Be careful if you’re going for a swim near the beach this summer! :p :D:dev2:

This seems highly dangerous to me – unless the beach was emptied by personnel on the ground beforehand.

I mean, if you go swimming from a public beach, it is not like you are wandering about on someones landing strip, is it?

Jon

I hope so.

Jon

Yes, I know the area well – my parents live just on the other side of the lake, and I grew up where the Mosquitos flew over the lakes after doing a 120 degrees turn, repassing them to avoid the flak from the german cruiser in the harbour.

The original Shell House (“Shellhuset”) was totally destroyed, and a new building erected in 1950-51.

Danish Wiki here:

http://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shellhuset

Here are 2 maps, I have made, based on information from the exhaustive book “Operation Carthage” by Sasbye and Mahler:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]216120[/ATTACH]

This shows the respective routes after they split up over Ringsted, group 1 (with Sismore and Kleboe) following the coast, groups 2 & 3 the very straight “Roskildevej”.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]216121[/ATTACH]

This shows the routes in close-up – Kleboe hits the lamppost, veers right, a hinge from his tail falls in “Palnatokesgade”, he releases his boms to gain height – only 3 seconds after hitting the lamppost! – thereby destroying a house on “Søndre Boulevard” and finally crashes in garages close to the French Shool at Frederiksberg Allé. The remaining 5 aircraft hits the Shell House precisely as planned, turns left and heads northwest.

Here is a pic from that group, taken seconds after they passed the Shell House, which is the building at the extreme bottom to the right, smoke (or rather just dust, as the bombs hasn´t exploded yet).

[ATTACH=CONFIG]216122[/ATTACH]

Groups 2 & 3 – including the aircraft form which the shown footage stems – passes the Zoological Garden and Kleboes crashed airplane, mistaking the smoke from its fire for smoke from the target. Most of these aircraft slightly missed the Shell House – when they eventually crosses the lake, they were approximately 100 metres too far to the left.
Only wing commander Iredale and flight lieutenant Smith from the second group hit the Shell House, all aircraft from the third group except wing commander Denton, who realized the mistake, bombing the school and the block behind it.
As can be seen, they make their turn after that, goes up along “Nørrevoldgade”, turns more and crosses the lakes again, passing over “Fælledparken”, where a Mustang crashed, being hit from flak.

Jon

Very fascinating documentary – I haven´t seen the Sismore interviews before.

There is, though, a minor fault in the documentary – in the animated film strip, the Mossies are coming over the lake, as the first 5 did, the sixth, piloted by Peter Kleboe, having hit a lamppost moments ago and at this time heading west towards its fate near the French School at Frederiksberg – but then the cartoonist has lost his sense of direction and lets the bombs enter the building from the side pointing towards the railroad tracks at Vesterport. Now a bronze propeller blade is mounted on the side of the building where the bombs went in, besides a memory plate.

This first flight of 6 came from the south, following first the coastline, and for the last kilometres first the raillroad tracks and then cut diagonally across the lake.

The other 2 groups of 6 Mossies followed another route, coming directly from the west, using the totally straight road from Roskilde as a guide. Unfortunately, Peter Kleboe crashed right on their line of approach – with devastating tragedy at the school being the result.

Had Kleboes plane clipped the lamppost with the other side of the tail, he would have probably veered to the right and ended up either in the harbour or on Amager – in any case way out of line of the other two groups.

Four metres more to the right when he hit that lamppost – and the school wouldn´t have been bombed. Interestingly, as Sismore says – that might have meant more bombs hitting the Shell House – and as a result, more dead Resistance leaders….

Regards

Jon

Anyway, the Daimler-Benz guesses were certainly what I would have said too. The engine is a Mikulin AM42, but the valve gear is a pure unadulterated and identical copy of the DB 600 series roller rocker assembly.

The photo is as is was when we removed the cover, the discolouration is due to water having been in there.
Hopefully in quite a long time we should have one of them running. (There are two).

Pete

– – – Updated – – –

Nick

Yes, that is a fabulous web site, I wish they visited more museums, the photography is really good.

Pete

Wow. 46 litres…that´s big!

Jon

Narsarsuaq – BW1 airbase

While strolling around the open dump at BW1 some 20 years ago, looking for anything older than the last 40 years, the largest items was a couple of yellow GMC school buses.

From aeroplanes, the largest item visible then was the cabin of some not-so-small highwinged monoplane, maybe a Norseman or something like it. But the most interesting item by far was the easily recognizable ball-turret from a B17, pretty much complete except for the guns and some of the perspex (or what it is?).

One of the huge rims from a B29 was visible for many years at the end of the runway.

What I took as a wing from a Harvard was found in the shrubbery close to the Youth Hostel – I have pics of that on another harddrive, including some of a makers plate, if anyone can make a proper ID from that.

A Harvard that crashed on the Inland Ice near BW1 is being rebuilt in Denmark, by the way. Some find……:

http://www.texan-thepilotmaker.dk/index.php?id=1

If you care to babelfish the text, you will learn it is going to be a flyer – hydraulic tests are due to be done, though a lot of work still remains. All involved are skilled amateurs – though some are engineers – only working as time permits.

Jon