Authors: Martin Bowman
Tags: #Bisac Code 1: HIS027140
At Fersfield the Mosquito crews were joined by 31 Mustang pilots of 64, 126 and 234 Squadrons (11 Group Fighter Command), which flew in from RAF Bentwaters. The fighters, who were to escort the Mosquitoes and eliminate flak positions in the target area, were led by their Belgian Wing Commander (later Lieutenant General Avi.e.r.) Mike Donnet
CVO DFC CG
, born of Belgian parents in Richmond, England in 1917, had escaped to England on 5 August 1941 after Belgium had capitulated, in a two-seater Stampe biplane with a fellow officer. Twelve Mustangs of 126 Squadron would escort the first wave and six from 64 Squadron; two from 126 Squadron would escort the second wave and eight Mustangs of 64 Squadron, the third wave. Three Mustangs from 234 Squadron would sweep from 10 miles north (Værløse air base) towards Copenhagen.
At 08.55 on 12 March the formation was airborne, forming up over Fersfield; 5 minutes later it crossed the English coastline north-east of Norwich, with a direct course for the first checkpoint 375 miles away at Hvide Sand in Jutland. The weather was stormy, with surface winds gusting at 50 knots, making it difficult to control the aircraft. After crossing the North Sea at 50ft to avoid radar detection, the windshields had become coated with salt spray, which reduced visibility; some pilots tried slowing down so that they could clear patches of their screens with gloves or cloths. The checkpoint was dead-on with the force making landfall at Hvide Sand at 10.20. Three Mustangs were forced to turn back due to bird-strike damage. Over Jutland, the aircraft, still flying at minimum height, begun to attract attention of Danes and Germans alike. The
Jagdfliegerfuhrer
(German Fighter Control) received continuous reports as they flew across Denmark but failed to advise Copenhagen until after the bombing began. The formation flew on by way of Give and along the northern side of Vejle Fjord to Juelsminde and then across the Great Belt. On the island of Zealand the checkpoint was Tissø, an almost circular lake chosen as an easy landmark. Here the formation spilt into the three wave formations ready to be escorted by the Mustangs. The first wave, lead by Group Captain Bateson, set course for Copenhagen at minimum altitude with an escort of eleven Mustangs, one having been forced to return due to bird-strike damage. Flying on Bateson’s port side was Air Vice Marshal Embry and Peter Clapham. The remaining aircraft carried out ‘rate-one turns’ (orbits) of the lake, once for the second wave, twice for third and three times for the remaining FPU Mossie. This gave a distance of approximately 9 miles between each wave, an interval of approximately two minutes flying time.
On the outskirts of Copenhagen the first wave began to pick out the details of the target area. Despite the bumpy conditions Ted Sismore identified the target by the green and brown stripes and Bateson led his force over the rooftops. The aircraft began to move into attack formation, bomb doors were opened, bombs fused and speed was increased to 300 mph. The escorting Mustangs increased speed and began to seek out their targets, the flak positions, most being unmanned at the time. The first wave continued their run-in towards the final checkpoint when 800 yards from the target tragedy struck. The leading aircraft of the second flight, the fourth Mosquito in the first wave, collided with a 130ft high floodlight pylon in the marshalling yards at Enghave and went into a vertical dive. The pilot, Wing Commander Peter Kleboe
DSO DFC AFC
, aged 28, was the newly appointed CO of 21 Squadron.
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His navigator was Canadian Flying Officer Reg Hall aged 30. Flight Lieutenant T.M. ‘Mac’ Hetherington
RCAF
and Flight Lieutenant J.K. Bell were flying No.6 on the starboard side of, and slightly behind, Kleboe’s aircraft. Hetherington observed:
We watched each other and attempted to follow the leader by ‘biting hard into his tail’and at the same time, staying clear of his slipstream. We followed each other like shadows. We were altogether; 12ft lower than the first three aircraft. We knew that we had to turn, but apparently Wing Commander Kleboe had not seen the pylon or had reacted too slowly. Suddenly, through the side window I observed his aircraft climb at a very steep angle and fall off to port. Squadron Leader A.C. Henderson and I instinctively threw our aircraft to starboard and continued on towards the target.
