Danish schoolboy finds buried German WW2 aircraft and pilot

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Danish schoolboy finds buried German WW2 aircraft and pilot

A boy in the North Jutland town of Birkelse made an unexpected discovery when doing his history homework.

Daniel Rom Kristiansen uncovered the wreckage - as well as the remains of the pilot - after being told by his father to ‘go out and find the plane that is supposed to have crashed in the field’.

Klaus Kristiansen told local news station DR P4 Nordjylland that his grandfather once mentioned that a German plane had crashed in the fields behind their farm during the Second World War.

“When my son Daniel was recently given homework about World War II, I jokingly told him to go out and find the plane that is supposed to have crashed out in the field,” said agricultural worker Kristiansen.

The schoolboy and his dad promptly headed into the fields with a metal detector - initially just for fun, since Kristiansen believed that the wreckage had long since been removed.

But the pair then began finding bits of wreckage.

“We tried carefully digging with a trencher. More and more parts came up and the further we went, the more we found,” Kristiansen said to DR.

After the amateur excavation turned up the remains of bones, the authorities were called, reports broadcaster DR.

Police, bomb disposal experts and even German embassy representatives all arrived at the scene.

“We also found documents and papers in the pockets of some clothes,” Kristiansen explained.

The aircraft discovered by the Kristiansens is a Messerschmidt Bf 109, a model used in large numbers by the Luftwaffe during World War II.

Kristiansen told DR that his family had worked on the land where the fighter plane was found for “20-30 years” without have any idea of the secret under the ground.

“Luckily my son has something to write about in his assignment now. He’s actually been given the day off school today so that he can watch the police and bomb disposal people working. It’s quite exciting for all of us,” said Kristiansen.
 
Hopefully they can identify the pilot and return him to his family.

Should be easy to do, Germans put the W/N all over the airframe. Then there's the engine number etc.

That reminds me, saw some US plane parts in Kamchatka peninsula back in 2005 or 2006. Darn thing desintegrated to the point the largest piece was maybe 10" long. Russians didn't care, took a couple of pics of a shard large enough to have a s/n written with an electric pencil on it, but was never able to find anyone interested enough in it to pursue.
I know (or used to anyways) my WWII aircraft inside and out, didn't look like anything I could recognize. Wonder if that was something hush-hush from a later period.
 
Really makes me wonder the history immediately following the crash. Did someone buldoze it over?
 
Really makes me wonder the history immediately following the crash. Did someone buldoze it over?

Not necessarily
- 109 that was found in late 90s - forget which European country. According to witness accounts from late 44/early 45 (I don't remember) plane emerged from the overcast in a vertical dive and spinning. One wing flew off, the rest "disappeared over there behind the forrest". Locals tried to communicate that to the Germans when those showed up, apparently unsuccessfully. Germans picked up the lost wing and left.
Rest of the airplane and the pilot were recovered 50 years later. Spinner was about 20 feet deep - it did go in vertically and at a pretty good speed. Engine is a solid chunk, stays pretty intact. Rest tends to crumble.
 
Really makes me wonder the history immediately following the crash. Did someone buldoze it over?
By November or December 1944, you'd think that the Germans were busy moving troops back to Germany, and not spending much time investigating early winter crashes and burying pilots.
 
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If you look at Major Kong's lips when he says "Vegas" you can clearly see that the line delivered was "Dallas", and voiced over later. This is because of the Kennedy assasination which happened while the movie was being edited.

And now you know.
 
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