Aalborg aviation base

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Aerial view of the Aalborg aviator's base immediately after the end of the war

The Aalborg Seaplane Base in Aalborg was expanded by German occupation troops during the Second World War. Today it is part of the Aalborg Forsvars- og Garrison Museum ( Aalborg Defense and Garrison Museum ).

history

Shortly after the occupation of Denmark on April 9, 1940, the Germans confiscated the area at Skydebanevej. Immediately afterwards, the construction of the Aalborg Sea Air Base began. Already in August 1940 was airbase fully operational.

The expansion of the air base with bunkers, field fortifications, trenches and barbed wire entrenchments continued throughout the war. An anti-aircraft battery was set up for backup. Among these three Danish 20mm Madsen- machine guns that the army had seized in April 1940 to defend the airspace around Aalborg after the German "airbase Aalborg West" (today's Aalborg Airport ) in the night of 20 to April 21, 1940 had been attacked by British aircraft.

The "Seefliegerhorst Aalborg" or "Aalborg See", as it was also called, was a well-equipped larger base for seaplane units, the main task of which was to defend the waters around northern Denmark and southern Norway against enemy ships by means of reconnaissance flights and submarines. Combat secure. On May 5, 1940, Arado 196 A-3 aircraft from Aalborg See managed to force the British submarine HMS Seal to surrender, after which it was maneuvered to Frederikshavn . It was the first submarine ever to be hit by an airplane. In addition, mines were laid in front of the northern British ports and attacks were carried out on British convoys near Scotland.

Several training units were stationed on Aalborg Lake. In 1943 a separate seaplane supplementary group was set up, d. H. a training center for water flyers. On May 27, 1944, a so-called “board command” for the battleship Tirpitz was formed, a training unit for aircraft crews who were to be stationed on the Tirpitz in order to carry out reconnaissance flights for the battleship by catapult launch .

The German sea ​​rescue service also got a training center in Aalborg at the beginning of 1944. There, aircraft crews learned how to survive an emergency landing on the water. From early 1944 to early 1945, around 1500 crew members were trained in Aalborg.

After the end of the war, 2,300 refugees were interned at the Seefliegerhorst, which for this reason was provided with a larger number of refugee barracks. In 1947 the last refugees left the area.

In the period from 1950 to 2001 the hangar and the former German barracks were used as a depot by the civil defense - today called the riot corps.

The Aalborg Defense and Garrison Museum took over the hangar on August 1, 2001 to set up a museum.

literature

  • ACJohansen: Aalborg See Airfield, Den tyske Vandflyveplads i Aalborg 1940–1945 , 2002.
  • Melanie Wiggens: Fatal Ascent, HMS Seal 1940 , Spellmount, 2006

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Denmark. Archived from the original on January 26, 2001 ; accessed on October 17, 2015 .

Coordinates: 57 ° 3 '22.2 "  N , 9 ° 52' 58.5"  E