Meteoritics of Plane Crashes over the Ijsselmeer

Experiments

Mixed Media, 150x190x10(mm), 2023, Collaboration work with Mila Broomberg

To understand the Dutch Provence called Flevoland, you must understand the Zuiderzee works.
The Zuiderzee Works is a man-made system of dams and dikes, land reclamation and water drainage work. The project involved the damming of the Zuiderzee and the reclamation of land in the newly enclosed water using polders. Its main purposes are to improve flood protection and create additional land for agriculture.
The only major part of Flevoland that was being worked on during WW2 was the draining of what is today the Noordoostpolder. The Dutch were considered sufficiently Germanic to be allowed to exist in the Reich with relative freedom. This new land included the former islands of Urk and Schokland and it was included in the province of Overijssel.

At the time, current Flevoland was the Ijsselmeer and Zuiderzee. There was what was known as the “Flak Gap” at Egmond aan Zee. There were also few Flak in Ijsselmeer and the Zuiderzee. If airman were in trouble, they took the shortest route to the Flakgap on the flight path from England to Germany over the Ijsselmeer.

During the Second World War 10,000 Allied and German aircraft were shot down. A thousand planes, most of them bombers, are believed to have plunged into the Zuider Zee. Many of the planes fell into the water sunk to the bottom and were lost forever.
The planes that fell to the ground where the land was not completely dry were absorbed by the soft ground.
Some planes were successfully able to emergency crash land on the already dry Noordoostpolder. Others exploded on impact.

In the 1970s the Dutch began to drain what remained of the lake to create the Flevopolders. In the process, they discovered the wreckages, not just of Second World War aircraft, but that of First World War planes and, sometimes, galleons dating back to the Spanish Armada, and also fossils of Pleistocene mammals.

We selected 6 plane crashes from 1940-1944 that illustrate some of the spatial conditions that impacted the outcome of the crashes, and the ultimate fate of the plane wreck.