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S WEDEN A FTER THE FLAK Volume 1,Issue 1 Winter 1999 B ULLTOFTA J UNE 20-21, 1944 By Ingemar Melin After bombing missions over Ger- many, a lot of pilots of damaged and Bulltofta in Malmö, Sweden was, crippled aircraft decided to go to Swe- since the very early twenties, used as a den instead of trying to go back to Eng- commercial airfield. During the war it land. A ditch in the cold water of the also became the home of the Swedish North Sea could be very hazardous. Ex- Air Force Fighter Wing F10. The wing cept for nine fighters (one RAF Mos- was established in 1940 and was based quito and eight P-51s), only B-24s and at Bulltofta until the autumn of 1945 B-17s force landed in the southern part when it moved to Ängelholm, about 80 of Sweden. Two came down in 1943, but miles north of Malmö. As an airforce the main part of them came during the unit in a neutral country during the Some of the many planes that landed on the 20th of spring and summer 1944. war, most of the time was spent by the A total of 131 B-24s and B-17s pilots in patrol duty and in flying recon- The duty as a neutrality guard was not always an easy task for the F10 pi- landed or crashed in Sweden between naissance missions along the coastline July 1943 and May 1945. Of these, of the south part of Sweden in the lots. The unit was operating, during the war years, with the miserable Italian- Bulltofta received 33 B-24s and 29 B- county of Scania. 17s. The culmination was reached on Obviously they were often in con- built fighter plane, Reggiane RE 2000 Falco. These planes were of very poor the 20th and 21st of June 1944 when tact with foreign aircraft from the bel- not less than 25 heavies landed at Bull- ligerent countries. The allied strategic quality. The government and the Air Force Command had, since the late ‘30s, tofta after very large bombing raids bombing campaign over Germany over Germany. The main targets were brought a lot of damaged heavy bomb- been searching for a more modern fighter as a replacement for their dou- German petrochemical plants in Politz ers to neutral countries. A distance of and Ostermoor. Around 300 heavy not more than 250-300 miles between ble winged Gloster Gladiator. A large order for fighters from the bombers dropped 500 tons of bombs, the German coast to Sweden, made the and after the raid 34 planes were miss- Bulltofta airfield in Malmö a good alter- US, the Vultee Vanguard and the P-35 Republic Seversky, was cancelled due to ing. The groups that bombed Politz native. During the hot summer months were very heavily attacked by German of 1944, F10 fighters could often be the American embargo. Discussions were also held with the Germans about forces consisting of Bf 110s, Me 410s seen escorting American heavies over and Ju 88s. Between Rugen and the the flat country of Scania on their way ordering the Messerschmitt 109 without any result. (The Me 109 was probably Danish Island of Bornholm, not less to Bulltofta. than nine B-24s from the 492nd BG In 1943, crews of the first force not a good solution when you remember the situation that would come later; es- were shot down. landed American bombers in Sweden An eyewitness who survived the had destroyed their planes immediately corting American bombers). The only country interested in of- attack reported, "On our mission to after the landing, in some case with the Politz our formation was attacked at fering Sweden fighters was Italy. In help of Molotov-cocktails. This was a 09:15 over the Pommerische Bay by sev- mid 1941, Fighter Wing 10 in Malmö problem for the Swedes because of the eral waves of enemy fighters. In a cou- received their bright new Italian fight- fact that wrecks could occupy the land- ple of minutes a lot of B-24s were seen ers. The fighter also brought with it a ing strips for several days. This was of going down burning. Two of them ex- lot of problems. A lot of the fighters course unacceptable. Therefore an ploded in the air". were always grounded due to technical agreement was made between the Between 09:27 and 10:30, 16 B- American Bomber Command and the problems. The Italian designers had calculated a lifetime of 7.5 flying hours. 