The IJsselmeer and the Northeast Polder, reclaimed in 1942, were on the route of Allied bombers bound for Germany during World War II.
Often this went well, as there were no anti-aircraft guns in this area. But sometimes things did not go well either, when the Allies were attacked in the air by German Messerschmitts. In those air battles, aircraft were still sometimes shot out of the sky. This happened to both the Allies and the Germans.
Where planes are said to have crashed, so-called crash poles have been erected: three-metre-high blue and white poles with a red plane on them. You can find them anywhere in the landscape, along the road, in the forest, in a farmyard. They do not always mark exactly the location of a plane crash, as they were avoided in the middle of a (later built) road or in an inconvenient spot for farming the primeval land. Anyway, they indicate approximately where a plane crashed in today's Northeast Polder during World War II.
At the site of a plane crash at the present-day Dinah Mightpad (a footpath on Vliegtuigweg in Nagele), in addition to a marker post, a see-through panel with some information about the plane and its crew has been placed. Such a see-through panel is a corten steel frame with a transparent plate, on which a drawing visualises something that is not (or no longer) visible in the landscape. The see-through panel ‘plane wreck’ shows a plane that has just crashed, lying with a broken nose and broken propellers on the recently reclaimed land. Two crew members stand on the battered wing. The information panel shows how the crew fared after the crash.
Read more about the see-through panel
One such crash post in the landscape is, of course, already reminiscent of the fate that struck here during World War II. But riding past several of them is nothing short of impressive. That is why we have put together a special aeroplane wreckage route for you: a 50-kilometre cycling route along no fewer than five crash posts, bringing the history of the airmen who crashed in today's Northeast Polder to life a little more. The route takes you past Schokland, Emmeloord and Marknesse, among other places, and of course other sights are highlighted along the way.
Read more about this cycling route
