Swiss Interned B-17 Flying Fortress's

[Scott Rose]

Anybody have any images of Any of the B-17 Flying Fortress's that were interned in Switzerland? Especially the ones later used by the Swiss AF?

[Mark Allen M]

I posted a few of these photos in a thread someplace a bit ago.

Dübendorf Airfield near Zurich Switzerland, where the storage area was - the photos here were taken immediately after WW2

[Mark Allen M]

Someone may have some background to add for these photos.

[p51]

Oh my God, that actually hurt to see this photo...

[DamonE]

The Squadron Signal book ,Strangers in a Strange land II has some good images also.

[Duggy009]

[ffuries]

The following link has a list of aircraft that ended up in Switzerland during the war, as to how complete or correct it is, that I don't know!

http://swissinternees.tripod.com/aircraft.html

[TheBigBadGman]

This one was flown by a former friend of mine, Clifford Beach:



B-17G-10-DL
Dottie-G
42-37755
325th Bomb Squadron, 92nd Bomb Group, 40th Bomb Wing, 1st Air Division, US 8th Air Force, US Strategic Air Forces Europe
NV-A

The way Beach told it, Dottie-G was a hangar queen, assigned to him as punishment. Beach had nursed a damaged Fort home from Schweinfurt on a previous raid, and being assigned a new aircraft, promptly crash-landed it to a service depot for Gee installation. Those of you familiar with Forts know how easy it was to raise the gear on one if not careful. Unfortunately, I think Beach was mistaken about Dottie-G being an old-clunker, as he didn't think he had ever flown a B-17G - seems to me that the Dottie-G was fairly new.

That said, his last mission (25 February 1944) was a hell of a ride, as his toggler, PFC Bill A. Lenovich, downed an enemy fighter shortly before Dottie was hit by a Me-110-launched BR-21 rocket. The blast took out both the #1 and #2 engine and Beach called for a heading to Switzerland, belly landing at Dubendorf onto snow thick enough to keep the aircraft in relatively good shape.



Beach's fort was the first B-17G in Switzerland and Swiss authorities later cranked the gear down to examine the new turret. Beach and his crew were interred and later imprisoned after an escape attempt. Eventually, Beach and his navigator (2LT John Keefer) escaped, saying that a handkerchief tucked into a back pocket was the signal to let resistance operatives know they were Allied escapees.

Beach was a funny guy, riding around on a Rascal scooter with the vanity plate "Life's a Beach." He had breathing problems from once being a smoker and required the use of an oxygen mask every now and then. Doctors had him do breathing exercises with overpriced medical devices but Beach simply used balloons - when a dollar store cashier asked him "Mr. Beach, why are you always buying balloons?" he answered, "Because they're cheaper than condoms."

He asked me to find a picture of his first plane, which I never could. All he could remember about it was that his co-pilot at the time was from Texas, so they wrote on the right side of the nose the name "Co-Tex."

[kuno]

...you may find all allied aircraft which came down in Switzerland during WW2 on www.warbird.ch

[kuno]

@ Mark - please contact the webmaster of www.warbird.ch regarding the aerial-photographs of the US-bombers interned in Switzerland. Many thanks in advance.

[Scott Rose]

Thanks everyone, those are great