Translation of Newspaper article
50 years ago Swiss flak shot "Maiden America" out
of the sky
Wuerenlingen
remembers the shooting of an airplane in 1944
At the memorial built in 1965, Wuerenlingen's residents will
lay a wreath and remember the horror that the village went through on Christmas
day 50 years ago. Then, flak shot down a heavy damaged US-bomber. The B-24
Liberator crashed on a field near Wuerenlingen. Three of the nine crew members
died.
The tragedy began in
Tirol [Austria] 50 years ago on Christmas day just before noon when sirens
warned of an air raid in Innsbruck [Austria]. Bombers of the 15th
USAAF approached from Italy. One of them was hit by flak. With two (of four)
intact engines the crew tried to escape heading west.
Searching for Duebendorf
About half an hour
later antiaircraft guns of the 89th flak detachment of the Swiss
Army, securing the Aare valley, started firing. Their target was an American
bomber: It was "Maiden America", hit by Innsbruck's flak and heavy
damaged, with their nine-man crew trying to land save on neutral ground at the
airfield in Duebendorf.
By aircrews,
Switzerland was known as neutral with a secret sympathy for the Allies,
explained the pilot of the shot down bomber to a journalist of the
"Aargauer Tagblatt" [local newspaper] five years ago. In 1989,
Vincent Fagan traveled to Switzerland with his wife Rose. Then at the memorial,
he put some flowers for his dead comrades. The wild shooting on Christmas day
made them doubt the Swiss neutrality, said Fagan. There was no chance to reach Duebendorf.
"We waited for a
signal of the bomber crew about their friendly intentions and the will to
land", remembers Heinrich Speich. He was the commander of the flak-guns,
located near the village of Baldingen, that shot the Americans. 45 years later the
shot down airmen and the successful flak crew shook hands at the crash site. By
this occasion they also learned why the bomber flying with open bomb bay doors
didn't show any reaction. They weren't either able to fire flares nor to wave
with the wings as a sign for friendly intentions - the condition of the
airplane didn't allow that anymore. It was hardly maneuverable and above all,
the rudders that would have allowed waving, jammed, remembers 1st
Lt. Fagan. After that one engine was ripped off by a flak shell.
Not maneuverable anymore
An eyewitness of the
crash told the "Aargauer Tagblatt" [local newspaper]: "…all of a
sudden, seven bubbles appeared in the sky". Those were the parachutes of
the crew bailing out. Suddenly the engines of the burning plane made a loud
wailing sound. This created the story about the self-sacrificing pilot. Revving
up the engines for a last time, he avoided that the airplane crashed into the
village, it says. Years later the residents of Wuerenlingen showed their gratitude
by building the memorial. According to 1st Lt. Fagan the crippled
airplane wasn't maneuverable anymore. In addition to that, the two killed
comrades wouldn't have been able to fly the airplane at all.
Navigator Martin
Homisteck was 18 years old and Innsbruck was his first mission. On the memorial
stone he is honored as the savior of the village. According to the notes of the
pilot, the crash probably was delayed rather due to the fact, that he shot down
one engine while revving up the other, what made the airplane fly more stable.
The crew could bail out easier that way. Before the pilot bailed out, it was
his co-pilot who left the plane. He drowned in the Aare River what is also
registered in the final report of the Swiss army officials. Sgt. Ralph Coulson,
waist gunner, probably got caught up in the plane with his parachute. The
"savior of Wuerenlingen" probably died in the airplane from flak
shrapnel. The seven survivors were detained, stayed in Adelboden [a village in
the Alps] until February 1945 and returned home before the end of the war.
"Maiden
America" wasn't either the first nor the last US-bomber that crashed in
Switzerland. Between 1943 and the end of the war, about a dozen allied
airplanes were shot down by Swiss flak. Mostly they were in a bad flying
condition and their crews were looking for place to land. Understandably the
allies protested, declaring the shootings as an "unfriendly act".
Also Swiss flak soldiers didn't agree with the shootings. They valued those
actions as support for Hitler-Germany. On March 21, 1944 [Swiss army] Colonel
Werner Mueller expressed his regrets in a letter to the supreme commander of
the Swiss Army.
On the other hand,
the nervous reactions of the Swiss flak was somehow understandable. Anyhow the
Americans had bombed Schaffhausen and Zurich. Only two hours after the shooting
in Wuerenlingen, American airplanes attacked the village of Thayngen
[Switzerland]. The bombing killed one resident, several got hurt and damage was
caused. Probably on the same day an American bomber "lost" a bomb
near the village of Effingen. This bomb was possibly jettisoned due to an
emergency.
Airforce Attache at the commemoration
The memorial where
the residents of Wuerenlingen will lay a wreath next Sunday morning wasn't only
raised for the three dead Americans 29 years ago. It also shall be a warning to
future generations. The US Air Force attache is expected to attend the short
commemoration.
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