At 04:00 hrs airfield Waalhaven was attacked by two German bombers. Lieutenant Kreft sounded the alarm and captain Scholtmeijer ordered to start. In about fifteen minutes eight G-1's took off. The fate of three of these G-1's will now be discussed in starting sequence.
311 Gunners sergeant Holwerda and sergeant De Vos picked up the harnachements of their parachutes. They ran back to their planes while another air raid was deployed. Holwerda kept on running, while De Vos stayed with the 334, and there he died. Holwerda had not yet entered the 311 completely, when lieutenant Sonderman already taxied away. Immediately after the start he shot down a Ju 52, but also he directly got persued by some Bf 109s. One hit his radio. Sonderman shot this one and another Bf 109 down, but he almost ran out of ammunition. He set course to the west, flying in formation with the 328 and the 319 for a short time. Then suddenly, he saw a He 111 and directly went for it. The pilot of the He 111, which had been riddled by lieutenant Noomen, had just discovered at Rockanje an emergency landing site. While he was performing his ermergency landing he got a machine-gun salvo of Sonderman. Now Sonderman had barely any ammunition left and he landed on the beach of Oostvoorne. The crashed He 111 was the 5J+DA from Stab/KG4 with Oberst Fiebig, the Geschwader commander. The crew was taken prisoner. The reargunner who had seriously been injured by Noomen's attack was now deceased.
329 Lieutenant Woudenberg started right after Sonderman. He shot down a Ju 87 and Ju a 52 and then ran into combat with a number of Bf 110s. After that he saw the G-1 328, which was flying with gear down. Heading for Haamstede he saw two G-1s at the beach of Oostvoorne and decided to land there too.
328 Since his gunner, sergeant de Man, could be found sergeant Souffrée finally decided to take off alone. Souffrée damaged some He 111s, of which 5J+KN of 5./KG4 made an emergency landing. He then shot down a Bf 109. After that he met the G-1 329, in which Lieutenant Woudenberg made clear by gestures that Souffrées landinggear was down. Some moments later the 311 and 319 appeared. The three G-1s flew some time in formation. The others turned away and when Souffrée approached Oostvoorne, he saw a G-1 on the beach and risked a landing. Once landed, the landing gear was found still OK.
The pilots at Oostvoorne decided to stay there and camouflaged their G-1s with piece of sail from bathing-lockers. They reported at the commander of the island and at the Fighter Group. There new supplies were arranged and the next morning sergeant Wildschut of IV 2 LVR from Haamstede used a Fokker C.5 to bring 618 cans of petrol and a starting crank. When they were starting during the attack everybody fortgot to bring one. However, first the starting crank had to be customised by a blacksmith. Meanwhile, Captain P. J. de Broekert, as liaison officer, on his way to Paris, stranded on the island. He met the pilots and took Lieutenant Sonderman along with him. However Lieutenant Sonderman returned from Brussels back to the Netherlands.
A contribution mr. F. Gerdessen
Co-author of the Fokker G-1 book