Stephen Fisher @seaspitfires.com 路 May 13

On 1 Nov '44 the Allies deployed the Land Mattress operationally for the first time, bombarding a German Flak battery at Zwanenburg during the assault on Flushing. German PoWs reported it "provoked an immediate tendency to assume the horizontal position". 馃帴 IWM A70 237-2 & 3

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Stephen Fisher 路 May 13

I've cheated a little with the sound here, using a Soviet recording of the Katyusha rocket launcher. The Land Mattress gave a "peculiar sound which was described as being not unlike that of a screaming siren", so it's not far off. The film footage is from February 1945, near Nijmegen.

AFM Witte 路 May 13

Which Zwanenburg is that? I only know a village called Zwanenburg near Amsterdam, 100 km away from Flushing. Or do you mean Middelburg, capital of Zeeland province and very near Flushing?

Alan Fisher 路 May 13

So they flushed the Germans out of Flushing?

Christopher Owens 路 May 13

I am old enough that it's usually no longer true that "you learn something every day". But today I learned something! Thanks!