LARGE-SCALE sabotage raids in Jutland were seldom feasible, although the Jutland saboteurs were no less brave or ingenious than the BOPA and Holger Danske men in
Copenhagen. Some day, the Jutlanders hoped, they would find the super target—for the biggest of sabotage jobs.
One day a North Jutland Resistance man met a friend of his in the street, a machinist named Christensen, who worked for the German military. No Nazi, Christensen had been pressed into serving the invaders, and he admitted freely that he did not like it. How, he asked his Resistance friend, could he hit back at the Nazis? Could he be given some explosives so that he might sabotage the place where he worked?
The Resistance man promised he would see what could be done, and he described Christensen to Toldstrup, the underground leader in North Jutland. Toldstrup, although primarily concerned with air drops, led every sort of activity, and he immediately realized Christensen’s potential value. But, Told strup said, the machinist must not be wasted on just an ordinary sabotage operation. Could he be induced to quit his job and then try to work elsewhere for the Germans?
Christensen agreed to go wherever he was sent, to do what-ever the Resistance wanted him to do. In Aalborg, where for a long time Toldstrup had maintained his headquarters, the Resistance chief began to look for Christensen’s target. The biggest German installation in that harbour city was the municipal aerodrome, then a vast Luftwaffe station. For a long time the Danes had wanted to damage it, but the field was too well guarded, and worse, no Dane was allowed to enter or leave through its gates without being thoroughly searched. Nevertheless, this, Toldstrup decided, was the place for Christensen.
The machinist found employment without trouble at the aerodrome, but when he described its layout to Resistance people, he was glum. German security on the field was just about perfect. At most, he said, he might smash a few things with a hammer, but, as far as he could see, doing large-scale damage there was just about impossible. If only there were a way to get explosives on to the airfield, things might be different, but this seemed just about impossible. He had found two other Danes who worked for the Germans on the field who would help out in any sort of sabotage action—but that only meant three hammers at work—a very small contribution.
Toldstrup and his men began to puzzle over the problem. An aerial attack against the airfield by Allied bombers would have been almost suicidal, for the installation was well protected by a radar screen, by anti-aircraft guns, and by its own fighter complement. The sort of frontal attack BOPA made in Copenhagen certainly would have been impossible; there were too many Germans stationed and alert on the field. However he considered it, Toldstrup realized, the answer was to get on the field with explosives. There had to be a way. The explosives must be camouflaged as something else— something that the workers could take on the field but would not be expected to bring out again. But what? For a large sabotage job the bulk of explosives would be great, even when divided between three men. And then Toldstrup had an idea.
There was, he realized, one obvious thing every Danish workman on the Aalborg Aerodrome took on the field every morning but did not take out at night. Toldstrup had a chat with Christensen and made a suggestion. The machinist smiled, ‘It’s going to be a great hardship, but we’ll do it.’
Toldstrup then got men from one of his sabotage units to help in the plan. Using plastic explosives, the Resistance men began carefully preparing small bombs in the form of paper-covered parcels about eight inches square and two and a half inches thick.
Every morning Christensen and his friends each carried one of these small bombs with them past the German sentry at the gate of the airfield. The Germans never noticed a thing—for every workman on the field arrived with a similar small parcel-containing lunchtime smørrebrød.
Storing the bombs in the airfield was risky, but Toldstrup had suggested to the men that they do this in their clothing lockers. The biggest danger in this, of course, was that the plastic explosive had a distinctive, heady smell. But unless the Germans chanced to search the locker room, everything would be all right. Gradually the store of explosives grew until Christensen and his two friends had taken more than fifty high-explosive bombs and twenty incendiaries on to the airfield. For more than a fortnight the three men ate no lunch.
A few days after the bombardment of the Aarhus Univer sity, Toldstrup decided there were enough explosives on the Aalborg Aerodrome, and that the time for action had come. On that day, instead of just sitting down and doing nothing during their lunch break, the three Danes had plenty to keep them busy. Toldstrup had explained to them how to crush the thin copper ends of the time pencils which would arm the bombs. These delay fuzes worked chemically and were supposed to set off the bombs after twelve hours.
The day was damp and chilly, but Christensen and his two friends moved quickly and kept warm. While all the other workers on the field opened packets of smørrebrød, the three machinists set to work. Having filled their pockets with as many of the bombs as they could carry, they went from hangar to hangar, placing explosives in the engines or in the cockpits of aircraft and setting incendiary charges in petrol and oil storage places. One man slipped into the Luftwaffe barracks area and hid several charges carefully in one of the buildings. Another man mined the officers’ mess. Their pockets empty, the three returned to their lockers for more explosives, set these in place, crushed the ends of the time pencils, and then moved on to set more charges. On the aerodrome was a mobile workshop full of very special tools brought up from Germany. The Luftwaffe were so afraid that this vehicle might be damaged in an enemy action or by sabotage that it was driven off the aerodrome every night to be hidden in a safer place. One of the three Danes managed to enter the van and place a smørrebrød bomb inside it.
Christensen wandered into a deserted office building with the last of his bombs. He had just concealed it, started its fuze and was about to leave when a German officer came m. ‘What are you doing here?’ the German asked.
‘Oh, er—nothing,’ replied Christensen.
‘Where do you work?’
