Swedish Internees: Photos of a Forced Landing, May 19, 1944

The heavily-damaged 95th Bomb Group B-17 'Smiling Sandy Sanchez' rests in a ploughed field in Sweden after a wheels-up crash landing on May 19, 1944. The crew spent the rest of the war as Swedish internees.

Another angle of the plane crash. All on board survived.

The W.S. Waltham crew pose for a photo in Sweden. Fournier is in the front row, second from left, shirtless with camera. (Photos courtesy of James Fournier)

Photos from James Fournier, Bombardier on the W.S. Waltham Crew, 95th Bomb Group, 334th Squadron. The crew, flying the B-17 'Smiling Sandy Sanchez' was shot up on May 19, 1944, plunging twenty-four thousand feet in a flat spin before pulling out at three thousand feet, and eventually crashing in a ploughed field in Sweden. The crew spent the rest of the war as Swedish internees. (Photos courtesy of James Fournier, whom I interviewed at the Tucson Reunion of the 95th in 2008). Fournier's story will appear in the upcoming 95th Unit History which I recently completed.

Remembering Airmen Interned in Switzerland

If you are looking for a new and fascinating area of study about the air war over Europe in World War Two, then look no further than the strange situation of Allied airmen interned in Switzerland. It is a story often overlooked, and very few men who ended up there eve qualified for the POW medal. Technically, they were not POW; however, some endured far worse treatment at the hands of the Swiss than most American airmen did in Luftwaffe camps.

The Swiss Internee Association keeps the memories alive. The following is a quote directily from their website. I highly recommend you click on the link following this sentence and spend a few hours looking around. You'll be glad you did.

http://swissinternees.tripod.com/

"The vast majority of American servicemen interned in Switzerland during WWII were US Army Air Force bomber crewmembers participating in the Strategic Air Offensive against the Axis. While the British employed nighttime area bombing, US B-17 and B-24 bombers targeted precision industrial sites during the day, concentrating on several key industries and finally focusing on the German transportation network. The US airmen who flew these bombers were young, and the doctrine they relied on was largely unproven due to the recent rise of long-range air power theory. Allied bombardment contributed significantly to the downfall of the German war economy, but with a steep price. The USAAF lost 80,000 airmen, more than any other branch of the US armed forces.
Due to the long-range nature of bombing missions over occupied Europe, Allied bombers initially had no fighter escort to protect them from Luftwaffe fighters. They also had few options when they sustained heavy damage to their aircraft. Any loss of fuel, damage to engines or mechanical failure made the return trip to England or North Africa unlikely, if not impossible. Heading for neutral Switzerland or Sweden was often the only alternative to a German POW camp, a fate which no aircrew relished. This accounts for the 167 USAAF aircraft that intentionally landed in Swiss territory, and the many others that tried to do so unsuccessfully. During the war, German propagandists claimed that some aircrews intentionally flew to Switzerland with no damage in order to avoid combat. This rumor was investigated and debunked in April of 1944 by order of General Carl Spaatz, chief of US Strategic Air Forces in Europe. Nearly every USAAF aircraft in Switzerland was found to have received significant battle damage, and no charges were ever instigated against their crews.
Once in the custody of the Swiss government, American airmen were considered “internees.” Internees are treated almost identically to POWs under the laws of war, excepting that by definition an internee is held in a neutral state. Some other US soldiers entered Switzerland by foot, for which they earned the status of “evadee.” Evadees were not kept in camps, and could come and go as they pleased. Internees, on the other hand, were usually restricted to a specific area and kept under guard. The Swiss were determined to adhere strictly to the rules governing internees, largely because they were under constant threat of invasion by the German Army. Any hint of impartiality toward the Allies could have incurred dire consequences for a state that professed neutrality, particularly one surrounded completely by the Axis. USAAF personnel caught attempting escape were punished severely, sometimes well beyond the limits stipulated in the laws of war. The Swiss government’s policy toward neutrality was clearly illustrated by the fact that some USAAF bombers attempting to land in Switzerland were attacked by Swiss fighters and anti-aircraft weapons.
After landing in Switzerland, interned crewmembers were typically interrogated and then quarantined for a short period before movement to a permanent internment camp. The first permanent internment facility was established at Adelboden, and others soon followed in Wengen and Davos. Several “punishment” or concentration camps were also established to house internees undergoing disciplinary punishment, normally for attempting escape. These camps included Straflager Wauwilermoos, Hünenburg, Les Diablerets and Greppen. Wauwilermoos was the most notorious of the punishment camps, due to deplorable camp conditions and a fanatical Swiss Army commander. Incarceration in such facilities grew dramatically after the Allied invasion of France, mainly because of the increased prospect of escape to Allied lines.
Despite the severe treatment that some internees received at the hands of the Swiss government, the overwhelming majority of Swiss citizens were sympathetic to the Allied cause. Many Swiss citizens risked punishment or exile by helping American airmen to escape the country. The anti-Allied posture of the Swiss government at the time was understandable in a historical context; Switzerland was not self-sufficient, and depended on foreign imports to survive. Neutral states are not required to restrict private citizens from selling munitions or equipment that contribute to the war effort of a belligerent nation, however, they cannot restrict commerce to one belligerent and allow it with another. By the passing of exclusive treaties, the Swiss government did effectively restrict nearly all trade with the Allies, while at the same time providing loans, munitions and key industrial components for the Axis. This clearly violated their neutral status, although this decision probably preserved their political sovereignty and territorial integrity."

