Bit of airwar history unearthed yesterday

[Spitfire]

While digging around the foundations of a house in Vester Skerning the southern part of Funen yesterday, a bricklayer unearthed a bit of WWII history.
A long 3 barrel cannon and boxes with ammunition belts.
When the police was called, they discovered that it was the canon from a RAF Stirling LJ526 which was shot down by a German nightfighter April 23 1944 while on a “Gardening” mission (Dropping mines)

There were actually two RAF planes shot down that night, but LJ526 crashed near the village Øster Skerning – quite close to Vester Skerning, and it is obvious that some locals had the luck to get to the wreck before the Germans did, and they obviously carried the cannon away and hid it - by digging it down.
Probably to hand it over to the resistance later. But then it was all forgotten.

The crew of LJ526 were all killed in the crash, and buried fast and quite primitive in two unmarked mass graves by the Germans.
After the liberation in may -45 the graves were discovered and opened and the airmen were identified. Since the Germans had not even offerede the dead airmen coffins, the corpses were very molested, but what was left of the airmen were re-buried at a proper service at the churchyard in Svendborg, where the graves still are to be seen today.
Every year the local people of Svendborg honour the British airmen with a ceremony.

The wreck of LJ526 outside the village Øster Skerning

The crew of LJ526:
Nr. 1: J/89959 Pilot Officer, Air Gunner, Roderick Hugh Cameron. Born august 1 1924 in Toronto, Canada.

Nr. 2: 1696297 Sergeant, Flight Engineer, Alan Richardson Redfean. Married, 27 years old.

Nr. 3: 410762 Sergeant, Air Gunner, Raymond Thomas Walker, Royal Australian Air Force. Born December 6 1918

Nr. 4: 1468683 Sergeant, Air Gunner, Jack Leslie Stean.

NR. 5: 175342 Pilot officer, Navigator, David Hughes.

Nr. 6: 150240 Flight Lieutenant, Pilot, age 22.

The seventh man left the crew due to eardisorder and was replaced by:

Not in photo: J/95100 PilotOfficer, Air Bomber, John Menzies Ronahan, Royal Canadian Air Force. Age: 35.

Lets us never forget.

 

[too much coffee]

Nice town, Svendborg..............got married there February 1985.
Cheers, coffee

 

[Silver Dollar]

Wow. That's a great find.

 

[Spitfire]

I am affraid it was not in such good shape after all the years underground. According to the papers, all three barrels were bend and the whole thing rather rusty. But the police are still looking for a museum who would be interested to take it off their hands.

 

[Smithy]

I really enjoyed that Søren, thanks for posting it!

 

[kiltie]

Look at those kids...
Always seems hard to keep that part of the history in perspective.
Thanks for posting.

 

[MPicciotto]

I am affraid it was not in such good shape after all the years underground. According to the papers, all three barrels were bend and the whole thing rather rusty. But the police are still looking for a museum who would be interested to take it off their hands.

My house looks like a museum. Does that count? Depending on the extent of bureaucratic red tape included in the passing off of the remains of the gun to a museum I would imagine it not to hard to find one to take them. Were I a museum over there and in possession of the resources and materials to properly preserve and display them I would be honoured to do so.

Matt

 

[Edward]

Look at those kids...
Always seems hard to keep that part of the history in perspective.
Thanks for posting.

Yes, it's horrific to think that it was basically wee boys that got thrown out there into the worst of it.... officially, the youngest age for British forces in total was only sixteen (though, thanks to a doctored birth certificate and a desperate recruiting sergeant, a relative of mine joined up in the Great War at 14, ended up in the Somme at 15...). Even the eldest of that lot was really only a baby. Looking at the latest news from Afghanistan, it seems very little has changed, alas.

 

[Smithy]

Yes, it's horrific to think that it was basically wee boys that got thrown out there into the worst of it.... officially, the youngest age for British forces in total was only sixteen (though, thanks to a doctored birth certificate and a desperate recruiting sergeant, a relative of mine joined up in the Great War at 14, ended up in the Somme at 15...). Even the eldest of that lot was really only a baby. Looking at the latest news from Afghanistan, it seems very little has changed, alas.

