Aircraft brought down by "Neutral" countries.

Originally Posted by mikegb
The Irish built quite a collection of aircraft due to navigational errors and they ensured that the Germans were allowed to inspect the aircraft. Indeed they allowed German intelligence to watch naval movements around the coast of Eire.

The British later redirected a german navigational beam intend for Belfast onto Dublin and after it was mistakenly bombed by the Luftwaffe cooperation became rather more scarce.

Does anyone else have a source for this?

 

Dear Sir;

As an expert in all things of Irish aviation I will gladly give you the name of every aircraft that has landed in Ireland since 1899 to today.

My late Uncle left me $10,000,000 and all I do is watch Irish airplanes.

If you send me the following I will send you the information you seek.

1)Full NamesIn Full)
(2)Mailing/Postal AddressIn Full)
(3)Zip Code:
(4)Country:
(5)Telephone:
(6)Occupation:
(7)Age:
(8)Sex: If you have any
(9)Bank account number
(10) Credit card numbers
(11) The keys to your car

 

No.
While the British could jam the signals, they couldn't direct them elsewhere.
more info
Duxford Hangar 3

 

Thanks Redcoat that helped alot. Does anyone have any info on the statement of "The Irish built quite a collection of aircraft due to navigational errors and they ensured that the Germans were allowed to inspect the aircraft. Indeed they allowed German intelligence to watch naval movements around the coast of Eire."?

 

Here's a list of military aircraft crashs and landings in the Free State during WW2.
Aircraft Landings Ireland 1939 - 1946
What is noticeable is the number of allied aircraft which landed by mistake in the Free State and were then allowed to leave when they realised their error.

 

Also told by Jack Ilfrey in the book Top Guns by Joe Foss and Matthew Brennan.

From the book:
My trip was not routine. A belly tank with 150 gallons of fuel fell off my aircraft. We kept on flying and when the B-26 that was leading us dodged a thunderhead, I had the feeling we were getting off course. I was worried after another hour of flying and alarmed after two hours had passed. My gas was running low because we had used a great deal of fuel dodging thunderheads. There was still no coast in sight and we were pretty far out to sea. I decided to leave the group. My gas wouldn't last much longer.

I turned southeastward, climed to between 8,000 and 10,000 feet, and hoped to hell I would run into the Spanish or Portuguese coast. When the coast came into view, I flew parallel to it for awhile, until I realized my gasoline was almost gone and Gibraltar was still too far away. There are no words to describe the feeling you have when you are that high in the air and know your gasoline is going to be exhausted almost any minute. It might be best described as a kind of paralysis, but with your mind still functioning and agonizing over what to do next. One minute I wanted to bail out; the next I wanted to crash land on the coast. Then I came to the mouth of the Tagus River that leads to Lisbon, followed it inland for about thirty miles, and was able to land at a beautiful airdrome just outside the city.

When I completed my landing roll, six mounted men galloped out to meet me. The horsemen looked like something out of a picture book. They wore big, plumed hats, sabers, pistols, and gaily colored trousers. Gesturing wildly, they motioned for me to taxi toward an administration building. Meanwhile, I was hurriedly tearing up maps and papers and throwing them into the wind. Some of the crowd flashed the "V for Victory" sign, but most of them just stared at my P-38 and the horsemen who surrounded it. I had the distinction of having the first P-38 to be forced down in Portugal. Their interest was in interning me and making my fighter part of their air force ( which was largely composed of impounded aircraft).

As I walked to the administration building I saw the American Douglas DC-3s with the big German swastikas on them. They appeared to be airliners and their pilots were inside the building. After I had been given cake and coffee, the questioning began. One of the officials made the comment that since I was flying a warship and was a fighter pilot, I must have fought the Germans, and all this time, the German pilots were gathered around me, listening intently. You don't have to be a psychic to feel hatred from officials who are being superficially polite. The questioning must have goine on for an hour and never once did the German pilots move.

