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Aircraft brought down by "Neutral" countries.

Discussion in 'Weapons & Technology in WWII' started by JCFalkenbergIII, Mar 20, 2008.

  1. JCFalkenbergIII

    JCFalkenbergIII Expert

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    Irony is lost on some I guess. :rolleyes: LOL
     
  2. JCFalkenbergIII

    JCFalkenbergIII Expert

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    BULLTOFTA AIRFIELD, MALMÖ, SWEDEN
    "One of the pilots, after finishing his missions, was assigned to air transport command, flying night missions to and from Sweden in an unmarked, black painted B-24. That was good for me and my crew..."
    Throughout WWII, Sweden (a neutral country) saw forced & crash landings on their soil by a large number of both Axis and Allied damaged aircraft. And because of its location at the southern tip of Sweden, for Allied pilots and air crews Bulltofta airfield in Malmö, Sweden was one of several easier alternatives to flying a heavily damaged aircraft back to their originating air base in England. The peak of this activity for Malmö was June 20th-21st, 1944, when at least 25 bombers force landed at the small Bulltofta airfield... including Lovely Lady's Avenger on the 21st.
    See other sections of this page and also the newsletter article "Bulltofta: June 20-21, 1944" in the link below for more information. The article even mentions specifically the forced landing of Lovely Lady's Avenger and includes another photo of the aircraft after the crash! "

    Charles Seth WWII Stories & Photos
     
  3. JCFalkenbergIII

    JCFalkenbergIII Expert

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    Dixon jokes he participated in "121/2" bombing runs. During Mission No. 13, on March 6, 1944, a German fighter plane pumped "Snort Stuff" full of lead west of Berlin. Two engines went kaput. Fuel gushed out.
    The pilot, Samuel Barrick, realized there wasn't enough fuel to make it back to England and steered the wounded bomber toward neutral Sweden. They made it - barely - landing at a Swedish airstrip just across the border from German-occupied Denmark.
    "It was the only place we could go except down," said Dixon.
    Because Sweden was not involved in the fighting, Dixon and his buddies were classified as "internees" rather than prisoners of war. For seven months, they stayed in a small hotel in Rattvik, a resort town surrounded by gorgeous mountains and lakes.
    "It was literally a seven-month vacation," said Dixon, who after the war taught political science at Indiana University and became a writer and editor for Lockheed Martin.
    Dixon generally had to stay within a three-mile radius of Rattvik, but it wasn't much of a sacrifice. Using the $5 a day he continued to draw from the Army for living expenses, he bought a bicycle and used a sailboat, skied, played tennis and went to the opera in Stockholm.
    He also became semifluent in Swedish and acquired a lifelong taste for thin Swedish pancakes.
    "I think I must have been Swedish in a past life," Dixon said, "because the language came easily to me."

    Gunner had Swedish 'vacation'; bomber hit - Reports from The Huntsville Times - al.com
     