Edward, there were far fewer underage combatants during WWII than WWI. It is extremely rare to find people under 18 from the UK, Dominions or USA who fought in WWII, unlike WWI where it was far easier to lie about one's age and get away with it.

Saying that being in your late teens or early twenties and having to go through the things that those people had to go through was hellish.

My father flatted with a chap not long after the war who at the age of 24 had been a pilot on Lancasters. He was terribly mucked up about it and my father told me he would often get horrendously drunk at night and weep. He'd told my father how often coming back from ops over Germany they had had to hose out what was left of the tail gunner with a water hose out of the shattered turret. That is a shocking thing for a very, very young man to have to go through.

 

[Edward]

Edward, there were far fewer underage combatants during WWII than WWI. It is extremely rare to find people under 18 from the UK, Dominions or USA who fought in WWII, unlike WWI where it was far easier to lie about one's age and get away with it.

Ah, was conscription 18 and up, then, for WW2? I imagine it would be much easier to tell if someone was 18 rather than 16.

Saying that being in your late teens or early twenties and having to go through the things that those people had to go through was hellish.

My father flatted with a chap not long after the war who at the age of 24 had been a pilot on Lancasters. He was terribly mucked up about it and my father told me he would often get horrendously drunk at night and weep. He'd told my father how often coming back from ops over Germany they had had to hose out what was left of the tail gunner with a water hose out of the shattered turret. That is a shocking thing for a very, very young man to have to go through.

Jinkies, yes, that can't have been easy. Hell, I know I'm struggling enough with having a friend who is currently terminally ill, let alone end up in that sort of situation. Especially for that generation where there just wasn't the understanding of things like PTSD that we have now.

Being Irish, I don't have so much connection with WW2 combat as folks from other parts of the UK (conscription was never extended to Northern Ireland., for obvious reasons). But I do remember a couple of folks.... we had a BoB pilot in our church congregation.... he never talked about it you wouldn't really have known he'd been there til after he died... Then there was an old Dublin boy, father of my Scoutmaster, who had joined the British Navy to see the world... he was sent to Scandanavia, iirc, towards the end of the war. Two others made the biggest impact on me in terms of what it must have been like to go through... there was the old boy that was warden of the caravan site in Scotland my folks used to take us to. Lovely old guy, couldn't have met friendlier. At least, until a German family arrived late one night. Eventually he agreed to let them stay for just the one night, but he couldn't get past their nationality, his brother and best friend who joined up with him having been killed in the war. My primary school headmaster was exRAF... refused to buy Robertson's marmalade and other products (one of his commanding officers had been one of tyhose Robertsons), refused to have anything to do with Remembrance Day events, still does to this day. He was put through all kinds of hell... sent out on a mission with only one engine working in the plane (he was a bomber pilot, that's all I know), he turned back to save his crew.... and for his pains was branded 'LMF' on his record. Shot down over either Germany or occupied France (not sure which), he did what he felt was his duty and risked execution to escape back to Blighty.... where he was promptly imprisoned, interrogated, and apparently treated far worse than by the Germans while they attempted to ascertain that he wasn't a spy. I know he was very bitter about the treatment he received from his commanding officers at this point. He also carried a great weight of guilt for the civilian lives, in particular children, that he was responsible for killing during those bombing raids. That was, I gather, the reason that he got into education, to make some atonement for that.... Those sorts of experiences, well, it's unimaginable to me how psychologically destructive that must have been, which makes it all the more important that the true horrors of the war must not be forgotten in order that, I might hope, we don't go there again. Slim hope, given human nature and subsequent history, but still...

 

[Smithy]

Those sorts of experiences, well, it's unimaginable to me how psychologically destructive that must have been, which makes it all the more important that the true horrors of the war must not be forgotten in order that, I might hope, we don't go there again. Slim hope, given human nature and subsequent history, but still...

We can but hope Edward.

Your mention of your headmaster reminded me of Sqn Ldr Tommy Broom who died recently and whose obituary was in the Telegraph a week or two back. After leaving the RAF just after the war Tommy worked for the Control Commission in Germany to as he put it, "help rebuild the country I had spent years trying to destroy."

 

[Spitfire]

@ Edward and Smithy: Thank you guys for taking this thread so far. It was not my intention when I first posted, but I feel it is absolutely right to talk about theese things too.