Norris King--Shot Down by the Swiss

Norris King stands beside a piece of the wreckage of his B-17 'Sugarfoot', shot down by Swiss anti-aircraft October 1, 1943. He was given the piece, which shows part of the naked lady painted on plane and comes from the nose section, fifty years after the war by a Swiss friend.

In Norris wartime log and journal, two pictures of the remains of his plane and a cartoon of his plane he drew while in captivity.

Saturday I had a great visit with Norris and Marilyn King in Arvada, Colorado, just outside Denver. I’ve been corresponding with Norris and Marilyn for a number of years, ever since I did the researched a chapter on Swiss internees for my book Untold Valor: Forgotten Stories of American Bomber Crews Over Europe in World War Two. Norris was one of the earliest internees in Switzerland after his B-17 bomber was shot down, not by the Germans, but by Swiss anti-aircraft guns, killing seven of the ten men on his crew.

The many photos in this article are just that--photos--and do not have the quality of a scan. I did the best I could with what I had available, but some are a little blurry.

A little history is in order concerning Swiss internment. By international agreement, a soldier from any warring nation who ended up in neutral Switzerland during the war was to be held as an internee till war’s end. These men could still draw their monthly pay and conditions for many of the internees, though Spartan, were not overly harsh. 166 U.S. aircraft landed in Switzerland during the war, and 1,500 Americans became internees. American airmen interned in Switzerland were sent to one of three small resort villages high in the Swiss Alps—Adelboden, Davos or Wengen. They lodged in stripped-down resort hotels. If they signed an agreement not to escape, they were allowed to go hiking, visit the town, and even ski. If an airman refused to sign the no-escape agreement, his movement was limited. And if an airmen attempted escape, punishment could be very harsh. Some escapees ended up in the Swiss federal prison of Wauwilermoos, a prison for the worst criminals in Switzerland run by a Swiss Nazi who was charged with war crimes after the war.

The main reason allied aircraft diverted to neutral Switzerland during the war was because the planes were severely damaged in combat and were unable to make the return trip to bases in England or North Africa. Other reasons for diversion to Switzerland included low fuel or the need for immediate medical treatment for severely wounded crewmen who would have died before the aircraft could make it back to base.

German airmen were also interned in Switzerland, at least according to the agreement. However, most were allowed to return to Germany. Over seven hundred German airmen actually refused repatriation and remained in Switzerland of their own accord.

October 1, 1943 is a day that Norris King will never forget. The 19-year-old waist gunner from Colorado and his tight-knit crew took off from the 99th Bomb Group’s isolated airstrip at Oudna, Tunisia. Their target for today was a Messerschmitt factory in Augsburg, Germany. The mission was the longest of the war for the group, over 1,800 miles round-trip.