Flight Lieutenant Ken Greenwood, flying on the port side of Kleboe’s aircraft, was just 25ft away on Kleboe’s port side. He adds:
About 10 to 15 seconds before the accident, bomb doors had been opened, copying the leader. Kleboe’s aircraft lost height, some 15ft, and I suppose by peripheral vision, I saw the pylon and realised that he was going to fly into it. As the aircraft struck the pylon, part of the port engine was damaged. The Mosquito rose almost vertically and then rapidly to port. I had to take violent evasive action to prevent a mid-air collision and swung to hard to port. Kleboe’s two bombs struck a building in Sønder Boulevard (one, a dud, failed to explode) and eight civilians were killed. The Mosquito was observed waggling its wings and trailing smoke before it crashed on the Alleenberg garages at 74 Frederiksberg Allé adjacent to the
Jeanne d’Arc
School, a catholic institution run by St. Joseph sisters and known as the French School. The force of the explosion from the fuel created a huge pall of black smoke. Kleboe died instantly. His Canadian navigator, Reg Hall, was flung out of the aircraft in the impact and his body fell through the roof of the Frederiksberg Theatre, landing at the feet of the female director who had just poured herself a cup of coffee.
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At the time of the Mosquito crash the pupils at the French School were all in their classrooms and the Sisters quickly ordered the children to the cellars. [In the confusion it appears that at least one Mosquito bombed the school by mistake, one bomb hitting the west wing and another striking the staircase by the east wing and chapel]. Before all could take refuge the first of the Mosquito’s bombs had begun exploding. The north-west and eastern corners of the school building collapsed killing many of the children and Sisters and trapping others on the upper floors. In the cellar shelter, after the first wave of bombing, some of the children escaped through the windows only to fall victim to the second wave.
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Then the cellar began to flood from a broken water pipe. A fire broke out on the upper floors but the emergency command centre received the alarm very late due to the breakdown on the emergency communication system. Meanwhile, the main fire department force was sent to the
Shellhaus.
Passers-by and the Sisters, together with fifteen firemen, struggled to rescue those trapped in the school, fight the fire and drive the ambulances. The water supply failed due to the ruptured mains and, aided by the strong wind, the school burned to the ground in less than two hours. Two firemen were killed when walls fell on them. When the fire was at last extinguished and the rescuers reached the cellar they found forty-two children huddled together, having died from drowning or other injuries. Altogether, eighty-six children lost their lives and sixty-seven were injured but 396 were saved. Ten St. Joseph Sisters died and thirty-five were injured.
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The remaining aircraft of the first wave continued over the target area. Group Captain Bateson being the first to attack with his bombs going in between the second and third floors of the west wing at 11.15: right on schedule. Air Vice Marshal Embry and Squadron Leader Peter Clapham and Squadron Leader Tony Carlisle and Flight Lieutenant N.J. ‘Rex’ Ingram got their bombs away. Carlisle followed with Embry directly behind and observed the Air Vice Marshal’s bombs strike the building at street level. Henderson and ‘Mac’ Hetherington each put their two bombs through the roof of the Shellhaus. Embry moved into Henderson’s flight path, which forced him to go over Embry. Henderson’s navigator, Bill Moore, said, “Look, the old man’s going sightseeing!” After getting their bombs away, the first wave scattered and exited Copenhagen at roof-top height in a northwesterly direction over the city and made for home. Until now, the Germans had not sounded the air-raid warning. The Danish Civil Air Defence had also followed the path of the aircraft, realizing the danger to the city it tried to persuade the Germans to sound the alarm. By the time the Germans took action, bombs were already smashing into the
Shellhaus
. Official records have revealed that the German officers responsible for this negligence were court-martialled. As the Mustangs crossed the target area, the second loss of the day occurred. Flak tracer shells bracketed Flight Lieutenant David Drew
DFC
’s Mustang. The aircraft had sustained a hit and a thin black line of smoke appeared from the underside of the aircraft. Drew banked his Mustang and turned north. It disappeared over the rooftops and crashed in Fælled Park. Drew was killed. He was later buried at Bispebjerg Churchyard together with Peter Kleboe and Reginald Hall.
