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By Root 436 0

had finally authorized his release from Brixton, seemed to understand. He began to come to the office and asked Sneum for his opinion on various matters connected with Denmark. This, though, didn’t do much to lift Tommy’s spirits. He could never forget how some of his former resistance colleagues had found their way into the RAF. Many, such as Kjeld Pedersen and Arne Helvard, saw action every week, while he was left behind to push a pen in London. During his isolation in Milton Ernest, Tommy had tried to hide his jealousy from Arne, who visited him after returning from North Africa. Helvard was now stationed in nearby Cambridgeshire, where he was being trained to fly bombers. Tommy recalled: ‘Helvard came to see me and we talked about flying. He thought it was a bit stupid that he had more flying hours than the instructors on his course. I was just envious of his situation because I couldn’t fly.’

At midnight on 21 June 1943, precisely two years after Thomas Sneum had taken off with Kjeld Pedersen in the Hornet Moth, the midsummer skies came alive over south-east England. Bomber Command sent 705 planes into the air for a massive assault on the German city of Krefeld. The target lay just to the south-west of the industrial sprawl that merges Duisberg and Essen with Dortmund. It was to be a night Krefeld would never forget.

At 00.14 hours on 22 June, Flying Officer Arne Helvard climbed into a Stirling III, registration BK712 HA-D, at Downham Market airfield. The man who had accompanied Tommy Sneum across the icy channel separating Denmark from Sweden was ready to risk his life again over enemy territory, this time to be part of the massive raid. Helvard, who had been attached to 218 Squadron, was joined in the Stirling by seven new colleagues. Pilot Officer W.G. Shillinglaw of the Royal Australian Air Force was his only superior in the cockpit. Five of the crew were British sergeants: R.P. Goward (flight engineer), P.D. McArdle (navigator), T.R. Lunn (bomb aimer), A.E. Gurney and E.D. Hart (air gunners). The last crew member was a New Zealander, Flight Sergeant D.J. Ashby-Peckham (wireless operator).

Pilot Officer Shillinglaw and Flying Officer Helvard were taking their Stirling over Belgium en route to Germany just before 1.30 a.m. when they were spotted by Lieutenant Heinz-Wolfgang Schaufer in a Messerschmitt fighter. When he saw Schaufer closing in for the kill, Helvard must have known that his chances of survival were slim. The Stirling had none of the manoeuvrability of the German plane; and the clear, moonlit skies of a midsummer’s night that virtually guaranteed an accurate bombing mission also left many brave crews at the mercy of the enemy.

It is not known if Shillinglaw and Helvard had time to attempt any form of evasive action before Schaufer unleashed his machine-guns on their cockpit and fuselage. Even if he survived the spray of bullets and resulting flames, Arne could do little to prevent the Stirling from hurtling towards the Belgian fields below. Although he had a parachute, he was unable to escape from the crumbling cockpit. As one of the pilots, he would probably have felt a responsibility to wrestle with the controls until all hope was lost. By then, it would have been too late to eject.

The final impact of the crash was timed at 1.33 a.m. The villagers of Langdorp, Brabant, around sixty kilometers north-east of Brussels, knew long before they reached the smouldering wreckage that no one could be saved, and after the war the Air Ministry concluded that the eight crew members had died instantly. Their broken bodies were buried that same day in Langdorp churchyard. By then, the occupying German forces had arrived to supervise, and to their credit they gave the Allied crew a respectful send-off, with full military honors. Three or four German officers were present, along with six ordinary soldiers. Three rounds were fired over the grave, which was draped in a Union flag. Although no civilians were allowed to participate, a floral tribute was also placed at the graveside.

Helvard had prepared for death