Article about: In the years of WW2 many aircraft of Axis and Allied forceslanded or crashed in Swiss territory because or unables at to go in base due to damages or technical troubles or, simply, defection
During the years of WW2 many aircraft of Axis and Allied forces landed or crashed on Swiss territory, due to battle-damage, technical troubles or beought down by the Swiss Air Force...This picture shows an USAAF "Flying Fortress", the B-17F "QW-V" of the 336th Bomb Squadron, 95th Bombardment Group, based in England. It emergeny-landed at Altenrhein Airfield, on the 13 April 1944 because of heavy Flak damage which it obtained during a mission over Germany.
After landing the aircraft and its crew were interned in Switzerland. It eventually was returned to the USAAF on the 27 August 1945, once the war was over.
That same 13 April 1944, eight other USAAF-Bombers (B-17 and B-24) landed in Switzerland, while a B-17G crashed by the town of Siebnen.
Several B-17 and B-24 got the distinctive Swiss Cross markings. The first ones because the Swiss Army "tested" the large Aircrafts in their airspace and they needed to be identified as "friendly" planes in order to not been shot down by their own FLAB.
Other ones got swiss markings for "transfer flights" to the gathering point for "interned" aircraft at Dübendorf Airfield..
Surely a strange view, a Swiss B-17, but they existed..
After the war, the planes that were able to fly were retuned to Britain, the ones damaged beyond repair were scrapped on site.
Last edited by danhashman; 12-06-2016 at 06:37 PM.
The Swedes ended up with some B 17s as well-converted to airliners due to shortages of suitable modern aircraft!
The Allies weren't concerned over the loss of aircraft (they had plenty of every type) but getting the aircrew back was obviously far more important.
Actually the Swiss Army bought about 50 P51-D Fighters.. for the symbolic price of 1 USD each.. the only condition was that they had to go fetch tem personally in Germany. So a swiss Ju-52 got the mission to fly the swiss transfer pilots to Germany in order to get those planes to Switzerland. Those Mustangs flew for the Schweizer Luftwaffe until the late sixties...
Last edited by danhashman; 12-07-2016 at 12:27 AM.
Swiss WW2 B-17 Flying Fortress
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