As the attack started and the first bombs exploded, tiles began to fall down leaving a hole in the roof of the
Shellhaus
. In a panic reaction, Ove Kampmann, one of the twenty-six Danish prisoners imprisoned on the sixth floor, laid himself down on the bed with a blanket over his head. The sound of banging on doors was heard. Together with the other surviving prisoners, Kampmann made his way across the empty attic area on the east side of the building. The stairs were slippery with blood from the dead and dying and it was almost impossible for the prisoners to find space for their feet. When they reached the first floor level they saw that the carnage was even more appalling: every stair was piled high with bodies. Stumbling and slipping over the dead Germans, they made their way to the ground floor and the main entrance. There was not a guard in sight. The men split into pairs or went off alone.
One of the hostages, Poul Borking, an SOE operative who had been parachuted into Denmark, was being interrogated on the fifth floor and was seated so that he could see out of a window. A
Gestapo
agent was telling Borking that as an SOE officer he could expect to be shot when at that precise moment he spotted the Mosquitoes streaking towards the building. He leapt to his feet and turned over the table in front of him onto his interrogator and ran from the room past another stunned
Gestapo
man who was standing by the door. The first bombs exploded as Borking reached the third floor and when he reached the main door he found all the guards dead. Borking continued on to the main railway station where he boarded a train escaping from Copenhagen. Another prisoner, Christian Lyst Hansen, in cell 6, was reading in his bed when he heard the roar of engines followed by two violent explosions. With a solid wooden stool he was able to batter his cell door open and take the cell door keys from the panic-stricken SS guard. Hansen began opening the other cell doors, freeing all the prisoners from cells 7 to 22 although it was not possible to reach cells 1 to 5 because a bomb had blown a large hole at the corner of the corridor on Nyropsgade.
Aage Schoch, a member of the Freedom Council who had been captured on 2 September and held in one of the attic cells and Dr. Mogens Fog, another Freedom Council member who was arrested on 14 October, made their way down a rear stairway. When they reached the second floor they thought that they would have a better chance to escape if they used a main stairway. They moved to the front of the building only to find the stairway littered with dead and dying Germans as a bomb had exploded on a guard post just outside, killing everyone on the street. The blast caught those who were fleeing down the stairway inside. To reach the street the escaping prisoners were forced to step over and walk on the dead.
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Ove Gessø Pedersen in cell No.9, one of the so-called ‘arrest’ cells, with Lars Hansen Christiansen, remembers, ‘After the first bombs had struck the building I was possessed with only one thought, to get out.’ Upon hearing the sound of aircraft engines, Christiansen’s first thought was that they were German.
Then we [Christansen and Gessø Pedersen] heard the first bombs exploded and the building seemed to lift itself up. Dust and debris fell from the ceiling covering us from head to toe. After discovering that three rather weak hinges supported the numerous locks the
Gestapo
had put in the door, we tried to break the door down.
Pedersen continues:
First I tried to smash the door with a folding chair but this fell to pieces.
Then I tried with a stool, which proved to be stronger, with this, I was
successful in smashing the door.
Christiansen got out onto the corridor and turned right towards the empty attic area.
I ran across the to the east stairway where I had to climb over the dead and wounded lying on the stairs. Nobody tried to stop me. I ran out onto the street still covered in white dust and over to Vestersøhus [an apartment building next to
Shellhaus
]. I rang a number of door bells, the people opened up their doors and asked where I came from, when I replied from
Shellhaus
, nobody would take the chance of hiding a fugitive from the
Gestapo,
so the doors shut in my face. Eventually I got into an apartment at number 42 where, over a glass of brandy, I sat back and watched
Shellhaus
burn.
Meanwhile, in the corridor outside cell No.9 Pedersen noticed a single SS guard, rooted to the spot, covered in dust and shaking with fear.
Close by was huge gaping hole cut by the first bombs and a marvellous view over the rooftops of Copenhagen. As I stood outside the cell, I realised that I had forgotten a coat that my brother had lent to me. Feeling rather embarrassed, I ran back to collect the coat. I returned to the corridor and swung myself down through the hole by means of a thick length of insulated electrical wiring. I then made my way to the second floor. I had to push my way through a crowd of panic-struck people on the stairs and came out into the street where I jumped over the barbed wire. I made my way towards Svineryggen (Street) by the lakes. From this point I managed to see aircraft from the second wave of Mosquitoes attack the
Shellhaus
,I then ran off down the street.