‘In the machine shop.’
‘Well, then,’ the German asked gruffly, ‘what are you doing in here? This isn’t the machine shop.’
‘Nothing,’ Christensen insisted. ‘I’d never been in here, and I was curious about it. That’s all.’
‘You’re lying. You were up to some kind of mischief,’ the German snapped, and called one of the guards to place the Dane under arrest.
By then, Christensen knew, all the bombs had been placed. They would not go off for another twelve hours.
The rest of the aerodrome staff had returned to work, and Christensen’s friends were alarmed. What if Christensen talked? What would happen to them?
Both men wanted to leave the aerodrome at once, but they knew that that would be damning. The only thing to do was to get on with their work and to leave at the end of the day as if everything were all right.
Late in the afternoon, just after dark, the two men rushed in to see Toldstrup. ‘Did Christensen talk?’ he asked.
The two Danes shrugged.
‘Were the Germans searching the aerodrome?’
The two shrugged again.
‘But what happens now to us,’ one of them pleaded, ‘when those damned bombs begin going off?’
‘Yes,’ the other insisted, ‘what about us? You got us into this business. Now you’ve got to get us out of it!’
Toldstrup agreed. They were perfectly right. In less than an hour both men had been driven by car to a fishing port. Hours before the charges were to detonate, they were out on the Kattegat, on their way to Gothenburg.
But what about Christensen? Had he talked? Were the Germans methodically searching the aerodrome for the smørrebrød bombs? At that time, there was no way to find out.
As the city of Aalborg settled down for the night, Told strup and several of his men went through the darkened streets to a house on a hill overlooking the aerodrome. From one of the top windows they studied the field through glasses. It was a very cold night, and soon the frost on the aerodrome glistened like quicksilver. At midnight, if Christensen had not been induced to talk, hell should break loose. Toldstrup and his men watched impatiently.
But at midnight nothing happened. No flashes of detonating bombs came from the aerodrome. No noises broke the night’s silence. ‘Maybe they’re a little slow,’ Toldstrup said.
Another hour passed, but all the Resistance men could see was the normal night-time Luftwaffe routine.
All night the men took turns studying the aerodrome through their field-glasses, but they saw nothing unusual. Perhaps Christensen had talked after all. Toldstrup said patiently, ‘Let’s wait and see what happens.’
The sun came up, and still the routine on the aerodrome seemed to be like that of any other day. If the Germans had found out anything, they had carried on their search at night, because only a few men were going about their business on the airfield. And after wrapping up all those bombs....
Then, just as the Danes had decided that it was useless to watch any longer, there was a flash, a roar, and one of the aeroplanes on the field exploded, seeming to come apart in slow motion. Now the Germans were beginning to move quickly, bringing out fire-engines to put out the blaze. And then there was another blast. Another aircraft.
Toldstrup and his aides grinned at each other. So Christensen had not talked. They realized, however, that now the Germans would have more pointed questions to ask him.
On the airfield, Luftwaffe officers were shouting frantic orders. A group of men rushed up to a parked aircraft and were just going to reach into its cockpit when it blew up. Then an officer came running from a building, in his out stretched hands one of the smørrebrød bombs he had found. As he was running with it, the parcel exploded. And later, in the official report, the officer was put down as missing.
Ambulances began to clang out of the gates of the aero drome. And every few minutes there was another shattering blast. The barracks went up in flame, and so did the officers’ mess. In hangars and on the field aeroplanes detonated, blow ing wreckage in all directions. Two hangars were completely demolished. The precious shop truck, the one filled with irreplacable instruments, went up with a loud bang, and every thing in it was destroyed.
The Germans went to Christensen and began to question him again. Was this his doing? The Dane denied knowing anything about it. He had been in that office merely out of idle curiosity, he insisted over and over again.
Several more of the bombs were discovered before they exploded, but often as not, these went off in the hands of their finders, and even if the Luftwaffe airmen had been experienced sappers they were by then too nervous to look closely for the bombs.
Smoke hung over the hangar area, and flames shot everywhere. Several petrol and oil tanks were ablaze and spitting fire, and all over the field aeroplanes continued to explode. A steady movement of ambulances in and out of the field took place all day. Events, the Germans soon found, were entirely beyond their control, and they still had no idea how it had all started nor how so many explosives could have been smuggled into the aero drome. Christensen denied knowing anything about it, and there was no way to make him talk.
Toldstrup had men keep watch on the field all day, trying to keep track of everything that had been destroyed. The explosions continued irregularly for nearly twelve hours. They had started late, the Resistance men finally realized, because the night had been so cold that the chemical action of the time pencils had been retarded.
Toldstrup’s wireless operator sent a message to England detailing the success. And the reply radioed to him stated:
‘... YOU COULD NOT HAVE MADE A BETTER ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO THE ROYAL AIR FORCE FOR THEIR ATTACK ON GESTAPO AARHUS.’
Christensen was sent to a concentration camp, but he never admitted having had anything to do with the sabotage operation and he was released unharmed at the end of the war. For the Jutland saboteurs the action was almost a complete triumph—the largest single sabotage action to take place in their part of Denmark—and without the loss of a single Dane.
If their glory was dimmed at all, it was because none of the three men who accomplished this mission had ever been on a sabotage operation before.