Every war the Royal Netherlands Air and Space Force has fought
Cuando existe una cifra consolidada de salidas o bajas en el registro oficial, se incluye aquí; en caso de discrepancia, se muestra el rango y se especifica la discrepancia. Las celdas en blanco están vacías porque no se pudo verificar ninguna cifra, no porque los combates fueran de poca importancia.
From the five days of May 1940 to the drones over Poland in 2025.
| Conflicto | Años | Contra | Avión principal | Salidas | Avión perdido | |
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| The German invasion of the Netherlandsthe five-day warReal Fuerza Aérea y Espacial de los Países Bajos | 1940 | Alemania | Fokker D.XXI, Fokker G.I, Fokker T.Vy 2 más | — | — | |
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The Luchtvaartbrigade fought the Luftwaffe’s invasion with about 125 serviceable aircraft, attacking the German airborne landings and their transport fleet. On the morning of 10 May 1940 the Luftwaffe struck the Dutch airfields and landed airborne troops around The Hague and at Rotterdam. The Luchtvaartbrigade had about 155 aircraft, 125 of them serviceable and 74 of them biplanes; it lost roughly half its strength before nightfall. What it had left it threw at the landings. Fokker D.XXIs and G.Is went after the Ju 52 transports and their escorts. The ministry credits the Dutch with destroying more than 220 German transport aircraft in all, and German Ju 52 losses across the campaign are put at 224 of the 430 committed, to fighters, anti-aircraft guns and crash-landings alike. Dutch fighter claims are recorded variously: one account counts 13 victories over German fighters by 14 May, another 38 victories in all, sixteen of them by D.XXI pilots. By the time Rotterdam was bombed on 14 May and the army surrendered, only a handful of Dutch aircraft could still fly. It was a short, brave fight by a force that had been starved of money for twenty years, and its losses were near total. Resultado The main Dutch forces surrendered on 14 May 1940 after Rotterdam was bombed; the government and some aircrew escaped to Britain. Victory claims are wartime claims and differ between accounts. The share of German losses due to aircraft rather than anti-aircraft fire cannot be separated.
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| The defence of the Netherlands East Indiesthe ML-KNIL against JapanReal Fuerza Aérea y Espacial de los Países Bajos | 1941–1942 | Japón | Glenn Martin 139, Brewster Buffalo, Curtiss Hawk | — | — | |
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The army air arm of the Netherlands East Indies (ML-KNIL) fought the Japanese invasion with bombers and fighters alongside Allied air units, then evacuated what it could to Australia. The ML-KNIL grew from a test flight service founded in 1915 and took its formal name on 30 March 1939, separate from the home air force and answerable to the colonial army. By November 1941 it had five operational groups, three of bombers and two of fighters, plus a depot group. It flew Glenn Martin bombers, Brewster Buffaloes and Curtiss Hawks, many of them obsolete by the standards of 1941. When Japan attacked in December 1941 the ML-KNIL fought alongside Allied air units and put up what the record calls stubborn resistance, but the Allied air forces in the region were ground down within weeks. Japan occupied the colony in March 1942. Aircrew and ground staff who escaped to Australia formed four squadrons under Royal Australian Air Force command, among them No. 18 (NEI) Squadron with B-25 Mitchells from April 1942, No. 120 (NEI) Squadron with Kittyhawks and No. 19 (NEI) Squadron with transports. The colony’s airmen thus fought the rest of the Pacific war from Australia, under Australian command, before returning to the islands in 1945 — to a very different war. Resultado Japan occupied the Netherlands East Indies in March 1942; surviving personnel re-formed in Australia. The ML-KNIL was a separate colonial service; its lineage passed to the air force when it was dissolved in 1950.
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| Dutch squadrons with the RAF320, 321 and 322 SquadronsReal Fuerza Aérea y Espacial de los Países Bajos | 1940–1945 | Alemania | Fokker T.VIII, Lockheed Hudson, B-25 Mitchelly 1 más | — | — | |
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Dutch airmen who escaped in 1940 flew in their own squadrons within the RAF: two naval squadrons in Coastal Command and later the 2nd Tactical Air Force, and a Dutch Spitfire squadron from 1943. Naval airmen who escaped in May 1940 brought eight Fokker T.VIII seaplanes to Britain, and on 1 June 1940 formed Nos. 320 and 321 Squadrons at Pembroke Dock under RAF Coastal Command. They flew Ansons and Hudsons on coastal patrols; 321 was absorbed into 320 in January 1941. In 1943 320 converted to B-25 Mitchells and moved to the 2nd Tactical Air Force, bombing communications, airfields and V-1 sites through the liberation of Europe, before passing to Dutch naval control on 2 August 1945. The air force’s own RAF squadron came later: 322 (Dutch) Squadron formed at Woodvale on 12 June 1943 from Dutch pilots of No. 167 Squadron, flying Spitfires. In the summer of 1944 it was one of the units defending London against the V-1, and it was credited with 108.5 flying bombs; on 8 July 1944 Flying Officer Rudy Burgwal claimed five in one 90-minute sortie. 322 was disbanded as an RAF unit at Wunstorf in October 1945 and re-formed as a Dutch unit at Twente on 27 September 1946, keeping its badge and motto. It still flies, now with the F-35. Resultado 322 Squadron was credited with 108.5 V-1s; it returned to the Netherlands and is an F-35 squadron today. 320 and 321 Squadrons were naval air service units and belong to the navy’s lineage; they are included here because the brief covers the Dutch squadrons in the RAF.
