Operation Carthage

Operation Carthage, on 21 March 1945, was a British air raid on Copenhagen, Denmark during the Second World War which killed 145 civilians. The target of the raid was the , the Gestapo headquarters in the city centre. It was used for the storage of dossiers and the torture of Danish citizens during interrogations. The Danish Resistance had long requested the British conduct a raid against the site. The building was destroyed, 18 prisoners were freed and Nazi anti-resistance activities were disrupted. Part of the raid was mistakenly directed against a school which was roughly to the west-southwest; the raid caused 125 civilian deaths, including 86 schoolchildren and 18 adults at the school. The Aarhus Air Raid was a similar attack against the Gestapo headquarters in Aarhus on 31 October 1944, which succeeded.

Background

The raid was requested by members of the Danish resistance movement to free imprisoned members and to destroy the records of the Gestapo, to disrupt their operations. The RAF initially turned down the request as too risky, due to the location in a crowded city centre and the need for low-level bombing but they approved the raid in early 1945 after repeated requests. Once approval had been given, planning for the raid took several weeks; scale models of the target building and the surrounding city were built for use by pilots and navigators in preparation for a very low-level attack.

Raid

The attacking force consisted of Royal Air Force De Havilland Mosquito F.B.VI fighter-bombers of No. 2 Group RAF from No. 140 Wing RAF, comprising No. 21 Squadron RAF, No. 464 Squadron RAAF, and No. 487 Squadron RNZAF. The aircraft flew in three waves of six aircraft, with two reconnaissance Mosquito B.IVs from the Royal Air Force Film Production Unit to record the results of the attack, taking a short film. Thirty RAF Mustang fighters gave air cover from German aircraft and attacked anti-aircraft guns during the raid.

The force left RAF Fersfield in the morning and reached Copenhagen after 11:00. The raid was carried out at rooftop level. During the first attack, a Mosquito hit a lamp post, damaging its wing and causing the aircraft to crash into a garage complex next to the Jeanne d'Arc School, about to the west-southwest of the target, setting it on fire. Several bombers in the second and third wave accidentally hit the school, mistaking the burning structure as having been successfully bombed by the first wave.

There are two short documentaries on YouTube (17 mins) and which features an interview with Edward Sismore, an RAF navigator on the raid. In 2022, Netflix released a feature film about the events, ''The Bombardment''.

Aftermath

On the following day, a reconnaissance aircraft surveyed the target to assess the results. The damage was severe, with the west wing of the six-storey building reduced nearly to ground level. The Danish underground supplied a photograph showing the building burning from end to end. The raid had destroyed the Gestapo headquarters and records, severely disrupting Gestapo operations in Denmark, as well as allowing the escape of 18 prisoners. Fifty-five German soldiers, 47 Danish employees of the Gestapo and eight prisoners died in the headquarters building. Four Mosquito bombers and two Mustang fighters were lost and nine Allied airmen were killed. At the Jeanne d'Arc School, 86 schoolchildren and 18 adults were killed, many of them nuns.

On 14 July 1945, remains of an unidentified male casualty were recovered from the ruins of the Shellhus and transferred to the Department of Forensic Medicine of the University of Copenhagen. This happened again four days later and the two casualties were buried in Bispebjerg Cemetery on 4 and 21 September, respectively.

In popular culture

The Danish movie '' The Shadow in My Eye'' (''Skyggen i mit øje'' in Danish), telling the story of the raid, was released in October 2021 in Denmark. Netflix released the movie on its streaming service in March 2022, as ''The Bombardment''.

Gallery

File:Shellhuset from KB.jpg, before the bombing. At the time of the bombing it was painted in camouflage colours
File:Institut Jeanne d'Arc 1924 by Stender.jpg, Institut Jeanne d'Arc, a Roman Catholic girl school in , Frederiksberg, Copenhagen, that was mistakenly bombed during the raid
File:Shellhuset 210345.jpg, burning after the bombing raid
File:Shell-Huset-mosquito.jpg, The Gestapo headquarters in the , Copenhagen, in March 1945 during Operation Carthage. A Mosquito pulling away from its bombing run is visible on the extreme left, centre
File:Ruins of Shellhaus in Copenhagen.jpg, Aftermath: ruins of the
File:Shellhuset on fire 2.jpg, alt=, Shellhus ablaze shortly after the attack. Most of the building was destroyed, and the building was unusable after the street corner collapsed.

See also

* Aarhus Air Raid, a similar attack on Gestapo headquarters in Aarhus, Denmark
* Operation Jericho, a similar attack on Amiens Prison in France
* Oslo Mosquito raid, a similar attack on Gestapo headquarters in Norway, with 80 off-target civilian casualties

References

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External links

* (DK in English) On the entire even

* (DK in Danish, encyclopaedic) On the French School (encyclopedic

* (DK in Danish, encyclopedic) On the Shell office building (encyclopedic

* (DK in Danish) On the bombing of the French Schoo


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IWM Interview with RAF officer Edward Sismore, who participated in the raid
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Aerial operations and battles of World War II involving the United Kingdom, Carthage
Conflicts in 1945
History of the Royal Air Force during World War II
1945 in Denmark
History of Copenhagen
De Havilland Mosquito
March 1945 events
1940s in Copenhagen