Allied bombers shot down by Swiss forces during WW2

Hi,was reading article by Kevin Myers in the Irish Independent and I quote,

"Ireland actively assisted the allies during the Second World War -- not as much as the allies wanted, and not as much as it might: but ours was a vastly more pro-allied policy than that followed by Sweden or Switzerland.
The latter shot down allied bombers which entered its airspace: Ireland allowed British aircraft access to the Atlantic's vital north-western approaches through the Donegal corridor. Ireland allowed thousands of its citizens to join the British armed forces. Ireland gave vital weather reports to the British."
Has anyone else ever heard of Switzerland shooting down allied bombers,this is new to me.

 

Switzerland never shot down any bomber, any and all Allied and Axis a/c were escorted to the nearest Swiss airfield if by chance they were caught over Swiss territory. Remember what happened when NJG ace Wilhelm Johnen and crew-members got lost over Switzerland in their Bf 110G-4 ?

 

There were a few websites that discussed this that I found and went through. That was a few years ago. I also remember they talked about Allied Soldiers being kept in Swiss Detention Camps-which were at least one one occasion-compared to a Concentration Camp.

 

Agreed with Erich, this doesn't mean no allied aircraft crashed in Switzerland, they were however damaged over enemy territory and headed towards Switserland knowing they could not make it back.

 

From Wikipedia...

During the war, the Swiss Air Force engaged aircraft of both sides, shooting down 11 intruding Luftwaffe planes in May and June 1940, then forcing down other intruders after a change of policy following threats from Germany. Over 100 Allied bombers and their crews were interned during the war. During 1944-45, Allied bombers mistakenly bombed the Swiss towns of Schaffhausen (killing 40 people), Stein am Rhein, Vals, Rafz (18 killed), and notoriously on 4 March 1945 both Basel and Zürich were bombed.

 

well am afraid Wiki is wrong again hucks

 

Besides Wiki never says the Swiss shot down American aircraft . The fact that allied crews were interned is because they evaded from elsewhere and/or crashed in Switzerland.

 

Thanks for all the replies.I think I will go with the general concensus that no allied bombers were shot down by the Swiss,unless proved otherwise.
Thanks again,
Peter

 

Hello Petca. Try thumbing through this thread for additional info.

http://www.ww2f.com/weapons-wwii/22804-aircraft-brought-down-neutral-countries.html

 

Thanks Mike,
Looks like a subject that will go on and on.
Regards
Peter

 

What they most probably (i never heard of any such incident) never did is to shoot down foreign aircraft without giving the sign to accept the escort and to land immediately according to guidance.
This might be different for the time in 1940 when the clashes between swiss air force and the Luftwaffe happened... after the first encounters the german airmen clearly stated they hadn't any order to surrender - and would shoot at any aircraft going to a possible attack position. So in the later encounters there might have been no warnings at all.

To the "allied bombers shot down by swiss air force"... I don't know if the plural is correct here, but I'm sure at least one bomber has been downed.
Well... I'm myself from Switzerland, and I remember having seen (sadly years ago) an interview of swiss television with a former swiss pilot, who during ww2 once got the order to intercept a bomber.
I haven't the vid... and I'm not sure anymore what type of bomber it was (clearly US). This is sad... but I'm absolutely sure I saw that (and I will soon look for some Info) - as I'm that sure, I'll write it down here anyway (and already now).
What did he do? He went close to the bomber and didn't notice any reaction of the crew. He tried to get some insight, but didn't see anything. He shot some ammo to give sign of his presence without getting any reaction. Then he went behind the bomber to wait - he didn't get any sign.
He took some time to think, as he didn't really want to shoot it down. Then he went on 6 and shot at the bomber, which went down.
After this he went back to base... as he said in the interview with a bad feeling, as he clearly thought the bombing (even when on civilians) was done to put down Hitler's regime.
Well, this story got still some sort of happy-end. He was told shortly later that the crew had already been found - all had bailed out much earlier.

 

Hmmm... it's always hard to see if a source is reliable or not... but I found an equal note in a known swiss newspaper... so I do not doubt that much.

"Little Chub" B-17 Flying Fortress, 24th of April 1944

These two are in german.
http://www.deep-scan.com/b17/metro-10-11-26.09.00.pdf
http://club.swiss-sailing.ch/scogm/SeeBomber.pdf

This one is in english.
"Little Chub" Recovery

Well... I just shortly overflew the english one. To be honest the papers in german are more detailed.
I wasn't 100% right (even if he more or less said that in the interview). Apparently they told him later that the crew could bail out - what in fact isn't completely true either (sad but true).
So... I hope this gives some supplementary info.