The crew, led by pilot Burton C. English, was “a fun-loving, compatible crew of officers and enlisted men who trained together and played together”, remembers Norris. Today they flew a B-17 named Sugarfoot. They’d inherited her from another crew, and had only recently commissioned one of their ground crewman to paint a naked lady on the side.

Shortly before her fateful final mission, Sugarfoot's crew had a naked lady painted on the front of their B-17. This piece was retrieved from the wreckage of the plane by the man who shot her down, Colonel Ruegg, and he kept it in his home as a war trophy. Norris's piece fits directly below the piece shown here.

The formation became lost in the clouds and by the time the navigators were able to get a fix, they were way off target. The planes were ordered to drop bombs on targets of opportunity. A swarm of German Me-109 fighters jumped the formation and a fierce firefight erupted. The American bombers tightened their formation to protect against fighter attack, and while so engaged, the American bombers drifted into Swiss air space.

Flak Detachment 21 at Ragaz-Beul was only three miles from the Swiss/German border. It was commanded by Swiss Colonel C.S. Ruegg. Ruegg ordered his battery to open fire on the American planes.

Sugarfoot had already taken some serious hits from the Me-109 fighters in two passes. The pilots struggled to keep her in formation. “They hit us with everything they had,” remembers Norris. “I think I hit one, at least I saw one go down after I shot it.”

Suddenly, the aircraft exploded. It had taken a direct hit from Ruegg’s anti-aircraft guns.

Norris found himself floating down to earth like a leaf in the severed waist section, which had detached from the front and tail sections of the aircraft. He simply had to roll out the waist door. “I think we were at about twelve thousand feet when we got hit,” he remembers. “By the time I got out and got my parachute open, I only had time to make one swing in the chute before I hit the ground. I landed in a tree, kind of fell through the branches onto the ground. I sat under the tree, head spinning. I had a concussion. A soldier came up to me. I assumed he was German and put my hands up. But he identified himself as Swiss. He was very, very friendly.”

Norris was taken to Villa Flora Hospital for treatment of his injuries. While he was in the hospital, he was surprised when Swiss President Gisen came to visit him and two men from another crew who had also been wounded. “President Gisen was very friendly,” says Norris. “He was an American sympathizer. The Swiss civilians seemed to be pro-American. The military people were more pro-German”.
The Swiss president, President Gisen, who visited Norris in the hospital after the demise of Sugarfoot.

Norris found that he was one of only three survivors from his crew—himself, left waist gunner Marion Pratt, and ball turret gunner Joe Carroll. The other seven, pilot Burton C. English, co-pilot Donald M. Prentice, bombardier Irving B. Patten, navigator L. Stanley Finseth, flight engineer Peter B. Machiodi, radio operator Charles R. Burgett, and tail gunner Elmer Wheedon were all dead. “Wheadon was even younger than me,” remembers Norris. “He was only eighteen.”

A wooden piece of Sugarfoot's radio room, the first piece of the plane Norris received from a Swiss friend, who had recovered it shortly after the plane crashed.

Another B-17 had also gone down that day, shot down by German fighters before crashing in Switzerland. Five men died on that crew. It had been a disastrous day for American airmen over Switzerland. Thirteen young men had lost their lives. The Swiss held a full military funeral the next day, attended by the Swiss president and the US Military Attache’, General Legge. Each coffin was draped in an American flag, and the thirteen airmen were buried at a small cemetery with much pomp and circumstance. Only seventy Americans were interned this early in the war, and all attended the funeral, with some acting as pall bearers. Norris was too badly injured to attend the funeral, but his fellow crewmen Pratt and Carroll were there, and made the front of the Swiss newspapers and magazines getting condolences from the Swiss government officials.

First photo, below, one of the coffins from the tragic October 1, 1943 downing of two B-17s over Switzerland. American internees serving as pall bearers.

Second photo, below, flag-draped coffins in the church and at the cemetery.

