 LAN R5679
crashed west of Grønhøj on 25 SEP 1942. All 7 airmen perished.
See
Google Map p114 Lancaster R5679.Account from Tage Filbert on 3 January
2013 about
Lancaster R5679 and the Decoy A/F Grove/Karup.
The air crash
On 25 September 1942 he was 10 years old and
lived at Resenfeldevej 11 together with his father Thomas Filbert and big
brother Johannes, then 20 years old.
Now his sister-in-law Kirstine Filbert
lives on the farm.
All of the evening a number of German fighters
had been in the air from Karup (Fliegerhorst
Grove). The family heard the fire fight. They saw the bomber, violently
burning, lose height.
When it was obvious that the plane had crashed,
Thomas Filbert and Johannes hurried to it along hedgerows, so that it was easy
to hide if a German fighter
suddenly appeared. They saw a sea of flames and at
least 2 airmen in the plane, but they were dead. It was impossible to get close
to the plane.
A number of cartridges blew up during the fire
and bullets flew far away. Some of them hit the tin roof of Resenfeldevej 11, 1
km from the crash site as the crow flies.
When the Germans arrived they sealed off the area
for a while. A couple of days later Tage went to the plane to have a closer
look. He and many others collected
pieces of wreckage that have been lost during
the more than 70 years after the crash.
Decoy A/F Grove/Karup
Photos RAF1943 *
Luftwaffe1944 * SDFE1999 *
KRAK1954/2018 * JU 88 Grove *
JU 88G Skrydstrup * JU 88
G-6 Faarhus
The Germans would like Allied airmen to attack
this decoy airfield instead of Grove Airfield, 8 km from here.
Airstrips,
width 52 m, have gone, but traces of firebreaks, 5.5 m wide, ploughed in the
airstrips, are still seen in 2020 together with flak-positions and parts of
buildings.
Tage Filbert (1932-2019) told about the decoy airfield
that there were many lamp standards, a control tower and other buildings, and a
house for 4 soldiers.
There was an old
boss assisted by an old man and a boy.
There was also a guard who was replaced very often, because the soldier had to
return to more active duty.
About 20 wooden planes were parked at hedgerows.
They were painted to look like real planes. Thomas Filbert had some beehives,
so the old boss asked him to
remove a swarm of bees that had settled in a dummy
plane. When Thomas Filbert and his son-in-law had removed the propeller to get
closer to the bees, the
German guard appeared. He had heard nothing about the
request from his boss, so they were detained for some hours till the boss
arrived!
The loose grey sand of the dummy airstrips was frequently harrowed. Once a
German pilot wanted to land on the grey concrete airstrip. He was very surprised
when his wheels touched the loose sand! The crew of 2 or 3 airmen survived, but
the plane was totally damaged!
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