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Statement.
The entire content of this site is the result of many years of careful work
by me with additional content from research friends and associates of mine who
have very kindly sanctioned the inclusion of their original material.
I think it is important to stress to the reader that the basis of “Airwar
over Denmark” comes from contemporary reports and accounts I have found archived
in Denmark, England, USA and Germany as well as from personal accounts by
eyewitnesses and war veterans.
In addition to this solid foundation to the site, in recent years a number of
accounts and pictures have been spontaneously provided by relatives of the
veterans involved. Their permission to add this unique and previously
unpublished material to “Airwar over Denmark” was given freely to me and
exclusively for this site, which is highly appreciated.
PLEASE NOTE: This is not a “copy paste” site as are some of the other sites
that can be found developing the same subject elsewhere on the net.
Unfortunately these often materially misleading sites are the result of lifting
excerpts without permission from sites like mine and then passed off as their
own work. Alas for the sake of accuracy and posterity, there is no original
research that can otherwise redeem this act and enhance the remainder of their
site.
Out of respect for these unique permissions and for my own research I would
be grateful if there are no future attempts to lift and plagiarise my work.
It is for these reasons that I hope that you will enjoy the unique experience
of visiting “Airwar over Denmark”.
Søren Flensted
Member of The Denmark Team
The Denmark team is a small team of dedicated persons who do voluntary work
for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Membership of The Denmark Team is
only open by unanimous invitation.
Introduction to Airwar over Denmark.
This home page is established to commemorate the Allied and German flyers that
flew over Denmark during the Second World War and in some cases lost their lives
in Denmark and the surrounding seas. Some of the airmen came down in Denmark,
but quite a few were washed ashore on the Danish coast after having crashed into
the sea.
Included are also those who ditched in the seas surrounding Denmark and were
picked up and brought to Denmark as well as those who were picked up by Danish
fishing vessels and taken to England.
It is believed that approximately 52 allied flyers were sailed to Denmark where
they were taken prisoners of war by the German troops while 45 were sailed to
England.
As of July 2011 we have started to include those aircrafts that were lost
without trace when on a mission to Denmark.
The first time an allied aircraft crashed in DK was on 21/4 1940 but not until
April 1943 did an allied flyer manage to escape to Sweden and thus return to
England. A total of 97 flyers managed to do this during the following two years.
On 8 May 1945 the last two English flyers were brought to Denmark after having
ditched their aircraft in the North Sea on 3 May 1945.
With regard to quite a few crew members being reported to and arrested by the
Danish police, the special condition in Denmark in 1942, and particularly that
of South Jutland, has to be taken into consideration. After having been under
German control since the war of 1864, South Jutland as far north as the stream
Kongeåen had been returned to Denmark through a ballot in 1920. Between 1864 and
1920 a large number of Germans moved to South Jutland, some with the help of a
German organisation which bought up farms and resold them on favourable terms to
Germans who wanted to move to South Jutland.
About 15% of the people in South Jutland had voted “no” to the reunification in
1920. Thus there were quite a large number of pro-German people in the area and
in certain municipalities these people even made up the majority.
It must also be taken into consideration that the Danish government supported
co-operation with the occupying power and had ordered the police to co-operate
with the Germans. Furthermore, Prime Minister Wilhelm Buhl had on 2/9 1942 given
his (in)famous anti-sabotage speech in which he encouraged the notification of
people opposing the government line of conduct.
Presumably, this effect rubbed off on the population as a whole.
See the table below for more info concerning the surviving flyers
Several allied aircrafts were attacked by German planes over Denmark but made it
back to England. Where these and their German adversaries are known, they are
included.
Approximately 1025 flyers from Great Britain,
Canada,
New Zealand,
Australia,
Holland, Norway and Poland and 135 American flyers have rested or now rest in
Denmark, the first body being found washed ashore on 17/11-1939.
Most of the Americans were brought out of the country in April / May 1948 and
transferred to Belgium and later to the United States.
The first German aircraft to come down in Denmark was on 7/10 1939, and on 8/10
1939 the first German flyers were picked up by a Danish ship.
The first German flyer to be washed ashore in Denmark was on 26/11 1938.
Approximately 9700 German military personnel today rest in Denmark of which
approximately 7300 died during the last six month of the war. Only a minority of
which were from the German Luftwaffe.
Most of the deceased Luftwaffe personnel died due to training accidents and only
very few due to actual air combat.
The use of Danish names and letters.
This homepage uses the Danish letter system. It differs mainly from the English
system by using the letters
Æ Ø and Å.
The letter Æ can be written as AE, Ø as OE and Å as AA.
The names of the different locations in Denmark are written as they are spelled
in Danish:
Examples:
Als = Alsen
Fyn = Funen
Jylland = Jutland
København = Copenhagen
Lille Bælt = The Small Belt
Sjælland = Sealand
Store Bælt = The Great Belt
Øresund = The Sound
Where nothing else is mentioned the locations are found on the Danish mainland
of Jylland (Jutland)
Dates: Dates are in the British manner, ie day-month-year.
Statistics of allied flyers in Denmark:
| |
Gave up and asked for someone to call the
Danish police or The German Wehrmacht |
Escaped |
Captured by
Danish police |
Captured by the
German Wehrmacht |
Betrayed to the
German Wehrmacht |
Arrested by the
Danish police and the German Wehrmacht in unison |
Admitted to
hospital and there arrested by the German Wehrmacht |
Rescued at sea
and brought to Denmark and arrested by the German Wehrmacht |
No details known
about who captured these POW`s. |
| Total |
16 |
98 |
151 |
268 |
18 |
11 |
46 |
52 |
5 |
| 1940 |
10 |
0 |
2 |
8 |
3 |
1 |
5 |
0 |
0 |
| 1941 |
0 |
0 |
12 |
5 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
2 |
0 |
| 1942 |
2 |
0 |
76 |
7 |
8 |
10 |
8 |
8 |
0 |
| 1943 |
0 |
9 |
28 |
68 |
0 |
0 |
8 |
18 |
4 |
| 1944 |
4 |
62 |
33 |
151 |
0 |
0 |
19 |
24 |
1 |
| 1945 |
0 |
27 |
0 |
29 |
7 |
0 |
5 |
0 |
0 |
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