  4. JCFalkenbergIII

    JCFalkenbergIII Expert

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  5. JCFalkenbergIII

    JCFalkenbergIII Expert

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    "Nazi Germany repeatedly violated Swiss airspace. During the Invasion of France, German aircraft violated Swiss airspace no fewer than 197 times.[15] In several air incidents, the Swiss (using 10 Bf-109 D, 80 Bf-109 E fighters bought from Germany and some Morane-Saulnier M.S.406s built under license in Switzerland), shot down 11 Luftwaffe planes between 10 May 1940 and 17 June 1940.[15] Germany protested diplomatically on 5 June 1940, and with a second note on 19 June 1940 which contained clear threats. Hitler was especially furious when he saw that German equipment was shooting down German pilots. He said they would respond "in another matter".[15] On 20 June 1940, the Swiss air force was ordered to stop intercepting planes violating Swiss airspace. Swiss fighters began to instead force intruding aircraft to land at Swiss airfields. Anti-aircraft units still operated. Later, Hitler unsuccessfully sent saboteurs to destroy airfields.[16]
    Allied aircraft also intruded on Swiss airspace during the war, mostly Allied bombers returning from raids over Italy and Germany that had been damaged and whose crews preferred internment by the Swiss to becoming prisoners of war. Over a hundred Allied aircraft and their crews were interned.[17]
    Switzerland, surrounded by Axis controlled territory, also suffered from Allied bombings during the war; most notably the accidental bombing of Schaffhausen by American planes on April 1, 1944. It was mistaken for a nearby German town and 40 people were killed and over 50 buildings destroyed.[18][17][19]
    The bombing limited much of the leniency the Swiss had to allied airspace violations. Eventually, the problem became so bad that the Swiss authorized fighter attacks on belligerent U.S. aircraft.[citation needed] Victims of these mistaken bombings were not limited to Swiss civilians however, but included the often confused American aircrews, shot down by the Swiss fighters as well as several Swiss fighters shot down by American airman. In February 1945, 18 civilians were killed by Allied bombs dropped over Stein am Rhein, Vals, and Rafz. Perhaps the most notorious incident[20] came on March 4, 1945, when both Basel and Zurich were accidentally bombed by Allied aircraft. The attack on Basel's railway station led to the destruction of a passenger train, but no casualties were reported. However, a B-24 Liberator dropped its bomb load over Zurich, destroying two buildings and killing 5 civilians. The aircraft's crew believed that they were attacking Freiburg in Germany.[19] As John Helmreich points out, Sincock and Balides, in choosing a target of opportunity, "...missed the marshalling yard they were aiming for, missed the city they were aiming for, and even missed the country they were aiming for."
    The Swiss reaction, although somewhat skeptical, was to treat these violations of their neutrality as 'accidents'. The United States was warned that single aircraft would be forced down, and would still be allowed to seek refuge, while bomber formations in violation of airspace would be intercepted. While American politicians and diplomats tried to minimise the political damage caused by these incidents, others took a more hostile view. Some senior commanders argued that, as Switzerland was 'full of German sympathisers', it deserved to be bombed.[21] General Harris Hall even suggested that it was the Germans themselves who were flying captured allied planes over Switzerland in an attempt to gain a propaganda victory.[citation needed] However the U.S. eventually apologized for the violations.
    Danger from U.S. Bombers came not only from accidental bombings, but from the aircraft themselves. In many cases once a crippled bomber reached Switzerland and was out of enemy territory crews would often bail out leaving the aircraft to continue until it crashed."

    Switzerland during the World Wars - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
     
  6. JCFalkenbergIII

    JCFalkenbergIII Expert

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    30/09/44. 15:23. Dübendorf. Mosquito FB VI. NS993. 3P-T. 515 Sqn .Intruder Mission. During the mission the right engine overheated. The pilot was forced to turn the engine off and decided to try and return home via the safer route over Switzerland. however it was intercepted North of Zurich by 4 Moranes of the Swiss airforce and forced to land. Later used by Swiss airforce coded B-5.

    http://yourarchives.nationalarchives.gov.uk/index.php?title=RAF_aircraft_which_crashed_in_Switzerland%2C_WWII
     
