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Airlift in Netherlands Offers Thread of Life
I For 50,000 People Marooned by Flood Waters
PEB 4
953
Farmers in Isolated
Houses Face Worst
Lowlands Danger
apologizes, "but it's got big
windows." It is also well ven
tilated. The door has been re-
i mdved for the benefit of the
Cameramen. With the help of
j at least one silent prayer we
take off and head south along
the coast.
Signs of the storm damage
i can be seen from the start along
the beaches studded with
i crumbling German pillboxes,
i Pounding seas have carved a
new shore line in the sand dunes.
I High up on the beach opposite
i The Hague a 4-ton freighter
sits bolt upright surrounded by
a curious throng of sightseers,
smoke still coming out of the
funnel. The dunes piled high
above the sea level have pro
tected the city, but between
the city and the port at the
Hook of Holland thousands of
greenhouses have suffered
heavily from the wind.
Roads and Cattle Vanish.
The big show starts as we head
out over water for Holland's is
land provinces of Zeeland, which
once stuck out like three fat
fingers into the North Sea. Last
week you would have known
them by houses and villages. To
day most of the houses are still
there but for miles on end the
island fields, roads, cattle and
people have vanished under
water.
The sea dike on the Island of
Goeree is about all that remains
to indicate the outline of the
land. Through what looks like
a 100-foot hole the water is pour
ing out toward the sea. On the
next high tide it will pour back
in again.
We fly over a town of some 40
houses clustered around a church
and people can be seen moving
down the street between the
buildings in a barge. Flying
about 200 feet over the farms on
the outskirts you see the dead
cattle floating feet up. The place
is swirling with floating debris
and straw. In a garage a shiny
green tractor and a new car are
packed side by side, their tops
showing above the water. There
are no people.
Farmers in Worst Danger.
Duiveland Island to the south
is covered with isolated farm
houses separated by miles of
water from what is left of the
dikes. These are the people who
are in the greatest danger. The
communities make good targets
for rescue work. In numbers
there is some safety and comfort.
But for the thousands of isolated
farms there is little that can be
done, at least from the air.
We fly low over one lonely
farmhouse. The rear wall is
crumbling and there is a gaping
hole in the tile roof. Out of the
hole a signala bedsheet tied to
a poleis the only sign that
any one is still inside.
You fly on over the other
islands. Bevèland, Walcheren,
South Beveland. The picture is
much the same. Here and there
cattle and people can be seen
moving along the dikes. In a
farmyard a couple of horses wad
ing in water up to their bellies
slosh slowly toward their flooded
barn. On top of a high pile of
straw a solitary man stands mo
tionless watching us fly away.
Tractors Pull Refugees.
In some places the water seems
to be receding. A long a flooded
road a line of tractors is moving,
pulling carts loaded heavily with
men, women and children. They
are headed for the higher ground
to the south. There you start to
see the ground rescue work
lines of army trucks, circling
transports dropping their car
goes.
In the deep water areas the
CRITICAL AREAMap locates cities in Holland and Belgium
where flood damage is greatest. AP Wirephoto Map.
boats are swarming in all direc
tions and the people wave as you
fly over, but the rescue operation
that seemed so impressive back
at the field seems pathetically
small out here.
Destruction and human suffer
ing seen from the air are remote
and impersonal, but certainly no 1
one can take their measure at
this point and no one can pos-
sibly estimate the loss of life. An j
hour's flight over Holland's dis-
aster area is a hard thing to I
describe adequately. It is an
impossible thing to forget.
By Crosby S. Noyes
Star Staff Correspondent
THE HAGUE, Feb. 4. The
military air field north of the
capital is swarming with men
and trucks and planes. Every few
minutes a heavy laden transport
with the door removed staggers
off the runway headed south.
Another glides in under the
gray sky, back with another load.
This is the airlift for some
50,000 people trapped by flood
District Group Asks Funds for Relief of
Storm-Lashed Holland. Page A-S
Four More Americans Die in British
Flood, Raising Total to 15. Page A-3
England and Holland Warned of New
Gales as Flood Toll RisesA Page A-3
waters south of here. It is the
thread of life and the hope of
safety.
On the ramp in front of the
operations building a Flying Box- I,
car of the United States Air
Force is being loaded with in-
flatable rubber liferafts, water
and food. The clumsy square-
ended plane is ideal for this
j kind of work. The Dutch are
using C-54s and taking a chance
on losing the tailplane with each
load dropped.
A tired-looking Dutch major,
commander of an army transport
squadron, reports that his men
flew 50 missions yesterday,
dropping 50 tons of supplies, wis
outfit is one of three on the
field. It is one of six fields being
used in Holland and Belgium
for rescue operations.
Better Organized.
"Today," the major says, "we
know what we're up against and
we are better organized. Yester
day it was just a question of
grabbing everything and every
body we could get our hands on
and getting out of here."
Across the field in a huge
hangar men are assembling the
supplies to be dropped. Large
tins of water and condensed milk
are being tied into green bags
attached to parachutes. Burlap
sacks are crammed full of bread
loaves, margarine, medicine, bis
cuits and baby food. There are
great mounds of flour and sugar
sacks, bundles of clothing and
blankets and thousands of sand
bags for the dikes. The stuff I
has been trucked and flown in j
from all over Europe. Tediously 1
collected military supplies are
being spent lavishly. In one cor
ner of the hangar is a pile of
bright-colored plastic liferafts
that look more suitable for a
bathing beach than the near-
freezing waters of the North Sea.
Hard to Reach for Many.
A pilot who has been deliv
ering- the supplies explains the
main problem: "It works well
for the people who are on the
dikes or somewhere near a bit
of dry land, but for the ones i
out in the middleand there
are a lot of themit's almost j
impossible for them to get to
the stuff after we drop it. You'll
see what I mean when you get
there."
There are seven of us
crammed into the ancient Brit
ish biplane on this sightseeing
expedition. There are three
Dutch air force observers, a
couple of cameramen and a re
porter from Paris.
"It's not so good," the pilot'l