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| The Indonesian War of Independencethe police actionsReal Fuerza Aérea y Espacial de los Países Bajos | 1945–1949 | Republic of Indonesia | P-51D Mustang, B-25 Mitchell, P-40 Kittyhawky 1 más | — | — | |
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The ML-KNIL and air force transports supported Dutch attempts to restore colonial rule against the Indonesian Republic, flying ground attack, reconnaissance and transport, and supporting airborne raids. When Japan surrendered in August 1945 the Indonesian Republic declared independence, and the Netherlands tried to take its colony back. The NEI squadrons that had fought Japan from Australia — Nos. 18, 19 and 120 — came back to the islands and were turned against the Republic’s forces. The ML-KNIL received 40 P-51D Mustangs and flew them with its Mitchells and Kittyhawks in the two large offensives the Dutch called police actions: Operation Product in July 1947 and Operation Kraai in 1948–49. The air force at home also committed aircraft; in 1948 its transports supported the first Dutch airborne raid in southern Sumatra and the capture of Djokjakarta, the Republic’s capital. The operations took territory but not the war. Under international pressure the Netherlands recognised Indonesian sovereignty at the end of 1949. All the NEI squadrons were disbanded in 1950, and 26 of the Mustangs were handed to the new Indonesian air force. It is a war the Netherlands long called by a euphemism, and its conduct is still the subject of official and public debate. Resultado The Netherlands transferred sovereignty to Indonesia at the end of 1949; the ML-KNIL was dissolved in 1950 and 26 Mustangs passed to Indonesia. The phrase “police actions” is the contemporary Dutch government term; the fighting was a colonial war.
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| The defence of Netherlands New GuineaHunters at BiakReal Fuerza Aérea y Espacial de los Países Bajos | 1958–1962 | Indonesia | Hawker Hunter F.4, Hawker Hunter F.6 | — | — | |
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An air force detachment provided the air defence of Biak from 1958; from 1960 322 Squadron’s Hunters formed the fighter element of a New Guinea air defence command. After Indonesian independence the Netherlands kept western New Guinea, and Indonesia claimed it. In 1958 the Dutch reinforced the territory, including an air force detachment for the air defence of the island of Biak, and in 1960 Plan Fidelio created an air defence command with radar and fighters. The Hunters travelled by sea: the aircraft carrier Karel Doorman left the Netherlands in mid-May 1960 with twelve Hunter F.4s, which were assembled at Biak after months in transit and had some 2,000 parts modified against humidity above 90 per cent. 322 Squadron flew the first Hunter sortie there on 21 October 1960, and later sources say F.6s joined them. In 1962 Indonesia infiltrated troops by sea and air; navy Neptunes found the torpedo boats intercepted at Vlakke Hoek on 15 January, and Indonesian airborne forces were dropped into the territory. By August 1962 Indonesia was ready to attack, and despite reinforcements the Dutch defences were judged insufficient. The Netherlands accepted the New York Agreement of 15 August 1962, and the Hunters came home in October. Resultado The New York Agreement of 15 August 1962 ended the dispute; the Hunters were withdrawn in October and the territory passed to UN administration on 1 October 1962, then to Indonesia. Accounts differ on how many Hunters were at Biak at the peak, from 12 to 24.
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| The air war over BosniaDeny Flight, Srebrenica and Deliberate ForceReal Fuerza Aérea y Espacial de los Países Bajos | 1993–1995 | Ejército de la República Srpska | F-16A, F-16A(R) | — | — | |
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Dutch F-16s enforced the UN no-fly zone and flew close air support and strike missions in the NATO operations over Bosnia, including the only NATO attack at Srebrenica. NATO’s Operation Deny Flight ran from 12 April 1993 to 20 December 1995, and the Dutch flew in it from the start. On 10 July 1995, with Serb tanks closing on Srebrenica, the commander of the Dutch battalion in the enclave, Lt. Col. Thom Karremans, made urgent requests for air support. It came late and small. On 11 July, in the first wave, two Dutch F-16s bombed Serb armour on the outskirts of the town. The Serbs then seized Dutch peacekeepers and threatened to kill them and to shell the refugees at Potčari unless the attacks stopped, and the Dutch defence minister Joris Voorhoeve telephoned NATO and asked for them to end. Srebrenica fell that day, and in the following days thousands of Bosniak men and boys were murdered. The pilots did what they were sent to do; the air support came too late and too small, and it was stopped by the threat to the hostages. The Netherlands Institute for War Documentation published its report on 10 April 2002, and Wim Kok’s cabinet resigned six days later. NATO’s Operation Deliberate Force followed from 30 August to 20 September 1995. Resultado Srebrenica fell on 11 July 1995 and thousands of Bosniak men and boys were murdered; the Dutch cabinet resigned on 16 April 2002 after the NIOD report. Accounts differ on what the F-16 bombs hit on 11 July; the RNLAF account says a moving Serb tank was hit, others that the attack achieved little.
