Korsør Avis about air crashes                         På dansk                          Updated: 31 MAR 2014

Cutting from Korsør Avis (the local newspaper) to www.airmen.dk received from Kurt Rehder on 4 March 2010.
The article must be from Wednesday 21 April 1943, written in the morning to be printed in the newspaper edited in the afternoon.

A bomb fell at Strandgaarden, which caught fire. (See p152x LAN X)
Planes shot down at Drøsselbjerg and Kongsmark, too.
(See p158 HAL HR722 and p157 STI R9261)
No people seriously hurt.

"Last night the air war came heavily to West Zealand. Planes passed from midnight to 2.30 and there were a number of aerial combats causing the crashes of 3 foreign planes. One of them was shot down at Strandgaarden on Revet at Korsør, the second exploded over Kongsmark at farmer N. P. Frandsen's farm, while the third crashed into the water 50 m off Drøsselbjerg Klint (Cliff).

The first planes were heard about 23.30, and the observation posts had an easy job in the moonlit night. There was a brisk flak fire from Korsør. Search light made long light cones in the sky and forced the foreign planes to fly low. People really felt the air war and many went into their basements.

At midnight a big American plane coming from the Belt was hit. It came in north of Sprogøvej and continued over Strandgaarden where it was hit again. It caught fire and exploded. Sparks from the planes were hurled far away and a bomb fell 20 m north of Strandgaarden where today a big crater reminds us how close the farm was to being completely destroyed. The plane crashed into the field on the other side of the road where tall flames appeared. The plane burned in a short time. Undoubtedly the crew perished at the explosion.

At Kongsmark there was also a dramatic course of events. Here there had been an aerial combat and the foreign plane crashed over farmer Frandsen's farm. Before that it exploded in the air and parts of it were scattered over several acres. Also here the crew was pulverized to the most horrifying extent.

The farm did not catch fire contrary to what happened at Strandgaarden and at Drøsselbjerg. Here the plane crashed into the water 50 m off Drøsselbjerg Klint (Cliff) and tenant  Løjstrup's farm caught fire due to machine gun fire or incendiaries. It burned out almost completely. The farm house was salvaged. Of the livestock only the horses were saved. The plane that had crashed into the water showed clear signs of an aerial combat. Its fuselage was splintered and parts of the plane were scattered along the beach. The 3 bodies that drifted ashore had bullet wounds, so the crew may have been killed before the plane crashed.

A number of bombs also fell in our neighbourhood. In Korsør an unexploded bomb at "Villa Nelletidda" made the police evacuate the house and a couple of adjacent houses. The many people were taken to Halskov School, where D.K.B. took care of them. (D.K.B. = Danske Kvinders Beredskab, Danish women in a voluntary organization established for this kind of events.)

This morning a bomb squad arrived from Næstved, but as yet there is no further information about the bomb. Unexploded bombs have also been found north of Korsør. A couple of houses have had to be evacuated and the police have had to seal off some areas.

The killed airmen from Drøsselbjerg and the bodies from Strandgaarden and Kongsmark have been taken to the chapel of rest at Stillinge Church."

PS. The last line is not correct. 4 bodies from HAL HR722 near Drøsselbjerg and 7 bodies from STI R9261 at Kongsmark were taken from Kirke Stillinge to Svinø Churchyard. The rest of the airmen of  HAL HR722 near Drøsselbjerg were taken to Svinø Churchyard and buried there when they were found in a number of days.
There cannot have been any airmen from LAN X that crashed near Strandgaarden!
In 1943 Vicar K. F. Olesen wrote in an addition to the church register of Kirke Stillinge: "During overflight of English bombers there was an aerial battle in which an
English bomber, burning, crashed in Kongsmark near the stream in a field belonging to Ølandsgaarden. All perished. The bodies from here and from other crashes in Drøsselbjerg, 11 airmen altogether, were in our chapel of rest during the first days of Easter. Then they were taken away and buried in Svinø. Many blown into a
number of parts, so the figure 11 is an estimate." (Copy from Helge Christiansen)