Third photo, below, Norris's two surviving crew-mates, Carroll and Pratt, at the funeral. Norris was still in the hospital recovering from his injuries and did not attend.

Above, Norris's wartime log, given to him by the YMCA in Switzerland. He kept records, pasted in articles and photos, during his long and often boring stay.

Norris still has his wartime log, a thick scrapbook given to him by the YMCA after his internment. With little else to do, he spent a lot of time writing in it, drawing pictures, and pasting in various photos and souvenirs of his stay in Switzerland.

Norris, above, holds his wartime log. He covered the log with fabric from his parachute--the chute that saved his life after he bailed out of the waist section at 12,000 feet.

In the front, he has a memorial page to the seven men on his crew who died that day. Each man is listed, along with his position. A poem accompanies the memorial:

“These are the falconers who fly
Grey hawks of terror in the sky
How quietly the new dead lie.”

The memorial page, above, and Norris's graduation photo from gunnery school, proudly holding his .50 caliber waist gun.

Norris and his fellows were taken to Adelboden, where they stayed in a Swiss resort hotel that had been converted into a dormitory. A reception was held for them when they showed up. “We were treated like celebrities,” says Norris. “We couldn’t have been treated better.” The commandant in Adelboden was a man named Captain Kramer. “He was a former pilot,” remembers Norris. “He was one of the first to fly over the Swiss Alps many years before. He was a heck of a good guy.” Captain Kramer, Commandant of the Swiss internees held at Adelboden.

Below, Norris stayed at the Nevada Palace Hotel while interned. This is an advertisement for the hotel from the time period.

The cover of a Swiss photo weekly shows the first American internees captured in Switzerland.

Unlike his unfriendly welcome to Switzerland, Norris’s actual internment was quite pleasant. He had no desire to escape, and spent the time hiking or visiting in the town. He collected wildflowers and pasted some of them, including Edelweiss, into his YMCA scrap book. However, as the war dragged on, he became bored and together with some other internees, decided to attempt an escape.

Below, wildflowers Norris picked and pasted into his wartime log sixty years ago.

Below that, two pages from Norris's log showing pre-war advertisements for the resort town of Adelboden.

Below, Norris's identity papers as a Swiss internee. Above, Norris made these aerial gunner's wings from Plexiglas from the nose a crashed bomber. Above the wings is his leather squadron patch from the 99th Bomb Group, 15th Air Force.

“We left Adelboden in a strange car that had a wooden stove as a motor. There were five of us. We paid off the driver. He took us to Lucerne, and we got on a train to Geneva. We stayed in Geneva at a safe house for three or four days, then we each got a passport for France. The ‘Makis’, members of the French Resistance, picked them up and smuggled them to a safe house in France. “The Maki leader reminded me of Captain Easy in the funnies,” laughs Norris. “He gave me some kirsch that knocked me on my ass. A Jeep came and took us to an American Army camp. This was in September of 1944. And then an airplane came from Italy and flew us back to our base, which now was in Foggia, Italy. From there we went to Naples and then home on a liberty ship, the USS Athos.

Norris and Marilyn returned to Switzerland in 1993 for the 50th anniversary of the downing of the first American plane in Switzerland. The Swiss feted them and treated them like celebrities, even having a parade. Norris found himself riding in the same Jeep in the parade with an elderly Colonel Ruegg, the very same man who had shot down Sugarfoot years before. When I asked Norris if Ruegg seemed apologetic for killing seven of the ten men on his crew, Norris shook his head. “No. He was proud of it.” Though Norris couldn’t bring himself to shake Ruegg’s hand, he did give the old man a B-17 belt buckle. A Swiss friend later sent Norris a photograph (shown in this article) taken at Col. Ruegg's home. Ruegg still had a piece of Sugarfoot that he’d kept as a war trophy in his garage. It showed the top part of the naked lady the crew had painted on the plane shortly before her demise.

On a later trip, Norris was presented with a piece of Sugarfoot as well. Marilyn wrapped the one by two foot piece, which has the naked woman’s painted rear end and thighs on it, in a plastic bag and then wrapped it in clothing and put it in her suitcase. “It was very fragile, and I didn’t want it to break”, she says. Amazingly, the piece made it home safely, and is now displayed in a shadow box in the King’s computer room.

