Memorial plaque at Alsik

On the evening of 2 April 1945, three men initiate a sabotage action against three German minesweepers in Sønderborg Harbour.

The leader of the small group is 43-year-old civil engineer Peer Holm, who, together with Svend Aage Peder Hansen (24 years old) and Peter Theodor Madsen (23 years old), must carry out the action at the request of the British Admiralty when the order is given over the radio with the code word Barnepigen er rejst (the nanny has left).

Under cover of darkness

The streetlights are switched off and apart from the floodlights of the minesweepers pointing down towards the water, the whole area is in darkness. Peer and Svend Aage stand with weapons on separate street corners, while Peter walks to the quayside and lowers the first of three magnetic mines into the water.

Easter is celebrated by the marines and patrols are sent out to keep track of the German marines. One of these patrols spots Peer Holm, who turns his back on them and leads them away from the area when he is hailed, his plan to warn the other two with gunfire fails when he stumbles, falls and is apprehended by the Germans and brought up to the barracks.

The projectors are switched on

Down in the harbour area, they haven't noticed anything. Peter has lowered the mines into the water, where the waves and currents will guide them between the quay and the ships, where the magnets will cause the boxes to stick to the hull until they are triggered by the timer. But as fate would have it, a group of drunken marines causing a commotion on the harbour causes the security staff to turn on the floodlights on the harbour and discover Peter and Svend Aage.

A fierce firefight ensues and Peter Theodor Madsen falls dead on the quay - hit in the head. Svend Aage Peder Hansen manages to run a short distance before he dies. The bodies are disposed of in the enclosed area by the military shooting range, where the bodies of three other resistance fighters are also found after the war.

Peer Holm

Up at the barracks, they hear the shots as a soldier rushes in and tells them that a saboteur and a German soldier have been killed and another saboteur has escaped wounded. Peer is taken down to the harbour where Peter Theodor is lying and Svend Aage's body is seen some way up the railway embankment on Havbogade, the two-hour timer expires and the mines explode, but the Germans have moved the ships out into the sound so no damage is done.

The Germans are furious and Peer Holm feels the full force of it, both down at the quayside and not least during the subsequent interrogations. In an 8-page letter smuggled out of the prison, he recounts what he told the Germans and that he signed a confession a few days after his capture.

Peer rightly feared being transferred to Copenhagen, where 62 Danes were executed between March and 25 April 1945, but fortunately he was sent to Frøslev camp instead, and when the Germans surrendered on 5 May 1945, he was not sent on to the concentration camps and was the only one to survive the action in Sønderborg.