24s landed or crashed at the Bulltofta Swedish government in early 1944. It airfield. In the newspaper from the 21st stated that no more force landed air- This was probably acceptable for a front line fighter directly engaged in combat, of June, the following could be read: craft would be destroyed by their crews. "There was literally a queue of but for service in the Swedish Neutral- In exchange, information was given to heavy bombers coming in for landing at ity Guard, it was not acceptable. The the Americans about which airfields Bulltofta yesterday, For several hours Swedish Air Force had expected around would be suitable for force landings. A yesterday morning in Malmö, there was 200 hours. The ground crews did a number of Swedish Air Force Wing air- intense activity in the air.” fields were selected. Bulltofta, in great job keeping as many of these air- craft as possible in the air throughout “A large number of foreign aircraft Malmö, was one of these. invaded Malmö. It all started when the the whole war. Page 2 Volume 1,Issue 1 “There was literally a queue of heavy bombers coming in for landing at Bulltofta yesterday” anti aircraft-artillery was heard firing just before 10 o'clock, and shortly after that a lot of heavy bombers came in over the city. They began circling around waiting to land at the Bulltofta airfield. According to unconfirmed reports not less than 16 Liberators landed there yes- terday……… " "………reports from the hospital said that they had received seven crew mem- bers from the force landed American bombers. One of the men was dead on arrival at the hospital. Two were seri- ously injured, but not gravely. Four were slightly injured. Two Liberators landed safely at Halmstad at around eleven o'clock. One at Helsingborg, and still an- other one crashed at Ljungbyhed. In Sweet Sioux II, #42-95013 (448BG, 713 BG), on the ground in Sweden June 20, 1944 that case the crew had already bailed landings from different directions. An- Group. It had been hit by flak over Ger- out. other problem was that there was no many and lost the two right engines. “With such a great number of Libera- time for towing away damaged aircraft. The navigator was badly wounded and tors and Flying Fortresses force landed Some of them had to make belly land- had lost consciousness. The crew made in Malmö, it’s hard to find an empty spot ings. the decision not to bail out but to stay at Bulltofta. It's not without concern The F 10 personnel were organised with him. Surviving crewmembers told that you think of what's going to happen into different groups in order to take that the pilot and the co-pilot struggled during the next few days if similar inva- care of force landed aircraft and their with the controls to fly the plane to Swe- sion waves, as we've seen today, con- crews. Since the number of aircraft and den. Upon the final approach for tinue." crews greatly exceeded the number of landing, the sudden appearance of a Most of the planes that came in these groups, the organisation soon col- hillock forced the pilots to apply full were in rather good condition, but due to lapsed. In spite of the fact that there throttle to the good engines in an at- hydraulic and brake failures, a couple of were too many American bombers that tempt to clear the hillock. However, full them were not able to keep inside the landed in one day and too few Swedish power on only one side caused the plane airfield borders. Since such heavy air personnel, most of the planes and their to tilt. The right wing hit the ground, activities had never been seen before at crews managed to land safely. and the plane rolled over and ended up Bulltofta, there was soon complete chaos Unfortunately one plane ended up a as a burning wreck, up side down in the at the airfield. The field had no asphalt complete disaster on the 20th June. It middle of the field. or concrete runways, it was only a large was a B-24H "Take it Easy", flown by A group of three men from F 10’s grass field, so the Americans made their 1st Lt Elwyn Shaw from the 93rd Bomb emergency service immediately went to the crash site to try to rescue the crew of 10 men inside the plane. They made a very heroic rescue attempt. This group consisted of Fanjunkare (senior Master Sgt.) G. Jönsson, Flygplansmästare (workshop foreman) B. Boström and Fu- rir (S/Sgt.) J.E. Carlsson. One of Take it Easy’s crewmembers managed to get himself out of the burn- ing wreck and G. Jönsson's group man- aged to get six more men out of the burning inferno. Due to exploding am- munition and oxygen bottles, the group was, unfortunately, not able to reach the last three crewmembers. The rescuing work also engaged fire brigades from both the airfield and from the city of Malmö.

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