The buttocks and thigh section of Sugarfoot's naked lady, now on display in Norris's computer room. He got it fifty years after the war. Compare it to the one in Ruegg's home higher up in this article.

Norris, now 83, looks young and fit, and remembers his time in Switzerland with fondness. However, he still misses his brothers from his crew, young men who were robbed of their futures by the guns of the neutral Swiss.

Marilyn and Norris King and Rob Morris in the King home, Arvada, CO, Sunday August 13, 2007

This story is copyright 2007 by Rob Morris. Contact him for permissions.

Preview of Denver and Wyoming Trip

The writer has returned to his computer.

Son Matt (20), son-in-law Cody Davis (25) and myself (old) traveled 1,300+ miles since Friday, and saw most of southern Wyoming and a piece of Colorado as well. We visited my son's home town and also Medicine Bow, the town where we lived for four years in the eighties.

I will give a full report tomorrow, broken down into several categories. Norris King's story is so amazing and unknown that I plan to write up it and submit it to several aviation history and World War Two magazines.

For now, I submit a couple of photos from the trip, with only minor commentary.

Matt Morris (left, in Sosa jersey) and Cody Davis (right, in white shirt) enjoy the Colorado Rockies/Chicago Cubs game on Sunday, August 12 at Coors Field, Denver, Colorado.

We saw a game on Saturday evening and another on Sunday. Sunday's game was a hot one, with temperatures over 100 degrees.

Second, the highlight of the trip for me was meeting with Norris King and his lovely wife Marilyn, who live in Arvada, Colorado. Norris's 15th Air Force B-17 was shot down in 1943 by Swiss anti-aircraft fire. The day his plane went down, 13 Americans were killed in Switzerland. On Norris's plane, only three of the crew of ten survived. Norris shared his experiences and we had a great visit. The photo today shows Norris with a piece of his plane, which he was given upon his return to Switzerland fifty years after the war. It is in a shadow-box in his den. Norris spent time as a Swiss internee before escaping from Switzerland later in the war, joining up with the French underground, and making his way back to Allied lines. Though he is 82, he looks younger than me. For Norris's story, see my book 'Untold Valor' pages 177-182.

Norris King and a piece of his B-17, a 99th BG B-17 named 'Sugarfoot' that was shot down by Swiss anti-aircraft, killing all but three members of the crew on October 1, 1943.

Marilyn King, Norris King, and Rob Morris at the King home, Arvada, Colorado, Sunday August 12, 2007.

More tomorrow, so stay tuned.

Wyoming/Colorado Road Trip

Starting tomorrow, I will be off-line for a few days. My son Matt, my son-in-law Cody, and I are driving down to Denver tomorrow to catch a pair of Chicago Cubs/Colorado Rockies games.

An old photograph of Medicine Bow, Wyoming, circa 1917. This is pretty much how it looked when we lived there, as well, right down to the water tower.

This will be a sentimental trip for us. In 1985, I was hired for my first teaching job in the small town of Medicine Bow, Wyoming (population roughly 700). This was in an oil and uranium mining area of southeastern Wyoming. I absolutely loved my job there, and I fell in love with the rugged beauty of the high plains. Unfortunately, my wife Geri did not like being sixty miles from the nearest larger town. We were sixty miles from Laramie to the east, ninety miles from Casper to the north, and sixty miles from Rawlins to the west. We moved there when my oldest daughter was two weeks old. In 1987, my son Matt was born in Rawlins. We moved to Idaho Falls, Idaho in 1989 and have been here ever since. I'm preparing to enter my 23rd year as a teacher. Medicine Bow was my first four years, and I learned a lot there.

The Virginian Hotel, at one time the tallest building between St. Louis and California on the railroad. It is named for the title character in Owen Wister's famous novel, 'The Virginian'. We may stay here tomorrow night.