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| Operación Fuerza Aliadathe MiG-29 kill over SerbiaReal Fuerza Aérea y Espacial de los Países Bajos | 1999 | República Federal de Yugoslavia | F-16AM | 1,194 | — | |
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Dutch F-16AMs flew air defence, strike and suppression missions in NATO’s 78-day air campaign against Yugoslavia. NATO began bombing Yugoslavia on 24 March 1999 at 19:00 UTC. That first night Serbian MiG-29s rose to meet the attackers, and three were shot down: two by US F-15Cs and one by a Dutch F-16AM from Amendola flown by Maj. Peter Tankink, who hit the MiG-29 of Maj. Predrag Milutinović with an AIM-120 AMRAAM. Milutinović ejected. It was the first air-to-air victory by a Dutch pilot since the Second World War, and it remains the best-known moment of the Dutch F-16 era. The rest of the campaign was less dramatic and much larger: over 78 days the Dutch flew 1,194 sorties, roughly 7.5 per cent of NATO’s total, flying strike and air defence missions, which made the Netherlands one of the more heavily committed smaller allies. The campaign ended on 10 June 1999 when Yugoslavia agreed to withdraw from Kosovo. The defence ministry’s own short history of the air force singles out the MiG-29 kill among the landmarks of the 1990s, alongside the no-fly-zone years over Bosnia. Resultado Yugoslav forces withdrew from Kosovo after the campaign ended on 10 June 1999. TWZ dates the kill to 4 April 1999; Wikipedia’s campaign history and the RNLAF article place it on the first night, 24 March, which is used here.
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| AfganistánEnduring Freedom and ISAFReal Fuerza Aérea y Espacial de los Países Bajos | 2002–2014 | los talibanes | F-16AM, KDC-10, AH-64Dy 2 más | 10,000 | — | |
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F-16s flew close air support and reconnaissance; Apache, Chinook and Cougar helicopters supported Dutch and allied troops. Dutch F-16s went to Manas in Kyrgyzstan in 2002, eighteen of them with a KDC-10 tanker, to support Operation Enduring Freedom. From 2004 they flew from Kandahar, and the helicopters followed: AH-64D Apaches from 2004, then in 2006 CH-47D Chinooks and eight F-16s at Kandahar and six Apaches at Tarin Kowt. The F-16s gave close air support to troops in contact and used their reconnaissance pods to help find roadside bombs; the Apaches escorted convoys and the Chinooks and Cougars moved troops and flew medical evacuations. On 31 August 2006 Capt. Michael Donkervoort was killed when his F-16 crashed. The F-16s stayed to support ISAF until 2014, flying the last Dutch mission on 1 July 2014. By then the ministry counts more than 10,000 F-16 missions over Afghanistan. Across the whole twenty-year Dutch commitment, which ended when the last personnel came home at the end of June 2021, the ministry records 25 Dutch military deaths. Resultado The last Dutch F-16 mission was flown on 1 July 2014 and the aircraft came home; the last Dutch personnel left Afghanistan at the end of June 2021. The 10,000-mission figure is the ministry’s rounded total; a precise sortie or flying-hour total was not confirmed from a primary source.
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| Operation Unified ProtectorLibiaReal Fuerza Aérea y Espacial de los Países Bajos | 2011 | Libyan government forces | F-16AM, KDC-10 | — | — | |
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Six Dutch F-16s enforced the UN no-fly zone over Libya; by government decision they did not attack ground targets. When the UN Security Council authorised a no-fly zone over Libya in March 2011, the Netherlands sent six F-16AM fighters to Decimomannu in Sardinia and a KDC-10 tanker, which flew until 4 April, together with the minehunter HNLMS Haarlem. Operation Unified Protector ran from 23 March to 31 October 2011. The Dutch mandate was narrower than that of most allies: the government limited the F-16s to enforcing the no-fly zone and did not allow them to attack ground targets. That kept the Netherlands in the coalition at low political cost, and the F-16s patrolled Libyan airspace for months without dropping a bomb. The Libyan air force had largely stopped flying early in the campaign, so there was little for the patrols to intercept. For an F-16 force still committed over Afghanistan, it meant a second long rotation. The mission is a clear example of how Dutch coalition politics shape air operations: what the aircraft are allowed to do is decided in The Hague as much as by NATO. Resultado The operation ended on 31 October 2011 after the fall of the Gaddafi government. Sortie totals for the Dutch detachment were not found in the sources used.
