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A British "greeting" on Hitler's birthday

Lancaster plane heading for Stettin crashed near Vester Vedsted
By Uwe Dall udall@stofanet.dk

From World War II - On the night before 21 April 1943 a great number of bombers passed Denmark targeting Stettin and Rostock. On that occasion at least 17
RAF planes crashed in Danish territory. On the following day the newspaper Vestkysten ("The West Coast") related, "A number of bombers were shot down last night near Esbjerg, Vester Vedsted and Ringkøbing (...) In the moonlight and by the cones from the many search lights it was not difficult to follow the planes through the air."

The crash at the old dike
Furthermore the newspaper reports about the air crash near Vester Vedsted:
"... During the air raid warning in Ribe last night a heavy aerial battle was heard over the town and a moment later a burning plane was seen crash to the south east.
For a couple of hours the glare of the fire could be seen all of the way to Bramminge.

The plane had crashed into Mikkel Hansen's field in Vester Vedsted where it lost the tail section. Then it went on to the old dike between Vester Vedsted and
Raahede. In the middle of the road to Raahede it exploded with a deafening roar and was blown to pieces. The Police and Falck soon came to the area. On the spot
where the tail section was lying a severely wounded airmen was found. He was taken to the hospital in Ribe. The other crew members were killed on the spot. Their charred bodies were lying among the many parts of the plane. It looked as if they had tried to bail out . . ."

An eye witness account
 Aase Kjems of Vester Vedsted, then 22, experienced the event at a very close range. She relates,
- At midnight on 21 April 1943 we were awakened by the air raid warning and a lot of noise from planes. High up we heard the big Lancaster bombers coming from England. They passed us heading for the towns in North Germany. They flew so high that neighter cones of searchlights nor flak could reach them. But this night also
German Messerschmitt fighter had taken off to shoot down the British planes. We clearly saw them in the clear night.

One of them succeeded in hitting one of the British planes and it broke in flames. It was slanting towards the sea from the north east to the south west. It came above
to treetops so close to us that we clearly saw the pilot in the light of the glare of the burning plane.

It went down in a sea of flames close to Vester Vedsted about 1 km away. We heard no explosion even if it was still carrying the bombs - it was heading for the air raid targets. However, next day we saw the remains. The tail section was lying a bit away, nearly undamaged. The rear gunner survived, but later he died at the hospital.
The six others on board died and burned on the spot.

It was said that the German pilot, who shot down the plane, later came to see the result of his "achievement". He was cheered as a hero by the German soldiers.

It took a long time for me to recover from the unpleasant experience. Particularly the sight of the pilot enveloped in flames was hard to forget. I still recall the horror."

They erected a memorial to them
Many years later the residents of Vester Vedsted erected a stone in memory of the air crash. The stone stands near Sprækvej and it was unveiled in April 2012.
It has the names of the 7 members of the crew, a picture of a Lancaster and the commemorative text: "They fought and died for our freedom"

Aase Kjems had the idea about the memorial stone. She remembers what happened then, states eighty-year-old Verner Sørensen who paid the stone and who also
remembers the event. The project was carried out by Kjeld Andreasen and Jan Kruse.