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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". 🎥 IWM A70 237-2 & 3

13/5/26, 1:20 pm5 reposts29 likes

Stephen Fisher

@seaspitfires.com

13 May

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

@afmwitte.bsky.social

13 May

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?

Stephen Fisher

@seaspitfires.com

13 May

Zwanenburg has been absorbed by Vlissingen now, but the battery was here: maps.app.goo.gl/bxRrJZeHqNXW...

maps.app.goo.glmaps.app.goo.gl

Christopher Owens

@scavamungus.bsky.social

13 May

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