Leo at Lancaster recovery - Papendrecht - Holland - 30 September 2002
On Monday 30 September 2002 the Royal Dutch Airforce started the recovery
of the Second World War Avro Lancaster Mk3 bomber 'Popeye'
in the district Oostpolder in Papendrecht, the city where I live.
On the
first day mayor Cees de Bruin of Papendrecht
came to see the recovery by himself.
When I interviewed him, spokeswoman Ans Stegeman
of the Municipality of Papendrecht made the above picture.
The
Lancaster crashed in Papendrecht on 21 July 1944
after it was shot by German anti-aircraft artillery.
The 7
people of the RAF 113 Squadron
that died in the crash are buried
on the Papendrecht cemetery.
It was
the biggest recovery of a warplane in Dutch history,
because it is such a big plane.
The Royal Dutch Airforce thought there still were some
high capacity bombs on board.
In that case a very big circle round the Lancaster
should have been evacuated, including closing the highways A15
and N3.
After 1
month of digging in the Papendrecht soil
the Royal Dutch Airforce concluded that the bombs were
already
dropped before the Lancaster crashed in Papendrecht.
The
remains of Popeye where recovered, with lots of interesting
parts.
The people of the Royal Dutch Airforce were surprised
about the excellent state of the parts of the plane.
Now
Papendrecht can go on building new houses in the Oostpolder
district.
In the near future there will be erected a special monument for
Popeye.
I made
several reports for the news programs
about this national news on Radio Rijnmond.
© Photos made by Ans Stegeman - Gemeente Papendrecht &
major Robert
de Jong - Royal Dutch Airforce
