Kapp Borthen: fighter plane from the second world war

Kapp Bor­then is a low head­land on the west coast of Spits­ber­gen, bet­ween Bell­sund and Horn­sund. The lar­ge gla­ciers of Tor­ellbrea­ne and the small islands of Isøya­ne are not far away.

Near Kapp Bor­then, the­re is a wide low­land area bet­ween the coast and the morai­nes of Nord­re Tor­ell­breen which appear rather bleak and fea­tur­e­less.

During the second world war, a Ger­man figh­ter pla­ne (a Ju 88) had to make an emer­gen­cy landing in that coas­tal plain. It had been dama­ged during an attack on a con­voy and they had just made it to that posi­ti­on. The crew sur­vi­ved wit­hout major inju­ries. They des­troy­ed their air­craft and wal­ked to a desi­gna­ted emer­gen­cy landing/pickup area fur­ther north, whe­re they were soon retrie­ved by the Luft­waf­fe (Ger­man air­force).

The wreck is still lying the­re in the same place. It is not the only pla­ne wreck from the second world war in Spits­ber­gen: the­re is the wreck near the old air­field in Advent­da­len, east of Lon­gye­ar­by­en, which is easi­ly acces­si­ble, some­thing that you can not exact­ly say about the Ju 88 at Kapp Bor­then. Addi­tio­nal­ly, the­re are some scat­te­red remains of a Ger­man figh­ter pla­ne on the lower slo­pes of Hiorth­fjel­let, on the north side of Advent­fjord, that was shot down by the Nor­we­gi­an gar­ri­son in Lon­gye­ar­by­en.

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