutch civilians then almost on the edge.

This book is a short one at 220 pages written in a fairly readable style. For a book of this size, the reader cannot expect a deep coverage on any issue and can only treat it as an introduction to the operation. This operation is definitely complex but little was said about the planning. Even less was said about what was happening on the German side. It was quite incredulous for me to imagine that the Germans would appear suddenly (pg. 114) to even consider allow the Allies to carry out such an operation when they were under instructions to blow the dykes in Holland to destroy the country. Clearly the author did not research enough into the other side. Yet precious chapters were spent on the exploits of Major Ken Cottam and Captain Farley Mowat that though were in the same theatre had no relation to the operation. The author purposely kept that thread alive and appear to forget about it in the second half of the book.

Given the little that was written about this important operation, this book is an important addition to the literature. It is not a defining book though. Too little detail was provided to any aspect of the operation and some of the distractions like Farley Mowat and Ian Flemming were just unnecessary. Read this book to learn about the operation, but go somewhere else if you want to have a better discussion on the operation.


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