  7. TiredOldSoldier

    TiredOldSoldier Ace

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    In number 181 of the Italian magazine "Storia Militare" there was an 18 page article, with good quality pictures, on planes that landed in Sweden.
    There are details about some notable episodes I'm going to just extract aircraft IDs and a short comment for each.
    The first plane to land in Sweden was on 13/9/1939 (BTW my dates are in European format) a Polish civilian light plane marked SP-BML landed on Gotland with two passengers that asked to be taken as political refugees.
    22/9/1939 He 60 K6+QH landed in Swedish waters due to engine trouble and was towed to Ystad, sent back to Germany on 6/40.
    2/6/1940 Ju 52/3 DC+SP shot down with 7 survivors and 8 killed.
    21/04/1940 He 111 B3+FN forced landing and destroyed by crew.
    21/04/1940 He 111 P1 B3+JM and another He 111 from 4/KG54 forced down over Gotland the first was sent back and the second destroyed by it's crew. Interesting fact the crews were "swapped" with those of a Swedish B3A that had landed near Stettin with engine troubles 22/09/1940 Swordfish Mk I L2860 G5-F from Furious.(this was the first Brit).
    27/08/1940 a BV 139 broke her moorings in Copenhagen and beached itself intact on the Swedish coast.
    02/06/1940 Ju 87 B-2 A5+IL shot down by a Swedish armed train :eek:
    06/07/1940 Do 17 P A6+JH
    24/10/1940 Me 109 E3 3+- landed near Karlstad, the plane was sent to SAAB for examination before being sent back two months later.
    01/09/1941 Me 110E-1 LN+KR and LN+FR landed by mistake near a Swedish lake after an attack on Murmansk, the first had made a perfect landing and was examined by the swedes before being sent back.
    13/12/1941 Ju 53/3m P4+HH landed in in Sweden instead of Kemi in Finland, this was the second time it's pilot Obt. Schultz, who was carring 18 passengers, had made that mistake :eek:.
    19/07/1943 Ju 53/3m 7U+AM from Denmark to Finland with a cargo of a Norwegian cook, vegetables and 2 pigs, this caused some embarassment as the pigs had been registerd as passengers with full names on the planes log :D.
    09/10/1943 Me 109 F2 DJ.JW F/1 landed out of fuel, as an indication of the changed swedish attitude the plane was not sent back and the pilot held for over a month.
    11/04/1944 Me 410 B1 SU+KM shoot down without warning and both crewmembers killed near Sovde, the wreckage hit the Swedish airman Nils Holmberg who was biking nearby.
    The Germans retaliated by shooting down 4 swedish Caproni ca 313, apparently over international waters, between 14 and 24 May 1944.
    From fall 44 the refugee planes started comming in the first was
    ??/??/1944 Arado Ar 95 A-5 6R+BL .
    05/10/1944 Macchi 202 MM9697 from a fighter school in Nurnberg the plane was sent back in February 1945 and was the only plane of Italian manufacture to land in Sweden as refugee, the pilot manged to avoid being turned to the Soviets afeter the war as he was Czech born and so could ask for asylum.
    ...
    24/07/1943 B 17F Georgia Rebel is reported as the first US plane to land in Sweden, having lost an engine and with a second damaged was intercepted by CR 42s and made an emergency landing near Vanmacka, The 10 men crew was sent back by "diplomatic courier" while the plane was used as spares for other B 17 converted to transports by the Swedes.
    09/09/1943 B 17 Miss Nomalee II force landed in the Danish coast believing to be in Sweden the pilot manage to reach Swede and safety but the rest of the crew was captured, on the same day B 17F Sack Time Susy landed in landed at Bulltofta with wing damage and a dead engine, one of the crew fell for a swedish girl and served the rest of the war at the US embassy, the plane was bought by sweden and corvered for civilian use as SE-BAH.
    18/09/194 B24 War Baby the raid, against the Norwegian Kjeller field, was lucky as the Germans were conducting a training exercise so most AA had been issued with training ammo but War Baby was hit and landed on a Swedish field. Another plane from the same raid B24 Bakadori landed at in sweden as well, these were the first B24 to arrive.
    09/06/1944 5 bombers arrived in Sweden, B 17G 42-97496 badly damaged landed at Bultofta, B 17G Classy Chassy, lthat anded at Kalmar airport escorted by two Re 2000, and 3 B 24 of which I have no details. Two more B 24 crash landed in Denmark attemting to reach Sweden.
    11/06/1944 9 bombers got to Sweden and two crash laded in Denmark, 14 crewmembers of the latter made it to sweden within a few days.
    20/06/1944 was the record day with 21 four engined bombers reaching swedish airports, most at Bulltofta.
    04/08/1944 P 51B Hot Pants had the distinction of being the first US fighter, the plane was bought by Sweden.
    06/04/1944 P 51D You've had it landed at Bulltofta..
    06/08/1945 Lt F.D. Talcott landed his P 51D at Bulltofta with a dead engine.
    22/09/1944 P 38J 43-28616 landed at Barkarby Stockholm airport escorted by two Re 2000 that had intercepted it over the Oresund straits. This was the only P 38 to land in Sweden.
    05/04/1945 B 17G Cadet Nurse the 2nd was the last US to land at Bulltofta..
    Between August 29 and 31 1944 nine Lancs landed or crash landed in Sweden.
    Between 02/04/1945 and 02/05/1945 10 Mosquitos made it to Sweden.
    I have no total for US planes but at peak time Vasteras airfield held 16 B 17 and 24 B 24 waiting to be sent back and many more were unrecoverable or bought by the swedes who builta number o B 17 conversions for civilian use.
    The German plane total is 70 for 1939-43 and 86 in 44-45.
    The British total was 59 with 22 in 1944 alone.

