Seattle 1978

Seattle 1978

Monday, October 31, 2011

Flak over Esbjerg Denmark

Part two of "War is Scary". 
From Maren Nielsen Andersen's album
From Maren Nielsen Andersen's album
From Maren Nielsen Andersen's album


These photos, too were in Maren's photo albums.  They are scary yet eerily beautiful.  I can't imagine what it would be like to be close enough to photograph an event like this.  Last night I e-mailed The Archives of Danish Occupation History (thankfully they have information posted in English!) to find out if these photos could be dated and already heard back from Henrik Lundtofte Head of Archives.  He wrote that this was probably April 20, 1943.  I have a lot to learn about World War II and I especially don't know much about the war as it impacted Denmark except that Denmark was occupied by Germany.  I did find this information about Halifax II JB930 crash landed near Esbjerg 20/4-1943 which once I have time to read all the pages I will be very helpful to learn about the night.

After the war, the German mines were blown up and she also had a photo of that.

From Maren Nielsen Andersen's album
Maren and Hans Andersen had been in the United States since the first decade of the 1900's but they still had relatives in Denmark.  I can assume that it was a relative of Hans that sent these photos to America.  And again, I am so grateful to Maren for keeping them.

2 comments:

Matt said...

Wow, I have never seen anything like this. Amazing, and as you say, kind of eerie and beautiful at the same time. Your researching prowess, as usual, is astonishing.

Jana said...

Thanks for the comment, Matt. The more I learn the less I know I know!