4.2 Summary of interviews
Jenny Johansen, Hillesøy, told
journalist Per Eliassen that in the spring of 1928 she
and her sister Kaspara had seen an aircraft for the first
time. They were at
Værholmen, Hillesøy, looking for goats when they saw an
aircraft in the sea. She
was reasonably sure that it was the day that Amundsen
disappeared. It took the
sisters half an hour to return home and when they arrived they
told the men on
the farm what they had seen. When they went to look, the
aircraft had
disappeared. The girls were told to keep quiet about what they
had seen.
After this had
been published in the newspapers last year, Lovise Trondsen
appeared on the scene. She had also seen her first aircraft in
the spring of 1928,
and thought it was Amundsen she had seen, although she could
not be completely
sure. She was working at Vasstrand at the time. One night they
were woken up by
the local teacher who came running to tell them that an
aircraft had come flying out
of the Kattfjorden. Lovise stood looking through the attic
window and saw the
aircraft fly out of the fjord at low altitude past the beacon
at Vasstrandnes.
The farmer later said he had found a pontoon from the “Latham”
and that he had
hidden it in the boathouse.
Anna Sofie Hansen, Kaldfjord, could confirm that in the autumn
of 1928 she and
some other school children had found a light coloured cylinder
on the shore at
Skittenelv. The cylinder was marked with the word “Latham.”
Even though the name
was spelled incorrectly, both the children and the teacher
believed it to originate
from Amundsen’s accident.
All of these events occurred at a time when contacting the
newspapers or
authorities was looked upon in a completely different light
than is the case today.
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