Bodo Sandberg

Bodo Sandberg (September 23, 1914 – May 2, 2005) was a fighter pilot in the Royal Netherlands Air Force and 'Engelandvaarder' during World War II.

Because the Nazis had destroyed almost all the planes of the Dutch Air Force, Sandberg had to fly one of the few Fokker G-I fighters that were still airworthy.

Shot by the machine guns from the Messerschmits, Sandberg was bleeding from bullet holes in his leather pilot's jacket, but he found a cloud in which he escaped from the German attackers.

He managed to keep his damaged plane in the air long enough to find a highway near the Hague where he could make an emergency landing.

Immediately after the German invasion Sandberg tried to escape from the Nazi-occupied Netherlands to reach England to continue his fight against the invaders.

On their way through Belgium, France and Spain to Portugal (from where they could fly to England), they made it as far as Poligny, just east of Paris, but there they were betrayed and arrested.

From England Bodo was sent to the US where in 1944 he trained on American fighters (the Curtiss P-40 Warhawk) at the Royal Netherlands Military Flying-School in Jackson, Mississippi.

As the Second World War was entering its final phase, Bodo Sandberg came home to the Netherlands from the US, Australia and New Guinea, albeit for a fleeting moment, as he was sent out into action again, this time to Dutch Indonesia, Singapore and Ceylon (now Malaysia).

In February 1946 he flew from Batavia (now Jarakrta) via Singapore to Penang, where he worked with Peter Tazelaar, one of the Netherlands' most heroic resistance fighters and fellow "Engelandvaarder".

In 1947 Bodo was awarded the “Ereteken voor Orde en Vrede 1947” for his contributions to the Netherlands' efforts to re-establish peace and order in Dutch-Indonesia after the Japanese capitulation.

After Sandberg was injured in a crash with a Spitfire at Soesterberg, he became Air Attaché for the four Nordic countries in the Dutch Embassy in Oslo, Norway.