    JC I know you are a "purist" on thread corectness and this info partly belongs to a "defectors" thread rarther than here but it's a nice summary of what landed in sweden whether "brought down", navigation errors, defection or landing a damaged plane in the nearest non German controlled country. Some incidents are confused, the Re 2000 and Cr 42 used by sweden had little chance to force an undamaged plane down. I'm also using a single source though a generally very good one.
     
  8. JCFalkenbergIII

    JCFalkenbergIII Expert

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    Thats ok TOS. I really don't mind a little bleed over LOL.
     
  9. JCFalkenbergIII

    JCFalkenbergIII Expert

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    :bump:
     
  10. JCFalkenbergIII

    JCFalkenbergIII Expert

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    Wow. 9 Lancasters in just 3 days? How many raids and where?
     
  11. razin

    razin Member

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  12. JCFalkenbergIII

    JCFalkenbergIII Expert

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  13. razin

    razin Member

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    Hey they named a town for you:D:D

    Steve
     
  14. JCFalkenbergIII

    JCFalkenbergIII Expert

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    LOL. Too bad not my real name :( .
     
  15. JCFalkenbergIII

    JCFalkenbergIII Expert

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    With the amount of German aircraft in the early part of the war I wonder how the Swedes determined if the aircraft was allowed to be sent back?.
     
  16. razin

    razin Member

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    Really:) you don't think I'm really a 16th C. Cossak Brigand do ya:)

    Found another Swedish forced landing -don't think it is mentioned before.

    SKUA Mk2 801sq. 10-40

    Events in Norway October 1940 with Blackburn Skua Mk II, L2902 801 Sqn, Fleet Air Arm Crew: Lt H. Hayes, and Lt E. Graham during the Norwegian campaign and their internment in Sweden
    On 13th October HMS Furious left Scapa Flow for the Norwegian waters again, this time to strike against Tromso. In the early hours of the 16th, the aircraft of 801 squadron were prepared for another sortie. At 0405 hours GMT+1 (B.S.T.) six Skuas from 801 Squadron flew off the deck to attack the harbour at Tromso. L2902 released its load, sometime after this the decision to head for Sweden was taken. The reason for this is not known, but several factors may have contributed to the decision; one being the difficulties in finding HMS Furious again.
    The aircraft crossed the Swedish border on a southerly course. Over the village of Malmberget the aircraft was fired at by Swedish anti-aircraft batteries (located there in defense of the mining facilities). This happened at 0856 hours GMT+1 and caused the crew to fire Verey-lights. The aircraft eventually ditched in Lake Vassaratrask near Gallivare. Taking to their dinghy, the crew reached the beach, where they were met by a Swedish Army patrol. After questioning, Lieutenant Hayes and Graham were sent by train to Framby for internment. They were released for repatriation in December.
    The Skua L2902 was salvaged and was put into storage at F4 Froson. It was kept there until the end of 1944, when it was decided to scrap the aircraft. As no British aircraft were taken back to the United Kingdom, they were disposed of in various fashions. L2902 ended up as a gunnery practice target for the Swedish Air Force J26 Mustangs at Brynaset on Ason island, which was first used in 1947. The first attack was made by the first Division (Flight) of the F4 Wing, 'David Rod'.

    Steve
     
  17. JCFalkenbergIII

    JCFalkenbergIII Expert

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    You're not????:eek: LOL. Thanks great info :).
     

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