Why bombs fall on the Vliehors

When you ride into the west of the island with the Vliehors Expres, you see something that exists nowhere else in the Netherlands: sand to the horizon, bordered on all sides by sea. More than twenty-one square kilometres of plain. They call it the Sahara of the north, and for once that comparison is not an exaggeration.

On NATO maps, this area is called Cornfield Range.

Why here

Around seventeen square kilometres of it is a firing range. It is the only place in the Netherlands where pilots from the Royal Netherlands Air Force and allied nations are allowed to practice with live ammunition and explosive ordnance. Military aircraft practice on targets on the sand plain. The exercise schedule determines the activity on the terrain.

The logic behind it is uncomfortable yet sound. Practising with real weapons cannot happen over populated areas. You need empty airspace, few people underneath, and plenty of room. In the Netherlands, that is almost only found where nature holds sway. Exactly the characteristics that make the Vliehors a protected nature reserve make it suitable as a training ground.

From tanks to fighter jets

The military history of this part of the island dates back to after the war. In 1955, a cavalry firing range was established here — the only place in the Netherlands where tanks could fire live rounds. Prince Bernhard visited that same year and took photographs. In 1960, an encampment was built for the permanent staff and training troops; a year later, the air force moved in as well. The tanks disappeared in April 2004. The pilots remained.

The air force detachment has a nickname you will not find on any map: the Witte Muizen. The emblem features three sitting mice, with the motto "Zet 'm op witte muizen". Those mice originate from a pre-1940 fighter squadron that had three running mice painted on the nose of its Fokkers.

That this is real firing and not play became clear on 4 November 2013. During an exercise, an F-16 from Volkel air base struck the detachment's control tower with a strafe from its 20mm cannon. The tower was hit around seventeen times, and three projectiles passed through the glass of the observation post where two forward air controllers were standing at that moment. Neither was injured. It ended with material damage and an investigation.

Nature reserve and training ground at once

Meanwhile, the Vliehors is one of the most important high-tide roosts in the Wadden Sea. Tens of thousands of waders wait here for low tide. On the drift dunes, gulls, oystercatchers and curlews breed. As the site manager, the Ministry of Defence is responsible for these natural assets and has binding agreements in place: the exercises must not cause the protected nature to deteriorate. A defence ecologist oversees this.

For the visitor, it mainly means this: the area is closed during exercises. If you go with the Vliehors Expres, the operator follows a route that is permitted at that time, and on the western beach you will see the rescue house, fitted out with beachcombed finds.

And somewhere beneath the sand and the water off the coast here lie the remains of West-Vlieland, the village swallowed by the sea in 1736. The lost village site lies further west than the present island.