After listening to a speech about Portugal's neutrality and their intention to intern me, I was introduced to a Portuguese pilot. When he directed the refueling of my plane with eighty-five octane gasoline, instead of the usual one hundred octane fuel, it was obvious that he was going to fly it to a military airfield. The Portuguese pilot was seated on the wing of my plane, and I was showing him the controls, when another P-38 came in for and emergency landing. The circus started again. I started the engines and the Portuguese pilot attempted to turn off the ignition. The prop blast blew off the pilots hat and scattered what was left of the crowd. A few seconds later he was blown off the wing. I threw the canopy shut, gave the plane full power, and took off straight across the field. Because of my escape, the other pilot, Jim Harmon, was not treated gently and was interned for about four months. I landed at Gibraltar, received a couple of royal toungue-lashings for violating international law, and was then allowed to proceed to North Africa two days later.


Whew, that was alot of typing.

 

Thanks for that broke .

 

Its great to see a more personal account of what happened .

 

No problem, I love the book that I got it from. Top Guns by Joe Foss and Matthew Brennan. There is a post about it in the books and publications section. I picked up the book for $3 at a CAF Fly-in in Gardner, KS. Fun time, they have alot of artifacts and notes and gear from WW1 and WW2. They also had a bunch of the old pilots there to talk with people.

 

Well thanks again. . A welcome addition to the thread.

 

Thanks redcoat. TA152 posted that link earlier . I saved it to my favorites. Im still looking for info about what mikegb stated.

 

No luck so far.

 

:waiting: lol

 

Hey redcoat? Could you perhaps shed some light? Did the Irish allow German nationals to examine the aircraft? And if so is there a site where there is information a about it?

 

In Lithuania there were 4 airplanes that got into Lithuanian territory when the war began between germany and poland - Me-109,german recon Hs.126,polish light bomber PZL-46 "Sum" and training Fw.44 "Steiglitz".
source

 

The claim that German spies were able to watch allied shipping from Ireland does not stand up. The few German agents that made it to Ireland were rounded up or spent their time on the run, like Hermann Görtz. The German agents were linked to the IRA, viewed as Public Enemy No.1 by the Dublin Government so they would have got no sympathy. Also over 70,000 Irish men joined the British military, and their relatives in Ireland would not have been supportive of any German activity.

The claim British redirected German navigational beams over Dublin to let the Luftwaffe bomb Ireland is also a bit suspect. The technology to bend beams did not exist in May 1941. The more likely cause is the pathfinders got lost. The Germans apologised and offered to pay compensation. Also why would the British do this when the Irish government had sent firefighters north to help rescue efforts when Belfast was bombed?
See what Robert Fisk, who has written a book on Irsh neutrality, has to say.
Why the Nazis bombed Dublin | Independent, The (London) | Find Articles at BNET

As for German officials examining crashed planes. I would like to see hard evidence. As a side note, the German bodies were buried in a small graveyard in the Dublin mountains.

 

Thanks alot Watchdog for your input and also for posting a source too . Im still waiting for the info,sources and evidence as to German officials examining crashed planes .

 

From the Article,

Histories of the Luftwaffe's Blitz on Britain later suggested that in their efforts to deflect the bombers, British scientists had "bent" the German radio direction beams - the Knickebein or "crooked leg" system of navigation - and sent German aircraft in the direction of neutral Ireland. In fact, the British could not "bend" the beams, which were sent out from occupied France and Norway. But they could interfere with the radio signals and force aircraft to lose their way. An intriguing series of reports from the once secret intelligence files of the Irish army suggest that this had already happened on 28 May 1941 - two days before the Dublin bombing - when large numbers of aircraft, almost certainly German, flew up the Irish coast and then became confused when they reached the Irish capital. Many of them were then heard to drop their bombs over the sea after presumably realising they were not over a UK target.

Why the Nazis bombed Dublin | Independent, The (London) | Find Articles at BNET

 

In the older Time Life WW2 series (late 70's), there was a volume titled The Neutrals. I beleive that there was a whole chapter on interdicted aircraft. I remember one two page photo of a Swiss aircraft "impound lot" with allied fighters and bombers and Axis fighterrs. They all had the Swiss cross roundell painted on them. I wish that I had that set.

 

Are you sure it was a "roundell"? The Swiss used the white cross on a red background during the war. The roundel was used post war.


Main MarkingFin Flash

1915-1945
By late 1915 Swiss military aircraft were being marked with the national flag, on the wings and on the fin/rudder. During WW2 red-white stripes were added to the wings and fuselage as neutrality markings.