Burning Magnesium

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He knew that war was coming. He knew it as early as 1938.

It was a sunny afternoon. Arno Greif was going home from work, accompanied by his younger cousin Gustav. Gustav had just happened to come by. Listening with half an ear to the youngster’s rants, Arno steered his steps towards a football field, a shortcut.

They stopped in the middle of the grass field. The weather was warm, the sky was a hazy blue. The sound of the city was a faint murmur in the distance. A football was sitting in one of the goals. Gustav went off to fetch the ball and begged Arno to take some shots with him, Gustav, as goalie.

“You asked for it!” Arno said, placing the ball some ten metres from the goal as the youngster placed himself in it. Right then, low-flying over the city, a Swedish air force bomber came thundering overhead – a Junkers Ju 86, a plane the Swedish Air Force called the B3. It was Sweden’s first modern bomber, purchased in Germany and introduced into the Swedish Air Force in 1936. Until then the country’s aerial defences mostly involved biplanes. Now came this giant, this archeofuturistic metal bird, one of its breed roaring over Karlstad this day in June 1938. It was a liaison flight between F5 Wing in Skåne and F4 Wing in Östersund.

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