WIX Archives

The Hampden, part 1 (long)

Posted by Christer on Wed Nov 28, 2001 02:13:57 PM

Okey guys, a translation of six pages condensed to, well we?ll see:
(Swedish names are in capitals)

08/06/99
The newspaper crew, visiting a search party, is at one Hampden crash site near the village TARFEK and are speculating about what could have caused the aircraft to crash. Possibly carburettor ice or maybe battle damage. Witnesses tell about an air battle the same night as the aircraft crashed. The aircraft caught fire on impact and burnt out so no clues from the wreck. It is believed that the probable point of impact is the eastern slope of a ridge called LATTAK?IVES and most of the wreckage came to a halt after some 300-350 meters. The same witnesses tell about another aircraft crashing into the lake ARVIDSJAUR the same night. This is close to the first one and according to hearsay there should be five aircraft in this area. Among the locals there must be people who know the locations but authorities don?t know about all of them. The search party were to stay for a week and try to find and identify more wrecks but, it wouldn?t be an easy task since alledged positions are numerous and often incorrect. For this Hampden alone there were three positions far apart.
Five crew members were killed in this crash which occurred en route from the Shetland Islands to Murmansk transporting aid for soviet troops. During the night between September 4-5 1942 thirty-two Hampdens were on their way but nine of them never made it to their destination. The plan was to leave the cargo and the aircraft with the soviets and the crews should return by boat. Exactly what happened that night is not known but something went wrong and this Hampden diverted from the planned route. What is known is that the weather situation was bad. There was an eye witness to the crash and he hurried to a habitation to alert the military who arrived at location a week later. Human remains have been recovered and buried in a military cemetary in G?TEBORG.
The Hampden belonged to 455 sqdn Royal Australian Air Force (no serial mentioned) and in cooperation with the RAAF a memorial has been erected at the crash site.

Another Hampden crashed the same night 35 km to the north of KVIKKJOKK. It was recovered in 1976 and was brought back to England where it is being restored and on completion will be put on display in a museum (doesn?t say which).

The leader of the search party, MAGNUS L?WENSTEIN, tells that the objective of the search was not to recover any wreckage but to gather information and documentation and if anything of importance should be discovered to notify the appropriate embassy.
He has done research on the Hampden for ten years and was, at the time, working on a book.
MAGNUS tells that wreckage have been removed among other things the tail boom with the id-plate.
He hopes that this crash site and others are left alone.

(You know the type, don?t need to translate that part, do I?)

This was half the way more to come from 08/07/99

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