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| The air war against Islamic StateInherent Resolve and HawijaReal Fuerza Aérea y Espacial de los Países Bajos | 2014–2018 | Estado Islámico | F-16AM | 2,100 | — | |
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Eight Dutch F-16s (six operational, two in reserve) flew strike missions against Islamic State in Iraq and later in Syria, in two deployments. The Netherlands sent eight F-16s to Jordan in 2014, six to fly and two in reserve, to join the coalition against Islamic State. They struck first in Iraq and later in Syria, and by the time Belgium took over the rotation in July 2016 they had flown about 2,100 missions and released weapons more than 1,800 times. One of those strikes was a disaster. Just after midnight on 3 June 2015 two Dutch F-16s bombed an Islamic State vehicle-bomb factory in Hawija, in northern Iraq. The secondary explosion devastated the surrounding district: the coalition’s own assessment is 70 civilian dead, independent field research counts at least 85, and more than 500 were injured. The then defence minister told Parliament that no Dutch involvement in civilian casualties was known, and the truth came out only in October 2019 after reporting by NOS and NRC. The government set aside 4.5 million euro for community projects in Hawija rather than individual compensation. The F-16s returned for a second deployment in January 2018. Resultado The first deployment handed over to Belgium in July 2016; Dutch F-16s returned in January 2018 for a year. Casualty figures are given as a range because the coalition count and independent field research differ; the full toll may be higher.
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| Air defence of NATO’s eastern flankthe drones over PolandReal Fuerza Aérea y Espacial de los Países Bajos | 2014–2025 | Rusia | F-16AM, F-35A | — | — | |
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Dutch F-16s and later F-35s flew NATO air policing and air defence missions on the eastern flank; in September 2025 Dutch F-35s shot down Russian drones that entered Polish airspace. After Russia seized Crimea, the Netherlands sent F-16s on a Baltic mission flown from Poland from 5 September 2014, one of a series of NATO air policing rotations the Dutch have flown on the eastern flank. Since 1 January 2017 the Netherlands and Belgium have also shared Quick Reaction Alert over the Benelux, and the F-35 has flown NATO’s enhanced air policing rotations since taking over the F-16’s tasks in 2024. On the night of 9–10 September 2025 a wave of Russian drones crossed into Polish airspace. Dutch F-35As on NATO air-defence duty engaged them, supported by an Italian early-warning aircraft, a multinational tanker and German Patriot radars, with Polish F-16s also airborne. Several drones were shot down, and press reporting credits most of them to the Dutch jets; by the end of September an F-35A of 313 Squadron carried a kill marking for the action. The engagement showed both the value of the stealth fighter as a sensor and interceptor and the awkward economics of using an expensive missile against a cheap drone. Resultado Several drones were destroyed on the night of 9–10 September 2025, most of them by Dutch F-35s according to press reports. Where the Dutch F-35s were based before the engagement and the exact number of drones they destroyed are reported inconsistently; re-check against official Dutch and Polish statements.
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Cada cifra, verificada
- Geschiedenis van de Koninklijke Luchtmacht — Defensie.nlofficial history outline: 1913, 1938, May 1940, 1953, 1962, 1991, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Libya
- F-35 Lightning II — Defensie.nlin service since autumn 2019; Leeuwarden, Volkel, Luke AFB; F-35A variant; exercises
- The War Zone: last Viper commander on the retirement of the Dutch F-16 (27 September 2024)213 F-16s in two orders, MLU, first flight 3 May 1979, retirement
- Blauw and Fleuren, “Hunters van de Koninklijke Luchtmacht in Nederlands Nieuw-Guinea”, Militaire Spectator, July 196212 Hunter F.4 by carrier from May 1960; first sortie at Biak 21 October 1960
- 20 jaar in Afghanistan — Defensie.nlManas 2002, Kandahar 2004, more than 10,000 F-16 missions, 25 deaths, end June 2021
- Verhalen uit de Meidagen van 1940 — Defensie.nlmore than 2,300 Dutch servicemen killed in May 1940
- Encyclopedie internationale operaties — NIMHoperation start dates: air weapon over Bosnia 12 April 1993, Allied Force 24 March 1999, Unified Protector 23 March 2011, Baltic F-16 mission from Poland 5 September 2014
Figures verified 2026-09-28. Back to the Royal Netherlands Air and Space Force.