Other events
Refugee-army dismissed
Rear-Admiral Van der Stad was very much aware that the Dutch soldiers that had fled Noord-Brabant,and had been mostly gathered west of Middelburg, would only present the staff and the French troops with plenty of trouble, but that their fighting capacity was neglectable.
Van der Stad ordered all unarmed troops off the island to Zeeuws Vlaanderen. That order pretty soon turned out to be impossible to be carried out. The limited shipping capacity made the execution of the evacuation of a mere 3,500 men hardly feasible and so only about 500 men were actually shuttled over to the south. The rest had to stay. It is unknown exactly how many of these troops remained on Walcheren, but approximately 3,000 armed men were assigned new orders within the western sector of Walcheren, although little hope remained about their diligent task awareness.
Civilians evacuated
Since the previous day, many inhabitants of Flushing and Middelburg had followed up the strong advice of the mayor of Middelburg to evacuate both towns and find shelter in the western part of Walcheren. About 40,000 people were either on the move or had already arrived somewhere in the province. Many houses in the small villages and even smaller settlements in the province were overloaded with these unexpected guests. Although it posed plenty of problems to the averagely poor people that gave shelter to all these refugees, the cohesion between the civilians in these times of fear and horror was intense. The Zeeland population was [and is] reputed in Holland for its miserliness, but in those days everyone shared like it was first nature!
Airforce events
A German bomber Ju-88 [2./KG-30] was shot down at 1510 hrs by the AA batteries of the British destroyer HMS Whitley, that was cruising on the Westerschelde. It crashed on a sand-bank near Borssele. Three crew-members KIA, one wounded.
Three German planes made an unnatural return to the ground when two He-111P's [both St/KG54] and one Bf-109E [1./JG20] were both shot down over Flushing during a confrontation with Allied fighters.
At Aardenburg (north of Flushing] a Blenheim IV [L8856] of 15 Squadron, flown by P/O D.S.R. Harriman [crew: Flight Sergeant J.R. Stanford and LAC Moorhouse] crashlanded. The plane had been part of a formation of a dozen Blenheims of 15. and 40. Squadron on a mission to bomb the bridge crossing the Meuze at Dinant. The Blenheims had been escorted by eleven Hurricanes of 607. and 615.Squadron. During the mission two Blenheims and three Hurricanes were shot down. The Harriman Blenheim wasn't one of those. But on the return flight it suddenly lost a prop and that forced the pilot to make an emergency landing. He succeeded. Flight Sergeant Standford was injured during the landing.
At 1540 a Belgian Fairey Fox VI of 7/III/ 3 Gr [7th squadron, 3rd Regiment, 3rd Group] was downed near Hoogerheide. It was piloted by Captain Abel A.G. Maquet. He was killed.
