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This is the article as first published in the book Vaksdal Historielag årbok 2005.
4th of October 2011: Corrected the mix of Albrechts and Schartze in the original article.


The plane at Kvitanosi

By Kåre Trefall



Kvitanosi

Here I am again looking throughout the beautiful mountains. Loenahorgi in the south, the glacier Jostedalsbreen in the north-northeast in the distance. Down in the valley in the north is Gullbraa where we have chlimbed up from, and with Eksingedalen further westwards towards the coast. "Wonder if that is the mountain Ulriken by Bergen we are seeing fare out in a distance" one of the others said.

The location is the mountain top of Kvitanosi, 1433 meters above sea level. It is winter and Easter. It is the year 2005. The cairn on the mountain top is looking as an icy nipple. We came up from Gullbraa, the uppermost farm in the valley of Eksingedalen, we are skiing. Many others have also found their way up to the top in the beautiful winter weather. I've been here many times before, both in summer and winter. But today is the first time I should go to "plane" in wintertime. Now covered with snow, the wreck sight is located on the mountain plateau of Kvitanosi about one kilometer north-northwest of the higest point, where we now are. The GPS is telling me this, together with data collected before the snow covered ribs and plates of aluminum.

When I grew up down at the farm Trefall, we children played with a strange instrument. We thought it was a bomb sight, but it was probably something else. Buttons and switches to operate, with numbers and mirrors turning. This was one of the things my grandfather had brought with him down from the "plane". There was something mysterious and exciting about this: "The plane on Kvitanosi". And we children once more asked our father to tell about when he was ordered by the Germans to carry parts down from the wreck late one winters during the war. And about the living and the dead which had been brought down to the valley in the newyear.

We put on our skis and I am pointing out the course towards "the plane". After skiing down from the cairn on the west side and climbed up a slight slope, we are plowing slowly down a slope towards the west plateau edge. "Almost getting there" I am shouting, when the plane-waypoint is showing up on the GPS and approaching more and more. And suddenly we are there. Today, the landscape is swimming in sun, where we are looking down on Storetoni and Kjaeringanosi. The Kvitanos top could not be seen from here. On the evening of the third day of Christmas almost 63 years ago the weather and the view where quite different.


The crash

It is blizzard. It is starting to darken. It is the third day of Christmas in 1942. A large German four engined bomber of the type Focke Wulf 200C-4 Condor has return from a mission over the North Sea in search of Allied convoys. It is flying low over the landscape with the landing lights turned on, in the direction up from the valley Eksingedalen. On board is the atmosphere not very good. They knew little about the people on the Christmas ball in the school at Ekse which wonder what aircraft being is out that late in the evening in the ugly weather. Or about the children at Gullbraa running out to turn off the lamp outside, seeing them passing low over the valley. They do not know where they are, and they are running out of fuel. The only hope is to try to do an emergency landing. If it was planned to try right here, or if they just are to low, we do not know , where they hit the ground in a slight upward slope at the west at the Kvitenos plateau. One of the wings smashes into a stone, the plane is twisted around and went laying on its back. After the sound of screamin metal and screamin humans has settled, the only the sound is the seething of the warm engines in the snow. And after a while, again only the sound of the wind is to hear. The plain catches no fire. The tail is broken off, and after a while a survivor appears there. He tries to crawl out, but turns quickly into the aircraft body again because of the blizzard. After a while he hears that one of his companions is alive there somewhere in the darkness. It turns out that he is in a bad condition with a broken jaw. There are no sign to hear from the other four. They where all in front in the plane when it chrashed. It is going to be a cold and painful night.


Soon more to be translated. The rest is unfortenately so fare only in norwegian.

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