From September 1944 the German army fired rockets at London from the area around The Hague. More than a thousand launches took place in seven months, spread over some twenty sites. The V2 could be fired from a mobile installation, so a launch site could disappear again after a few shots.
This park was one of those sites. From November 1944 rockets went up from the Westbroekpark and the streets around it, the Van Stolkweg, the Belvédèreweg and the Kanaalweg. The launches continued until the end of March 1945. The people who lived in this neighbourhood had been gone for more than a year by then.
In London the rockets killed more than two and a half thousand people and wounded almost six thousand. About one launch in twelve failed, and a few of those rockets came down in The Hague itself.
The Allies tried to destroy the launch sites from the air. On 3 March 1945 the bombers missed their target in the and the bombs fell on the district, where more than five hundred people died.
The Van Alkemadelaan begins on the east side of the park. About a kilometre along, at number 1258, a prison stands behind a long wall. That is the next stop.
Sources. Story: V2platform, Jos Borsboom, met materiaal uit het Haags Gemeentearchief; Geheugen van Bezuidenhout; Nationaal Comite 4 en 5 mei. De lanceerplaats Westbroekpark nog te verifieren bij NIOD of Haags Gemeentearchief Photos: Bundesarchiv Bild 141-1879, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE. The archive itself gives the location with a question mark; still to be verified
