Aage Sandqvist

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Pilot in the Danish Brigade in Sweden during the Second World War

During the second half of World War II, Sweden began to provide confidential assistance to its two neighbours, Norway and Denmark. This aid was in the form of so-called police camps, where refugees from these two German occupied countries could gather and prepare for a return to their homelands, when the Germans were expected to give up. In the home countries, these police forces were to restore order in society, and this motivation from neutral Sweden was tolerated by the Germans. But as time went on, the character changed from being police forces to becoming more and more regular military troops, although with simple weapons. The so-called Danish Brigade eventually consisted of nearly 5,000 Danish refugees, who were placed in various camps around Sweden.

Among these Danish refugees, were slightly more than a dozen Danish pilots, who were secretly placed in pairs on different Swedish airbases. They eventually gained access to Sweden's foremost military aircraft, namely the Saab B17 dive-bomber. In the last days of the war, these pilots gathered at the F7 Såtenäs airbase on the shores of Lake Vänern, where they formed the Danish Brigade's Air Unit. Its main purpose was to support the Danish Brigade's return to Denmark. One of these pilots was the author's father, Lieutenant Carlo Hjalmar Sandqvist. Carlo is the "Pilot in the Danish Brigade in Sweden during the Second World War."

This book presents inside views of the Danish resistance movement and German concentration camps in Denmark during World War II, and a dramatic escape. It describes the Danish Brigade in Sweden - a secret organization in which Sweden trained up to 5,000 Danish refugees as "police troops", eventually a paramilitary organization. It also presents the secret Swedish military plan for "Saving Denmark" in the last year of the war.