A Pilgrimage

By foreign hands thy humble grave adorned
By strangers honoured and by strangers mourned
Alexander Pope 1688 - 1744.

I have just returned from a visit to Denmark. My third visit to the site where my first husband's plane crashed in September 1943. (New readers see www.ee138.net Click on crew and then on Ernest Thirkettle.) We received a great welcome from the members of the Halkjaer family who have protected and tended the site ever since the crash - nearly 68 years. The plane crashed into a deep bog and, because it could not be recovered, the bodies of the crew remain in the plane so the site is also their grave.On Wednesday we spent the day with Else & Erling Halkjaer in their farmhouse which overlooks the site. A lady was there to interview me for a local magazine. After lunch we went with other members of the family to visit the village church which was beautiful and very old. In the evening we joined the villagers for a musical evening.
On Thursday we went to a ceremony at the crash site. I was asked to make a speech. (Of course at that moment the microphone failed but I soldiered on) Senior officers of the Royal Australian Air Force and the Royal Air Force spoke. We laid wreaths at the memorial which is like a very small garden in the middle of an empty, windswept landscape. Then for the big event. The Lancaster which was seen at the recent Royal Wedding flew four times over the crash site at 500 feet! Two or three hundred people had gathered to watch including many children. Rember this is a small very remote farming community. The Danes remember the sacrifice with gratitude. It was a moment of mixed emotions; sad, thrilling and awe-inspiring to see this enormous plane flying so low over us.
We went to a friend's house for refreshments and then returned to the farmhouse where a journalist came to video an interview with me. Then Else & Erling took us out for dinner.
On Friday we went for a last look at the crash site and then drove to Aarhus where Kirsten, another member of the family, gave us a delicious supper. On Saturday I had lunch with Lis who, as a child of 11, witnessed the crash from her bedroom window in the farmhouse and has never forgotten it. Another nice supper with Kirsten and lunch next day with Lis and husband Ove before flying home. Everyone was so hospitable so you can see why I call them my Danish family. All those years when we didn't know what had happened to our boys they were being cared for by the Halkjaer family.