Danish sources
about the officers from HAL BB378 -
Easy to compare with Mission to Sjaelland
by F/O C. W. Fry.
From Anders Bjørnvad: De
fandt en vej (They found a way – translated by AS)
about the three officers, Pilot “Peter” Bartter,
Navigator G.T. Fry and Wireless Operator
E. Howell:
“In the early evening they reached main road 4 at
“Elverdamskroen” (here) between Holbæk and Roskilde. Here they met Svend Ove Frederiksen from Møllegård
(here)
who
was
on his way to a meeting. Frederiksen did not speak English, but he had
read quite a bit of Esperanto. So had “Peter” Bartter and thanks to their
language
studies
they could make themselves understood.
As Frederiksen
knew that smallholder Krügermeier, who lived nearby, had spent a number of
years in the United States and thus spoke excellent English, he took
the
three airmen to Krügermeier. Right away food was on the table, and later
lodgings were provided in a room upstairs. Indirectly Count Scheel, Ryegaard,
was
informed and on Sunday morning he showed up with two suits of clothes,
coats and shirts. Krügermeier delivered one suit of clothes.
The Sunday dinner was
chicken, and during the meal the radio brought an announcement about the
criminal offence it would be to assist crashed airmen.
The Germans knew that
7-8 airmen were at large, and the announcement was for all around the table:
“From the German side attention is again drawn to the fact that any
assistance to soldiers from foreign powers is prohibited by the German rules
of war and is
considered as a criminal offence to be severely punished,
eventually with a death penalty.
Any person who knows the whereabouts of a member of an enemy force must
report to the nearest German authority without delay. It is also punishable
to give
them shelter, clothes, money, food, any kind of information and
similar assistance.”
Undisturbed everyone continued the meal at Krügermeier's, Krügermeier having already
violated all of the rules mentioned by the Germans.
Count Scheel had contacted
his brother in Roskilde, Count Mogens Scheel, about the transport of the three
airmen. Mogens Scheel called the head of the Falck
Station E. Arboe-Rasmussen
and informed him. (Falck – a private rescue and salvage organization with a
lot of ambulances and trucks.) Arboe-Rasmussen then
called his deputy Lindell who was at a birthday party with Juul Jensen from the main station
of Falck. Lindell said that they might bring the airmen to him right
away.
After dinner an ambulance from Falck in Roskilde took the three airmen from
the Krügermeiers to Copenhagen, where they managed to join the last part of
Juul Jensen's birthday party.
From here Stig Jensen, the later chief of supply operations on Zealand, was
contacted. A couple of days later he arranged the transport of the airmen to
Sweden." |