What I just shortly found somewhere is that overall two bombers would have been shot down over Switzerland during war - but this one is the only incident I ever heard of. So I do not know if it happened more than once...

I was never a fan of city-bombing... but the fact it ended this way for "little chub" is :-( .
The only thing to mention is that the time was special and cruel... a bomber squad on duty to bomb Stuttgart in south Germany i.e. by accident dropped lower to Switzerland - directly heading to destroy most (or maybe all) of the city of Zurich. Fortunately the leader could detect the Lake of Zurich due to moonlight and gave order to turn around - just noticing the navigation error in the last minute.
Well... it's about "little chub" again now...

bye all

 

"Mickey" B-17 27th of February 1945

This is an incident... when swiss air force clearly saw the crew had already bailed out... after this the fighters got order to shoot the bomber down to prevent any accidental grounding over populated area. This happened more than once.

 

There's a listing of aircraft at Swiss Internees Association Inc. hope its useful.

 

Neither Germany nor the Allies had a strong record of respecting Swiss air space. Switzerland was the only neutral nation surrounded by Axis-controlled territory, so the Allied air war took regular flight paths and bombing runs over and near Swiss borders, contravening the Hague Convention international regulations of air warfare as it applied to Neutral Powers. After investigations showed British responsibility for minor attacks on Geneva, Basel, and Zurich in 1940, the Swiss were pretty touchy about defending it.

To read a full report, click on: The Diplomacy of Apology: U.S. Bombings of Switzerland during World War by Dr. Jonathan E. Helmreich.

Here are some (of many) incidents:

(a.) There was controversy over attacks at Samedan on 01 OCT 1943 and at Coblenz, across the Rhine from Waldshut, Germany, on 16 FEB 1944. Because British planes were clearly in violation of Swiss neutral airspace during these periods, the US initially blamed the British. Eventually, the US accepted responsibility for the Samedan incident. But, the Coblenz affair was undecided until the Swiss documented a USAAF Thunderbolt which they photographed attacked Coblenz at 1445 hrs.
(b.) In Schaffhausen on 01 APR 1944, about 100 civilians were killed during USAAF bombing. The US claimed that pilots had mistakenly identified Schaffhausen – the chunk of Swiss territory on the north bank of the Rhine – as a German target. The US apologized and paid compensation … only to make the same mistake again on 22 FEB 1945, this time killing 16 in Schaffhausen and 9 in Stein-am-Rhein, also on the “wrong” side of the Rhine. The Swiss maintain that in fact both incidents were an Allied response to allegations (still not documented officially) that Schaffhausen’s private industries supplied arms to the Nazis and were an effort to make concessions to US demands to curtail trade with the Nazis.

(c.) National Records Center (Suitland, MD) Record Group 18: "Report of Operations 1 April 1944, to Arnold from Hq Eighth Air Force 12 Sept. 1944"

24 APR 1944: 100 bombers flew over Schaffhausen area; 12 damaged bombers landed in Switzerland, another crashed at Baltenswil, and another shot down by Swiss over Greifensee. Two Allied planes forced down at Dübendorf: two more made emergency landings08 SEP 1944: railway stations of Delémont and Moutier attacked and trains strafed

18 JUN 1944: American pursuit planes attacked two Swiss planes escorting US bombers to fields near Dübendorf, resulting in the death of one Swiss pilot and the wounding of another.

08 SEP 1944: moving trains strafed near Rafz and Weiach/Kaiserstuhl

10 SEP 1944: USAAF Mustang fired upon two Swiss pursuit planes.

11 SEP 1944: the Zurich-Basel express train strafed.

(d.) To the Bern government's efforts to live up to the official "spirit of neutrality," it had to struggled with anger of its citizens over Allied violation of Swiss airspace and attacks on Swiss soil. Further the German High Command wrote several formal communique's protesting that the Swiss were not keeping to the spirit of Hague Convention international regulations of air warfare as it applied to Neutral Powers. This is taken from Dept. of State Records, National Archives (740.0011 European War 1939/34724C, Hull to Harrison, 30 May 1944):

Secretary of State Hull officially assured the Swiss that standing Eighth Air Force directives were in effect to prohibit bombings within 50 miles of Switzerland without positive identification.

The Swiss Air Force could do nothing against misdirected formations as large as 100 bombers, but the Swiss did take action regarding single planes. As these were usually cripples searching asylum, American officers resented Swiss attacks. Hull condemned a Swiss attack of 13 April on a damaged U.S. bomber. Six officers and crewmen had been killed, despite their answering to Swiss rockets with signal flares and by lowering their landing gear. Harrison also registered a "formal and energetic protest."

​

(Note that this 13 APR 1944 incident was 12 days after the 8th Air Force bombed Schaffhausen with 100 Swiss civilians killed and about a thousand were left homeless.)

