The Little World

” What! ” you say…” The Swiss Air Force never bought Dornier Do.17Z bombers in WW2! ” you say…

You say right. They never bought any – they were given one by chance. One landed by mistake at Basle – Birsfelden in April 1940 and the four crew members were interned. The plane was repaired, repainted in Swiss markings, and flown by the Swiss.

The crew were sent back to Germany in June ’40 and the plane flown back to Germany in September’40. One can only assume it was some form of political decision after the fall of France, seeing that Switzerland was surrounded by a hostile and armed Axis and may not have appreciated that this might change in a few years time. I’ll bet there was a great deal of shuffling and dancing in Bern as the years went by to try to be somewhere near the winning side without having to actually do anything.

But they have done a great deal of good for me in repainting the insignia sections of that plane. The Swiss insignia until 1945 was a square mitteleuropa thing ( and then became a roundel when the roundel teams won…) and based upon the use of a 25-part division – the white cross occupying 6 squares in 25 – the rest red. An eminently easy thing to draw even with a simple editing program.

I had only one very small illustration so there may be errors, but I have decided to ignore them. As far as I could see the Swiss did not put a unit marking on the plane while they flew it. I’ve added an ” Interniert ” note on the sides of the fuselage where they painted up over the German cross. The illustration shows a black underside rather than the light blue seen in many of the other schemes. I can but follow.

The Frog is surprisingly good for its age. For me it’s a ripper as it was a gift in trade from my friend Paul and will drive the overall dollar/engine ratio of my air museum down considerably. The parts fit well, if a little crudely, and the dark camouflage scheme hides any sins thereof.

And best of all – Paul had another, earlier, Dornier as well.h is will have entirely different engines, nose, and colour scheme. It may also be a captured bird – perhaps an RAF theatre capture in the Western Desert. So more RLM paint.