Shot from the Sky: American POWs in Switzerland

MWSA Review

Here is a book that really surprised me! A historical documented non-fiction that is well- researched and full of personal accounts that makes it an exciting easy read. Not only that, but it reveals and exposes the illusions of Switzerland’s supposed neutral stance in WWII. Cathryn J. Prince, a former reporter for the Christian Science Monitor gives a history of the way Switzerland treated American aviators during WWII and how Switzerland did not live up to their vision of neutrality. The author reveals how the Swiss:  shot down already damaged American planes and injured or killed fliers that were seeking a safe place to land, were tougher on American soldiers than German soldiers, and shot escaping prisoners or sentenced them to horrifying prisons without a trial.

I found the book to be an easy read and one I could not put down. It is well written and the chapters are in a good logical format. What I liked most about the book was the personal stories with names of flyers and names of their aircraft like “”Death Dealer” and “Hell’s Bells” – accounts of their missions, capture and treatment at the hands of supposed “neutral” country.

But beware- the author will dispel many illusions about Switzerland and about some of the most common myths perpetrated about our American flyers held captive in Switzerland. One sad fact that the author brings out about POW’s in Switzerland is that our own government – the VA in charge extending health/benefits and compensation to Veterans still have not recognized many former “internees” as POW’s.

This book will appeal not only to veterans but also to those interested in war time stories. Thank you Cathryn for a great book!        

Reviewed by: Edward Kelly (2013)

Author's Summary

This book is about one of the great, dark secrets of World War II: neutral Switzerland shot down U.S. aircraft entering Swiss airspace and imprisoned the survivors in internment camps, detaining more than one thousand American flyers between 1943 and the war’s end. While conditions at the camps were adequate and humane for internees who obeyed their captors’ orders, the experience was very different for those who attempted to escape. They were held in special penitentiary camps in conditions as bad as those in some prisoner-of-war camps in Nazi Germany. Ironically, the Geneva Accords at the time did not apply to prisoners held in neutral countries, so better treatment could not be demanded. When the war ended in Europe, sixty-one Americans lay buried in a small village cemetery near Bern.

Details of this little-known episode are brought to light for the first time by Cathryn Prince, who tells what happened and examines the argument that the Swiss used to justify their policy. She shows that while the Swiss claimed it satisfied international law, they applied the law in a grossly unfair manner. No German airmen were interned, and Nazi aircraft were allowed to land unharmed at Swiss airfields to refuel. The author draws on first-person accounts and unpublished sources, including interviews with eyewitnesses and surviving American prisoners, and documents held by the Swiss government and the U.S. Air Force. Although these events have been briefly alluded to in other books, this work is the first to present the story in full. 272 pages. 23 photographs. Appendixes. Notes. Bibliography