We'll drive to Medicine Bow tomorrow, possibly spend the night there, either at the Virginian Hotel or at a nearby BLM campground. The Virginian Hotel is named for the famous Owen Wister novel of the same name. Wister's novel is considered the first great western novel, and he based it in Medicine Bow. In the 1950's, there was a popular television series called 'The Virginian', also based in Medicine Bow.

The next day we'll drive on to Denver. We'll see a game Saturday night and again on Sunday. Also during our Denver stay, I will be visiting Norris King and his wife Marilyn in Arvada, a Denver suburb. Norris was a gunner on a B-17 that was shot down by Swiss anti-aircraft during World War Two, killing seven of the ten men on board. For those who have the Potomac version of my book, Untold Valor, Norris' story is told in detail on pages 177-182.

From the Swiss Internees' Website, here is the info on Norris's crew condensed from the MACR:

B - 17 # 42 - 30126 " Sugarfoot "

Pilot - Lt. Burton English

Attacked by LW Fighters , Badly damaged , on Fire.

Pilot , Copilot , Nav , BB and TG either Killed or Wounded.

As A/C was going down , it crossed Swiss Border and Swiss began Shooting.

A/C exploded

- 3 Crewmen bailed out and Interned. Sgt. Marion Pratt , Sgt. Norris King , Sgt. Joseph Carroll

The remains of Norris's plane 'Sugarfoot', in Switzerland. Norris has a piece of the plane at his home in Colorado, given to him years after the war by the man who shot the plane down.

We'll be returning to Idaho on Monday. I'll make sure to post a story about Norris King and also photos of the baseball game and of Medicine Bow.

Coors Field, Denver, Colorado. Home of the Colorado Rockies. We will be sitting for both games in the 'Rockpile', which are the cheapest seats in the stadium, directly to the center of the photo, behind the pine trees.

Coors Field, Denver. A new stadium with a disinctly vintage feel to it.

I miss Medicine Bow a great deal. If it had been up to me, I'd still be there. It will be a day full of memories tomorrow as we stay there.

Dan Culler--An American Hero

Dan Culler's story is still relatively unknown, despite the fact that Donald Miller touched on it in his book Masters of the Air, which has been a big seller in the United States. I covered Dan's story in detail in my own book Untold Valor a few years ago, and have maintained a close friendship with Dan to this day.

Dan was imprisoned by the Swiss for trying to escape from internment after his B-24, filled with flak and bullet-holes, was forced to land in Switzerland. He spent time in hell, at the Wauwilermoos Federal Prison, where he was tortured and his wounds were left untreated. He still suffers from these wounds today. The camp was run by a Swiss Nazi named Andre Beguin. The American military attache in Switzerland, a man by the name of Barnwell Legge, did nothing to help the Americans who tried to escape, and in fact refused to acknowledge the existence of this camp. Fifty years later, the President of Switzerland, Kaspar Villager, personally apologized to Dan for his suffering during the war.


Wauwilermoos Swiss Federal Prison. Dan's barracks second from left

This dramatic and heart-rending story only gets worse, but I'm not going to go into detail here. Dan wrote of the experience in a book entitled 'Black Hole of Wauwilermoos', which has never gotten the sales it deserves and which is a tremendous--if highly disturbing--read. Anyone wishing to buy a copy signed by Dan can contact me and I'll see what I can do. I know Dan has copies available.

Dan Culler is one of my heroes. I do not use the term 'hero' lightly. Here is a man who was forgotten by his own government who never stopped loving America . He is an author, an inventor, and a frequent commentator on the state of America. He doesn't so much harp on what is wrong as try to come up with solutions.

Dan receives his Prisoner of War Medal, 1996, accompanied by his wife Betty. Also present, his Distinguished Flying Cross.

Dan Culler, I salute you as a great American.

For more on Wauwilermoos and American internment in Switzerland, check out the Swiss Internee website at http://swissinternees.tripod.com/wauwilermoos.html

More information and reviews on Dan's book can be found on Amazon.com at http://www.amazon.com/Black-Hole-Wauwilermoos-Airmans-Story/dp/188777601X/ref=sr_1_1/102-6987722-7900953?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1183007683&sr=8-1