T/Sgt Viggo Pedersen
(1923 - 1946)
Profile
Viggo Pedersen is one of several young sailors on-board the Danish training ship Danmark that stranded in United States in 1940 due to the war. Royal Canadian Air Force.
Viggo Pedersen is born on 30 April 1923 in Holstebro. He is the son of Viggo Pedersen and Marie Kristine Helga Pedersen (née Jahnsen). I know very little about Viggo Pedersen. But in his memories, Hans Martensen mentions this fellow sailor, who volunteers for the Naval Air Service in Canada. [1]
Viggo Pedersen is signed on the training ship Danmark that leaves Copenhagen for New York on 8 August 1939. The cruise was supposed to last 10 months, but the vessel did not return until 13 November 1945 because of the outbreak of war. The training ship DANMARK was scheduled to return from Jacksonville on 10 April 1940, but following the German occupation of Denmark on the 9th this did not happen. On-board were several young men, who volunteer for service in the allied forces. Of these Hans Martensen and Andreas Petersen and Viggo Petersen volunteer for the Royal Canadian Air Force. [2]
According to CWGC a Viggo Pedersen is killed on 10 December 1946. While I have no conclusive information connecting this person to Hans Martensen it is likely that they are indeed the same person. The CWGC records his unit as H.M.S. Merlin. He is the son of Viggo and Helga Pedersen, Middelfart, Denmark. According to Don Kindell's Casualty Lists of the Royal Navy and Dominion Navies, 1945, present at www.naval-history.net he is then posted at No. 782 Squadron, FAA, and casualty to an air crash. [3]
Sources:
- Holstebro Parish Record, Jensen, 1998
- Jensen, 1998
- www.naval-history.net, www.cwgc.org