Airwar over Denmark

Airwar over Denmark

 By Søren C. Flensted

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Allied:
1939-1940 Updated 12/6-24
1941 Updated 28/4-22
1942 Updated 14/7-24
1943 Updated 15/4-24
1944 Updated 15/9-24
1945 Updated 4/12-22


German:
1939
1940 New 30/11-23
1941 New 23/7-21
1942 Updated 24/7-24
1943 Updated 28/1-23
1944 Updated 23/7-23
1945 Updated 16/7-23

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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 Their permission to add this unique and previously unpublished material to “Airwar over Denmark” was given freely to me and exclusively for this site, which is highly appreciated.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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