 

Prof Dwight Mears of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point (and a retired Army Aviator himself) documented several reports of Swiss defenses downing bombers. Here is an excerpt:

Only three days after the bombing of Schaffhausen, General Henri Guisan rescinded the earlier policy for Swiss anti-aircraft batteries and fighters to attack only formations of foreign aircraft. According to Guisan, “experience has shown that isolated belligerent aircraft were using our territory to escape persecution or to prepare for an attack.” Accordingly, he ordered “the opening of fire…on all foreign aircraft, even isolated, which fly over our territory, except those apparatus that are clearly in trouble or those who demonstrate intent to land on our soil.”

Some Swiss anti-aircraft units used their expanded authority to justify unprovoked hostilities against American aircraft seeking to land in Switzerland. Lt. Ralph Jackson’s aircraft lost an engine while bombing Augsburg, Germany, on April 13, 1944, less than two weeks after the Schaffhausen incident. Jackson’s pilot flew to Switzerland, and although it “did not come under enemy fire [while in Germany],” the aircraft was attacked by Swiss anti-aircraft batteries while crossing Lake Constance. The bomber was then intercepted by Swiss fighters and directed to land on a grass field near Zurich, where the crew was quickly arrested by Swiss soldiers with submachine guns. Jackson recalled being taken to a building for interrogation by a Swiss officer who was educated in the United States and “spoke excellent English.” Jackson was extremely uncomfortable, as he was still wearing his thick, “fur-lined” flying suit. The Swiss officer wanted to know all the details of his mission, but Jackson wisely “refused to give more than name, rank and serial number.” Jackson changed the subject to the unprovoked the attack on his aircraft, informing the interrogator that one of his crew was wounded by the Swiss. In response, the Swiss officer “seemed proud that we were hit,” saying that the Swiss batteries “were [supposed] to hit us if they shot at us.” The officer then “voiced strong indignation” over the recent Schaffhausen bombing. The Swiss officer apparently found the incident so egregious that he believed it justified a proportional response from the Swiss military, such as the attack on Jackson’s airplane. Jackson “was unaware of the Schaffhausen fiasco” at the time, and he therefore “vehemently denied that the U.S. had bombed Switzerland.”

American bombings of Switzerland occasionally resulted in apparent reciprocity directed at damaged American bombers seeking to land in Switzerland. Less than a month after the bombing of Schaffhausen, Swiss fighter aircraft and anti-aircraft batteries shot down an American B-17 that was already badly damaged by enemy fighters while bombing Stuttgart, Germany, killing six American airmen. First Lt. Everett Bailey was flying the aircraft, Little Chub, which was losing altitude and unable to maneuver due to inoperative landing gear and severely damaged rudder controls. The crew was working to free the critically wounded ball turret gunner Sgt. Anthony Melazzi, who was unable to move, and three other crewmembers were also badly wounded. Unable to comply with Swiss orders to land, the bomber circled twice around Zurich, and was then attacked by Swiss fighters and anti-aircraft batteries as it approached Lake Griefen. The attacks set the bomber on fire and killed bombardier Lt. Jesse Greenebaum and left waist gunner Sgt. Richard Sendleback. The condition of the aircraft prompted the surviving crew to bail out at only 600 feet altitude. Lt. Bailey died after his parachute failed to open, and copilot Lt. James Burry went down with the airplane when it crashed into Lake Griefen.​

 

On 8 April 1945 a B-24, s/n 44-50765, of the 449th Bomb Group lost two engines to flak over Brenner Pass and headed toward Switzerland as they had little hope of making back to base. Once over Swiss territory at 7,000 feet, the aircraft came under Swiss AA fire and the crew bailed out. As the pilot was decending in his chute, a Swiss fighter made a close pass by him. The fighter had not been sighted by the crew prior to bailing out. The crew bailed because they came under fire at essentially point-blank range, so contrary to opinions expressed earlier in this thread I would consider this incident a shoot down by the Swiss.

 

I really like prof. Mear's sense of balance. He calls the bombing of Schaffhausen an "incident" and swiss response to neurality violations "unprovoked hostilities ", and "apparent reciprocity " really fair estimate here . He is of course conveniently forgetting that failing to prevent enemy forces from using your territory for military purposes, and that includes overflight by planes perfoming bombing missions (transfer missions would be more iffy), is a violation of a neutrality status and would give herr Hitler, who didn't need much provocation, a perfectly legitimate reason to invade.

 

Unfortunately it was sometimes hard to make a distinction between a bomber with difficulties, trying to actually "make it" and force land, and another whether lost or not. In a similar way some of the Germans who actually flew to Switserland, were deserting and were hoping to end the war in quite "comfortable" way by being interned .