Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress foreign aircraft landing on Swiss territory and 56 aircraft crashing there. In October 1943 the Swiss interned Boeing B-17F-25-VE, tail number 25841, and its U.S. flight crew after the Flying Fortress developed engine trouble after a raid over Germany and was forced to land. The aircraft was turned over to the Swiss Air Force, who then flew the bomber until the end of the war, using other interned but non-airworthy B-17s for spare parts. The bomber was repainted a dark olive drab, but retained its light gray-painted under surfaces. It carried Swiss national white cross insignia in red squares on
RAF Bomber Command aircrew of World War II and listed 2,198 airmen. A number of evading aircrew were captured due to the duplicity of French collaborators who betrayed them to the Gestapo. Air Commodore Ronald Ivelaw-Chapman a staff officer at No. 1 Group RAF was the highest-ranking officer of RAF Bomber Command to be taken prisoner in World War II while flying operationally, he was flying as second pilot aboard an Avro Lancaster of No. 576 Squadron RAF on the night 6–7 May 1944. The German Luftwaffe had responsibility for Allied aircrew taken prisoner in North West Europe and it is on record in numerous biographies that the